St. John’s Cathedral, Taipei 60th Anniversary Thanksgiving Concert!

A whole year of 60th anniversary celebrations at St. John’s Cathedral, Taipei was brought to a very fine and very fitting end yesterday afternoon ~ with a special thanksgiving concert, with choirs and music groups from Good Shepherd Church, St. James’ Church, Christ Church, and of course St. John’s Cathedral.

There was St. John’s Cathedral Choir….

Good Shepherd Choir….

St. James’ Church Choir…..

And Christ Church….

We had short 3-minute speeches (well, 3 minutes was the allocated time, which caused much laughter – as some definitely went on just a bit longer!) from former deans and clergy in charge of the cathedral, Rev. Michael Liu, Rev. Samuel Lin, Rev. Elizabeth Wei and last of all, Bishop David J. H. Lai. VIPs were all sitting in the 2 front rows ~ this was the front right row, with Rev. Samuel Lin in the foreground, then senior warden Mrs. Marjorie Kuo and her husband, Mr. Winston Yu, then Rev. Elizabeth Wei and her husband Rev. Peter Chen, and Dr. Huang!

Visitors came from all over, including a special group from the Gideons, here they are with our new dean, Very Rev. Philip Lin and his wife, Linda.

All the choirs and musicians had put in hours and hours of practice, and in the case of St. James’ Church, hours of travel too – despite leaving at 8:00 am, with 2+ hours of travel, 2+ hours of rehearsing – all wonderfully conducted by Rev. Lily Chang, and still they were so awake and full of energy!

All the choirs and groups deserve medals for producing the most beautiful music and for singing and playing so happily! Some do deserve an extra-special mention ~ the fastest non-stop action group was the St. John’s Cathedral Praise Dance Team, the most innovative were the St. John’s Cathedral Sunday School who had a yo-yo performance from Daniel in the middle of their song, the coolest were Good Shepherd Choir in their jeans and white shirts, the most inclusive age-wise were Christ Church, whose ages ranged from about 5 to adult, the ‘wow, stop-in-your-tracks-must-listen-to’ group were the men’s section of the cathedral choir singing the opening lines of ‘What a Wonderful World’, the most versatile must be the orchestra group who stepped up and down onto the stage several times – and always got it right, and of course Joanna, the lovely cathedral organist who played solos and accompanied groups and choirs all afternoon, running back and forth from organ to piano – she and the cathedral choir conductor were amazing – here they are, the 2 of them looking so calm and relaxed as always!

The final song was ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’, a most appropriate way to end the concert, and to prepare for Advent, starting today. This was performed by the collective choirs of St. John’s Cathedral, Good Shepherd Church, Christ Church and St. James, and accompanied by the cathedral orchestra group. Beautiful!

A great afternoon, thank you St. John’s Cathedral, and congratulations on a year-long celebration of your 60th anniversary!

And finally a photo of the smiling St. John’s Cathedral Choir with their new dean, Rev. Philip Lin, standing next to former dean, Rev. Samuel Lin, and including former rector, Rev. Elizabeth Wei and assistant Rev. Peter Chen, and former former dean, Rev. Michael Liu! Thank you for all your hard work to make yesterday’s concert such a success!