At churches like St. James in Louisville, Ky., services this Christmas will not have in-person choirs or orchestras. But music directors are finding ways to persevere.
In a normal year, Phil Hines takes a deep breath, lays his hands on the keys of the 135-year-old pipe organ and begins to play. The first notes of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” ring forth from some of the organ’s 2,200-plus pipes, creating a soaring herald that welcomes worshipers to St. James Catholic Church in Louisville, Ky., on Christmas Eve. For the church’s music season this is the liturgical Super Bowl, an event planned months and months in advance. The voices of 36 choristers mix with the organ, a trumpet, a baritone horn, a violin, cymbals and the thundering timpani, as 400 congregants, packed cheek by jowl, join in. Some arrive an hour early to get a seat. This December, at St. James and churches around the country where the joy of Christmas is channeled through music, the celebration is, of course, different. Given the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 300,000 people in the country, all that Mr. Hines, the church’s 63-year-old music director, can think about is how dangerous the night he looks forward to all year has become. A soprano’s solo may now carry not just glad tidings. The coughs of parishioners that once merely punctuated the music could be a public health hazard. But there was no way Mr. Hines, who has weathered a soloist with laryngitis and an ice storm that stranded choristers, was calling off Christmas. “I’ll bring the message of Christ’s birth to people however I can,” he said. So this year, Mr. Hines has fashioned his “quarantine quartets” — groups of four who will sing at St. James’s Christmas Eve and Day services, accompanied by a violinist and percussionist, masked and socially distanced in the choir loft above the sanctuary. His flutist and his trumpeter of 32 years, a former principal in the Louisville Orchestra, will watch from home. “And I don’t blame them,” Mr. Hines said. “But it meant I had to put on my thinking cap.” This is the mission music directors across the country are facing this Christmas. If the normal year presents the challenge of deciding between “Joy to the World” and the Hallelujah chorus, this season the question is how to celebrate the birth of Christ without creating a potential superspreader event.
