Thy King Cometh is my largest work to date, an oratorio for soloists, choir, and various orchestral forces. I wrote it from January – April of 2006 for liturgical use during Holy Week at the Presbyterian Church of Barrington. The leaders of that church were so unbelievably supportive and, perhaps, naïve to let this unknown gutsy 22-year-old write all of the music for their church services during the most Holy of Holy Days, and I still owe them tremendous gratitude.
The musical forces vary from piece to piece because I had a different set of musicians on each of the days of Holy Week (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday). My stint as interim music director came to an end two weeks after the premiere of the piece, and my outgoing from the church was to commission music for Advent. The result is kind of my Reader’s Digest version of The Messiah.
I’ve heavily cross referenced the 22 movements of this piece on this web site. We’ll start with the Liturgical Division:
Music for Advent
Music for Palm Sunday
Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Music for Maundy Thursday
I am the True Vine
Music for Good Friday
Music for Easter Sunday
Thanks be to God!
I’ve played the whole piece in concert twice (with some new orchestrations), and individual movements have been done liturgically all over the place.