Merry Christmas to All

Dec 24, 2020 | Blog, Christopher J Music

Originally published 24-Dec-18

Merry Christmas everyone.  I hope you all have a good, safe and blessed holiday.  I wrote the song, “Mary’s Gift” in honor of the gift of Jesus that Mary gave to the world through her faith and trust in God.  You may Listen on Spotify or buy it from my store.

Mary's Gift CD Cover Artwork

Mary had these words to say as recorded in The Canticle of Mary, the Magnificat, from Luke 1:46-55:

My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid;
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is His name;
And His mercy is from generation to generation
on those who fear Him.
He has shown might with His arm,
He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He has sent away empty.
He has given help to Israel, his servant, mindful of His mercy
Even as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever.

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Orchestral Release of Mary’s Gift

Feb 14, 2020 | Blog, Christopher J Music, Sheet Music

Hey guys. It’s Chris.

It’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been kind of busy running my full time, non-music, day-job business. I was also busy this past year doing something new: Composing and arranging a piece for full orchestra:  The orchestral release of Mary’s Gift Symphony

The project kicked off over a year ago.

I Decided to write a piece for full orchestra inspired by my song Mary’s Gift, which is a song about the miracle of the first Christmas.

I sketched out the structure and wrote the initial harmonic arrangement on the plane while flying to Europe and back and fleshed it out over several months afterwards.

Mary’s Gift begins with a timpani roll and cymbal crash symbolic of the arrival and appearance of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary. But after this angelic entrance heralded by the timpani, the violins come in pianississimo and crescendo followed by a solo flute as Gabriel speaks gently to the virgin Mary.

Then the entire violin section plays and begins telling the story of the Holy Family and the Nativity. As the music continues the telling of the story rotates among each section of the orchestra.

Live Performance

To my delight and honor, Mary’s Gift was played live this past December by the Evergreen Community Orchestra!

Since then, I have been able to publish the conductor’s score and instrument parts with Sheet Music Plus. So….If you are interested in having an orchestra that you are involved with play Mary’s Gift, you may purchase the complete package over there at Sheet Music Plus. There is an MP3 plus a video of the music playing as it scrolls through the score.

Next, I will play for you a synthesized version of Mary’s Gift for orchestra. You can also catch this on Spotify, Apple Music and other digital music distributors.

Links to all of these places are in the show notes below.

Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you next time!

Show Note Links:

Sheet Music Plus: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/mary-s-gift-for-symphony-orchestra-full-score-and-parts-digital-sheet-music/21670018

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4sRa17dh7Zzq522rUUECmd?si=YWaiEhBITHGzL-vQEczO7g

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/marys-gift-symphony-single/1497937578

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ECO Holiday Christmas Concerts – Carols and Classics

ECO Holiday Christmas Concerts – Carols and Classics

Dec 5, 2019 | Blog, Christopher J Music

Evergreen Community Orchestra has three holiday Christmas concerts, Carols and Classics, on the docket the next two weeks, beginning this Saturday. I will be playing bass for the most part, but also get to do a little guitar debut along with the string section playing Away in a Manger.

Mary’s Gift

In addition, this has been a well kept secret up to now, I have been working on and finished an orchestral arrangement of my song, “Mary’s Gift”, and it’s “world premiere” will be on Sunday, December 15th with the Evergreen Community Orchestra playing my composition! After the concert performance I will be working on publishing the score and instrument parts and making them available for purchase on this site.

Mary's Gift by Christoher-J.net.jpeg

When and Where

So….If you are in the Seattle area, come on out to one of these shows. It’s all free! There are three concerts to choose from:

Saturday, December 7th, 2:00 pm
Wintergreen Tree Farm (with Tim Noah!)
13606 S Machias Rd, Snohomish, WA 98290

Saturday, December 7th, 5:00 pm
City of Lake Stevens Christmas Tree Lighting
https://www.lakestevenswa.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=331

Sunday December 15th, 3:30 pm (Mary’s Gift performance on this date only)
Everett First Presbyterian Church

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Here’s your Music Player for Mary’s Gift

Jun 22, 2017 | Blog, Christopher J Music

I am continuing to work on tracks for the Christmas holiday album this fall.  This was the latest release.  Another single will be coming in a few weeks to add to the list.  The next one will be a fun song based on a true story from my childhood!  It is titled, “Trailer Park Santa”!  Ho, ho, ho.

 

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Ringtone for Mary’s Gift

Jun 19, 2017 | Blog, Christopher J Music

I have created an iPhone compatible ringtone for Mary’s Gift. The mp3 version is attached to this post. If you want the .m4r format, you can go to my music store page to download a copy. If you are not sure how to install or use a ringtone, see this page!

In addition, the music store includes the following formats of Mary’s Gift:

A video that goes with the song is on YouTube.

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