A Celebration of the Rich and Haunting Music of the Scandinavian Peoples
Nordic Contemplative
Evening Prayer
Fourth Sunday
of the month, 6:51 pm
September through April
Roads Everywhere & Signs in our Hearts: 2011-2012 Schedule
Sept. 25 -- Pausing at the Threshold
Guest: Rocky Mjos on lute and guitar
October 23 -- The Eternal Now
Guests: Kaivama (Finnish-American folk)
November 27 -- Will Not Day Come Soon!
Guests: McNally Smith World Vocal Ensemble
January 23-- We Begin Again, We Don't Give Up
Guests: To be announced
February 26 -- Bidden or Unbidden
Guests: To be announced
March 25 -- If You Go Out Far Enough
Guests: Twin Cities Hardingfelelag
April 22 -- Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth
Guests: To be announced
Evening Prayer
liturgy has been the usual prayer of people since the days
of the early Christian church. This liturgy, along with
Morning Prayer, attunes us to the holiness of time. We
participate in these daily rhythms, praising God for the
sun’s rising and a new day, thanking God for all the day has
brought at day’s end. We gather to celebrate the sacred
mysteries of our lives in the context of the mystery
of God. Nordic Contemplative Evening Prayer at Pilgrim bends
the liturgical components of Evening Prayer, keeping the
general structure and intent in-tact.
In the same way that the Celtic contemplative service,
developed at Pilgrim, seems indigenous to our neighborhood
and city, so also is this Nordic service. Nordic roots, of
course, run deep in the Twin Cities, this state, and the
whole upper Midwest region.
Peggy Larson: Peggy is a jazz singer, voice teacher and choral
conductor. She lived in the Netherlands for 25 years, where
she was active in jazz and world music, both teaching and
performing. Here, she is active as a choral director,
leading the PAUMC
Sanctuary Choir, and this year beginning projects with World Music Performances (Earthtones projects). Each project lasts about 3 months and has a different theme. She is a voice professor at the McNally-Smith College of Music in St. Paul, and also maintains a private
practice. In 2008, Peggy received her Master's Degree in Ethnomusicology. For her thesis she studied the vocal technique of herding calls from Norway (kulokk). In 2007 she traveled to Norway and interviewed several farmers, singers and archivists to gather kulokk repertoire and information. For the last several years she has been giving lecure/concerts in kulokk around Minnesota.
Rachel Jensen: Rachel, a Twin Cities native, has been playing the classical violin since age four. In 1988 her family acquired a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle during a trip to Norway. A few years later, Rachel began playing the Hardanger fiddle and is now an active member of the Twin Cities Hardingfelelag (group). The Twin Cities Hardingfelelag practices and performs traditional Norwegian folk music for a variety of audiences. They studied under master fiddler Olav Hegge from Valdres, Norway. In the fall of 2004, Rachel won a scholarship to study the Hardanger fiddle at the Ole Bull Academy in Voss, Norway. In June 2006, the group made its first trip to Beitostølen, Norway to participate in the annual Landskappleik, a competition in dance and Hardanger fiddle. Rachel also plays in the Minneapolis Civic Orchestra and regularly freelances on both the classical violin and the Hardanger fiddle. After graduating from the Carlson School of Business with a major in marketing, Rachel is currently employed by a local auto rental and leasing agency. Rachel enjoys a variety of music, including bluegrass, Scandinavian, and Appalachian. Rachel appeared recently, as a musician, in the Guthrie's production of Peer Gynt.
Laura Jameson (Cantor): Laura is in eighth grade at Great River School. She likes to bike, read, and tell jokes.
Hannah Sween (Cantor): Hannah is a 5th grader at Stonebridge Elementary in Stillwater. She is a novice-level competitive Irish dancer with O'Shea Irish Dance, and studies and performs ballet with St. Paul City Ballet, and jazz and tap with Allesso's Dance Spectrum. Hannah also plays piano, loves to sing, and wants to be a TV meterologist.
Carol Tomer: Carol came to Pilgrim in 1999, after serving as a pastor in far-flung places including the Cascade mountains in the upper left hand corner of the U.S., Seattle, Pennsylvania, and Stockholm, Sweden. Growing out of that Swedish experience and her own Norwegian roots, she delights in lifting up Nordic gifts, such as the lysglobe, and the uniquely haunting melancholy of Nordic music, as well as creating new texts for the beautiful folk tunes that haven’t yet found their way across the ocean into our North American worship scene. She has researched Nordic liturgy and music, worshipped in Norwegian churches, and hiked some of the restored medieval pilgrimage route to Nidaros, the cathedral in Trondheim. (In fact, the symbol on this bulletin cover is the Pilgrim’s Way marker, that is found on the various pilgrimage paths that lead to Nidaros.) Some of her interests in liturgical outreach began while she served as pastor of Holden Village, a retreat center in those northwest mountains, known for being a creative worship “laboratory” committed to daily community worship. (She returned there this past summer to serve on teaching staff, as "village philosopher.") At Holden, she was able to bring her concern for those who live prophetically, yet with some sense of exile, at the edge of the Christian tradition, a concern that was nurtured in part during study at Harvard Divinity School. She has also been the co-creator of the Celtic contemplative communion service, that is offered monthly at Pilgrim.
Bonnie Nash: Bonnie is a member of Pilgrim and an ELCA pastor. Raised on a farm in southeastern Minnesota, Bonnie has always felt the sacred presence of God in nature; consequently, Bonnie has a strong interest in Celtic theology. This interest led her to pilgrimages to Ireland, Iona, and England. In England she was able to study privately with Dr. Esther de Waal, Celtic/Benedictine theologian and author at her cottage. Bonnie has also taken pilgrimages to the Sinai Desert on camel and most recently hiked the Camino de Santiago trail in Galicia Spain. Before going to Wartburg Seminary, Bonnie was an English teacher and taught English in Sierra Leone, West Africa with the Peace Corp, Hong Kong with Lutheran global missions, and Holden Village. Bonnie has done pastoral care leadership in the parish. Her expertise in loss and grief has expanded her ministry to funeral home, nursing home and hospital settings. She is a board certified chaplain with the Association of Professional Chaplains and is presently service as a Hospice chaplain in the Twin Cities.
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