Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.
— Psalm 119:54
The August 2020 issue of “Lifted Voice” is the 50th installment of this online column on sacred music. Almost every one of these issues has been edited by Dr. Jane Schatkin Hettrick, Professor Emeritus in Music at Rider University, and best known to many of us as Director of Parish Music at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Bayside, NY.
As an editor, Jane’s fluency in German, mastery of Latin, and encyclopedic knowledge of sacred music is nothing short of astonishing. She has been on the receiving end of numerous questions from me since we first starting collaborating on various parish projects in 2002, usually beginning with a request for suggestions for the most significant settings of any given sacred text, and ending with a perusal of the publishable manuscript of this column. Her attention to detail—grammatical, musical, historical, and even theological—is second to none, to the point that I am tempted to light a votive candle for any error that lurks beneath her red pen! This column is as much hers as it is mine, and for that I am grateful.
As a church musician, her willingness to volunteer her time for the lively promulgation and understanding of sacred music is deeply appreciated. Church musicians are among the most overworked and underpaid laborers on the planet, and yet she willingly plans, rehearses, and leads the pilgrims’ songs in God’s house, as she has done for over 50 years. She is one of few church musicians whom I honestly say never puts any music in the folio that is not worth singing, operates firmly within the church year (the historic one-year lectionary, in this case), and finds theological connections between the appointed propers of the day and our treasury of sacred music that would be lost on most clergy and church musicians, including yours truly.
As you watch the video of J. S. Bach’s Chorale Prelude on “Now thank we all our God” (indicative of the quality that Jane delivers every Sunday), I hope that you will join me in giving thanks for Dr. Hettrick’s countless gifts of love, just one of God’s countless gifts of grace.
As a church musician, her willingness to volunteer her time for the lively promulgation and understanding of sacred music is deeply appreciated. Church musicians are among the most overworked and underpaid laborers on the planet, and yet she willingly plans, rehearses, and leads the pilgrims’ songs in God’s house, as she has done for over 50 years. She is one of few church musicians whom I honestly say never puts any music in the folio that is not worth singing, operates firmly within the church year (the historic one-year lectionary, in this case), and finds theological connections between the appointed propers of the day and our treasury of sacred music that would be lost on most clergy and church musicians, including yours truly.
As you watch the video of J. S. Bach’s Chorale Prelude on “Now thank we all our God” (indicative of the quality that Jane delivers every Sunday), I hope that you will join me in giving thanks for Dr. Hettrick’s countless gifts of love, just one of God’s countless gifts of grace.
| Now thank we all our God / With hearts and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, In whom His world rejoices; Who from our mothers' arms / Has blest us on our way With countless gifts of love / And still is ours today. |
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