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- A Note of Thanks or Two (starlitechorale.org)
- We’re baaaaaack! (starlitechorale.org)
- O Magnum Mysterium (netnewmusic.net)
Print the Color Flyer — Our Christmas 2011 Performances!
November 20th, 2011This is the color flyer of our upcoming public performances this Christmas season. Print that flyer, you will find that it is a very good-looking color PDF that would look great on the wall of your home or office, as well as being a handy reminder of what a great way our Christmas shows are to start off (or complete) your Christmas season with joyful singing and fun!
Click here to view our Christmas flier:
View and Print “Christmas Treasures” Flier
A goose seen near a shop selling foie gras at the Paris Agricultural Salon Copyright © 2004 David Monniaux
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat,
please to put a penny in the old man’s hat.
If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do,
if you haven’t got a ha’penny, then God bless you!
Mark Your Calendars, Folks
October 8th, 2011
Image by JOE MARINARO via Flickr
“Where can I go to hear
the Starlite Chorale
this Christmas season??”
(click this link for an attractive and printable color flyer in PDF format!)
If you have asked yourself this question, here are dates, places and times of our big Christmas shows this season. We hope you’ll find at least one of them convenient and timely. (I’m not ruling out people going to more than one performance… 
)
Sunday, November 27th, 2011, Jersey Shore Arts Center
Main St. and Main Ave., Ocean Grove, NJ 07756
4:30 PM
Our big Christmas concert benefiting the Asbury Park Rotary(I know it’s early, but hey, less chance of snow, right?
)
See you there!
After the show, as is our immemorial custom, about a dozen of us wound up at the Windsor Diner for a late dinner. It felt like Thanksgiving dinner for our musical family.
Main St. and Main Ave., Ocean Grove, NJ 07756
4:30 PM
Our big Christmas concert benefiting the Asbury Park Rotary(I know it’s early, but hey, less chance of snow, right?
)
Sunday, December 11, 2011, Centenary UMC
200 Hillside Avenue Metuchen, NJ 08840 4:30 PM
Another big performance for our wonderful new hosting Church.
Sunday, January 8, 2012, – St. Matthew’s RC Church, Edison
81 Seymour Ave., Edison, NJ 08817
4:30 PM
81 Seymour Ave., Edison, NJ 08817
4:30 PM
This show is on Epiphany, the very last day of the 12 Days Of Christmas! Join us as we bid a fond farewell to Christmas, 2011, and wish our audience a bright, prosperous and blessed New Year.
See you there!
Related articles
Meditation on “O magnum mysterium”
September 20th, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
O Magnum Mysterium is an ancient text used in the Matins service of Christmas. The Starlite Chorale performed it several years ago, using the setting by Tomas Luis da Victoria (1549–1611). After hearing it many times, the following are the images I imagined while singing it…(Mouse over the Latin text to read a translation.)
Meditation
As the silent stars go by, one outshines her sisters, her light reaching out, as if to touch the blue world beneath. Steadily, as we descend, airless silence is replaced by the faint keening of the wind. The mountains of Ararat are unforgivingly cold tonight, and the vistas are harsh and stony everywhere. They promise no comfort, and give even less than that.
The wind carries distant music, music as high as this peak and as thin as the air.
Music draws us inexorably down the mountain, faster and faster, until we pass over a city on a wooded plateau. But the music doesn’t come from the city; it leads us across the miles to a town, a simple town, dark and quiet.
We see a stable. Inside are the animals in their places. 
We join with the cow and the ox, the ass and the horse, and watch a wondrous mystery unfold — and not a blessed one of us can comprehend it at all.
A woman holding something in her arms slowly kneels before a manger. Her bundle is an infant, comfortably wrapped in swaddling clothes. She holds the child in her arms and croons her wordless tune for just a moment more, then kisses him upon his forehead lays him down on the sweet hay in the animals’ manger. She rises and turns. Now we see her. Perfectly beautiful, perfectly youthful, she is filled with a love and a grace no man — not even Adam — had ever seen.
She gazes out of the stable, out over the sleeping child. This is not the source of the music, and it draws us on, and with it we fly swiftly to shepherds hearing and seeing
impossibly bright-winged uncountable angels singing to the music of the spheres and dancing in the air for joy.
They circle and traverse the sky above faster than the lightning –
faster than the light
and in joy ourselves, we are caught up with them in the clouds as they dance.
The shepherds are coming to the stable, bearing this memory, eagerly praying, singing, and rejoicing that they have seen what no man had ever seen before, and ready to find what the angel told them to seek. The mother shows the child to them now,
and they see his face –
and his eyes holding the deep secrets of creation.
Hearts strangely warmed,
the shepherds kneel around him and sing their own
Related articles
A Note of Thanks or Two
September 20th, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
The Starlite Chorale has a widely distributed membership, in an array of towns that goes from Emerson, NJ in the north down to Monroe Township, NJ in the south. In a way, we owe our continuing existence to the Garden State Parkway! With such a membership, choice of a rehearsal site is crucial, can’t be too far from highways, and must be wheelchair accessible. Such a place exists at Centenary United Methodist Church in Metuchen, NJ. On behalf of the Starlite Chorale, I would like to thank the pastor of this church, Rev. Anna Thomas, as well as its fine people for inviting us to make it our rehearsal home.
