Andrew Kotylo, director of music at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill, will lead the parish’s Adult Choir in a performance of Dominick DiOrio’s “Our Wildest Imagining” as part of the 10 a.m. combined service this Sunday, Oct. 19. The work was composed to honor retired Bishop Gene Robinson and uses, as its text, words from the trailblazing cleric’s sermons, quotes from his other writings, and selections from Psalm 27.

Robinson was the first consecrated bishop in the Episcopal Church (USA) to be openly gay. He was elected diocesan Bishop of New Hampshire in 2004. That groundbreaking event came three decades after the 1974 ordination of the denomination’s first female priests during services at the Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia. Robinson is now a bishop emeritus of New Hampshire.

Kotylo described “Our Wildest Imagining” as lasting approximately eight minutes. “It’s flexibly scored for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, accompanied by organ. There’s an arrangement that includes a brass choir,” Kotylo added, “but we’re singing the version accompanied only by the organ. Its musical rhythms follow the natural rhythms of the text, which is taken from several of Gene’s writings and sermons, plus Psalm 27.”

The Rev. Eric P. Hungerford, the rector of St. Paul’s Church, said, “A little bit of personal reflection for me. Gene Robinson’s election and consecration as Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire happened when I was in my early twenties and I had just begun discernment for the priesthood at my parish in Austin, Texas. My best friend, Sarah, came out when we were 13 years old and her journey was deeply influential for me.

“By the time I was in college, I had many friends in the LGBT community and Bishop’s Gene’s witness – being a loving, openly gay Christian leader was, to me, a sacramental sign that I was dedicating my life to a tradition within the Christian faith that could wholly embrace the people I loved. It was an affirmation that if I pursued my calling from God, I would be able to do so within the institution of The Episcopal Church, who saw my friends as who they were: beautiful Christian children of God, made in God’s image, who could serve God and God’s people being who they were created to be with integrity.”

St. Paul’s Church is one of several Episcopal institutions that worked together to commission “Our Wildest Imagining.” Others include Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul in Washington D.C., the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco.

Composer DiOrio is the artistic director of the Mendelssohn Chorus, which annually presents its Christmas program at St. Paul’s Church. “A Feast of Carols” is set for Saturday, December 13, at 2 and 5 p.m. The Mendelssohn Chorus will also honor its recently deceased former artistic director and conductor laureate, Alan Harler, with a special event, “A Celebration of Life for Alan Harler” Sunday, April 12, 2026, at 4 p.m., also at St. Paul’s Church.

For more information about Mendelssohn Chorus’ 2025-26 season visit mcchorus.org.

Foursome of great concerts

The first weekend of October offered me the opportunity to take in four fabulous concerts that opened the new season of four of the region’s most prominent providers of great music.

The weekend’s foursome got underway Saturday afternoon, Oct. 4, with Choral Arts Philadelphia performing a pair of requiem Masses in the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square. It continued that evening with the Academy of Vocal Arts’ “Giargiari Bel Canto Competition.”

Early Sunday afternoon, the Philadelphia Orchestra offered a program featuring music by Adams, Bartók, and Prokofiev. The Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Savior in West Philadelphia rounded out the weekend with its first Choral Evensong of the season, which was sung by the choir of the Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Chestnut Hill.

In an interesting twist of local “organ politics,” the instruments at both Holy Trinity and the Episcopal Cathedral have been restored via the addition of pipes taken from other organs in the region to replace whole ranks of the originals that had deteriorated. Holy Trinity’s gallery organ was taken virtually “lock, stock and barrel” from First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, a classic Moller instrument of transcendent beauty. Many of the newly-installed pipes of the Cathedral’s organ are also products of the Maryland-based firm of Moller, perhaps the most revered maker of instruments that offer a beautifully well-rounded tone that many of us still love in spite of the “quacking, gaggle of geese orthodoxy” of “baroque historicity.”

Cathedral organist Erik Meyer, former director of music at St. Martin’s Church, made splendid use of the instrument’s glowing tonal beauty and the acoustical resonance of the Cathedral’s nave. St. Martin’s current music director, Tyrone Whiting, led his choir in moving renditions of works by Meyer, Parker Kitterman (music director of Old Christ Episcopal Church in Old City), C.V. Stanford, and John Ireland.

Chestnut Hill’s Donald Meineke conducted Choral Arts Philadelphia’s first concert of the season with fine readings of Tomás Luis de Victoria’s “Requiem Mass: Officium Defunctorum,” Robert Lucas Pearsall’s “Lay a Garland,” and Herbert Howells’ “Requiem Mass.” Although the Victoria was unquestionably the afternoon’s finest score, and the Howells its most “modern,” the Pearsall was the program’s slightest yet most powerfully performed work.

Principal guest conductor Marin Alsop led the Philadelphians in the commissioned world premiere of John Adams’ “The Rock You Stand On,” Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Van Cliburn Competition winner Yunchan Lim as soloist, and selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s masterpiece, “Romeo and Juliet.” Although a very slight 21-year-old, Lam’s interpretation of Bartók’s lyrical Third Concerto was both compelling and beautiful. The Adams is a slick yet beguiling short work of glistening timbers, and Alsop led a scintillating performance.

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net.