I would also like to thank St. Matthew the Apostle RC Church in Edison for having hosted our rehearsals for the past three years. Needs of the church and the school, however had to take precedence, and they couldn’t continue hosting our rehearsals. But not to worry, we will be there once again performing our traditional Christmas show on Epiphany, January 8, 2012. We are happy that we have a continuing relationship with this kindly and generous church.
And speaking of kindness and generosity, here are more than a few musical notes of thanks, courtesy of Natalie Merchant. It is a video full of happiness and gratitude. They are good things to see, these sometimes elusive blessings.
We’re baaaaaack!
September 15th, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
We are preparing our 2011 Christmas show, “Christmas Treasures”, a trove of our favorite music from 15 seasons as The Starlite Chorale. It will be our traditional sort of Christmas show, which is unlike any other you are likely to see!
Our first half is full of the songs that celebrate the birth of Jesus – spirituals like “Mary Had a Baby” and “Oh, What a Wonderful Child”, serious works like Franz Biebl’s “Ave Maria” (sung by the Chorale) and “O Holy Night”, sung by Barbara (as it should be!)
Our second half begins with the songs of Yuletide and Winter, like “Deck the Halls” and “Winter Wonderland”. Then we will joined by Central New Jersey’s only nonhuman choir as we sing “Christmas Is Coming”! Vin will sing Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song”, and Sir David will share his heartfelt and moving rendition of “White Christmas”, and later preside over the sing-along portion of our show. And we will invite everyone to join us in singing and dancing that grandest of all carol-dances, “Lord of the Dance”!
Please stay tuned to this blog for updates on our performances coming up this Christmas season. We of the Starlite Chorale have the privilege to anticipate and celebrate Christmas from the middle of September all the way through to the middle of January. We hope that you will come so that We can best wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a blessed, prosperous and happy New Year!
“Sing We Joyous, All Together!” is the Name of Our Show…
November 19th, 2010Our first show of the Christmas 2010 season will take place at Neshanic United Methodist Church , which is at 301 Maple Ave, Neshanic Station, NJ 08853 . We will be attending Neshanic’s Community Christmas Concert on Friday, December 3, 2010 (see below for a full description of the festivities!). It starts at 7:45 p.m. with the lighting of the community tree, followed by our 2010 Christmas show. We will come in rejoicing with “Deck the Halls“, a song that is itself almost as old as an “ancient Yuletide carol”. We will not skimp on the holiday fun, nor on the joy at the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the reason for the season. Come to listen, come to sing along and perhaps, even dance! Join us and the gracious congregation of Neshanic UMC to start your Christmas season in a big way — which is how we do Christmas at the Starlite Chorale!
Third Annual Community Christmas Concert
Friday, December 3, 2010 7:45 p.m.
Lighting of the Community Christmas Tree 7:45 p.m.
Concert at 8:00
Featuring The Starlite Chorale
Directed by Pastor Tony Godlefski
Please take time out of your busy schedule to celebrate with us the blessed Savior’s birth!
Free will offering and canned goods donations to benefit our Sunday school holiday food basket mission
Refreshments following the program
Also please join us for our time-honored traditions:
Sunday, December 5, 7 p.m.: Lessons & Carols at Mount Zion UMC
Friday, December 24, 7:30 p.m.: Christmas Eve at Neshanic UMC
December 24, 10 p.m. Christmas Eve at Mount Zion
For More Info: http://www.Neshanic.org/
Happy Birthday to Us!
October 6th, 2010Then, it was 1995.
On the crisp autumn evening of October 5, 1995, at a table in the Rustic Mill Diner in Cranford [NJ], Tony Godlefski and a small group of talented, dedicated friends decided to establish a new singing group…with the ideal of bringing bright, lively music to its audiences…
Read the rest…
Now, it is 2010.
The Starlite Chorale, caught paying attention to our director, Dr. Tony Godlefski
The Starlite Chorale is 15 years old! Our mission was then, and is now, to sing and bring fun, lightness and joy to audiences around New Jersey, especially to people who can’t get out much. One such place is Cranford Senior Housing, Cranford, NJ. We were there to help them celebrate the opening of their brand-new recreation center, a big room with excellent acoustics.
It is named after Adele Gilman, the current director of Cranford Senior Housing, who has invited the Starlite Chorale to perform year after year.
It was an excellent show — everyone seemed in great voice, we were all happy to see each other after an extra-long hiatus, and the sound we made together was beautiful even to us.
The indispensable yet little-perceived performers who give us the power to shine!
After the show, as is our immemorial custom, about a dozen of us wound up at the Windsor Diner for a late dinner. It felt like Thanksgiving dinner for our musical family.
We celebrate the coming of spring with songs of the Great American Songbook, and it makes the cold end of winter feel like spring. For the coming of Christmas and winter, we mark the celebration of the birth of Christ, and it feels like Christmas all the way from September to December.. (I happily practice my Christmas music on Halloween. I am sure it creates just a little incongruity and weirdness for the trick-or-treaters).
It is a great blessing to me to be a member of this group, and everyone from the director on down agrees with me on this. We, the Starlite Chorale are like a family with no borders, bound together with love of music. I hope that my entries here will help bring you, visitor to this blog, to come to a show. You will feel like part of the family, because, my friend, that is what you will be.
A New Era Dawns
February 27th, 2010The Starlite Chorale. Blogging. Whoa.
Dance, dance, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be, for
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he!
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Vin