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Mayflower 400 Online Organ Recital

Music lovers are being invited to attend a ‘virtual church’ later this month and enjoy an online recital that features two special Mayflower 400 pieces.

Two new pieces - one American and one British - will be shown on Monday, 12 October: Carson Cooman’s Plymouth Soundings and Clive Jenkins’ Four Mayflower Portraits.

The Cooman-Jenkins collaboration arose after Carson found old organ music by Clive in a second-hand shop during a visit to London. He liked it and later had it republished in the USA.

Carson is organist-composer in the Memorial Church at Harvard University, just up the coast from Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Carson Cooman

Plymouth, Devon, is Clive’s birthplace – and it was he who suggested writing new music for Mayflower 400, and the publication of Carson’s work in the UK by Goodmusic, his British publisher.

Carson’s Plymouth Soundings (2019) is dedicated to Clive and Richard Line, originators of this project from Plymouth, UK; and to Michael Eaton, organist at Church of the Pilgrimage in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The piece is a free fantasy on motives from psalm tunes found in the Ainsworth Psalter. This psalter, published in Amsterdam in 1612, was brought by the colonists on their voyage. The collection proved seminal in the development of future American psalters and hymnody.

Clive Jenkins

Meanwhile, Clive's Four Mayflower Portraits were composed especially for performances as part of Mayflower 400 celebrations on both sides of the Atlantic.

The people in the Four Mayflower Portraits are:

Myles Standish - an English military officer hired as military adviser for Plymouth Colony. He accompanied the group on the Mayflower journey and played a leading role in the administration and defence of Plymouth Colony from its inception.

Peregrine White - born after the Mayflower had anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor, Cape Cod. He was the second baby born on the Mayflower's historic voyage and the first known English child born to the colonists in America. His cradle can be seen in the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Priscilla Mullins - the object of two men's affections. Myles Standish wanted to marry her but, shy and awkward in romantic matters, he asked his friend John Alden to propose on his behalf. But her response to the proposal was "Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?"

John Howland - came on the Mayflower as manservant to John Carver who later became Governor of Plymouth Colony. During the voyage, Howland fell overboard in a storm, and was almost lost at sea but he managed to grab hold of the topsail halyards and was pulled back on board with a boat-hook. His many descendants include Mrs Theodore Roosevelt and Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush.

The 'virtual church' will be open from 12.45pm on Monday, 12 October, and members of the audience are invited to enter just as they would for a 'real' recital; greet one another (online) and say 'hello' to the recitalist.

This will be followed at 1pm by a discussion about the programme, and at 1.15pm, the coverage will switch to the YouTube channel, to which Ian's recital (recorded ten days previously) will have been uploaded.

That link will appear in the chat on the Zoom link below, and will be emailed beforehand to those on our mailing list. It will also be posted on the St Michael Cornhill website here.

You can join the Zoom link here and use the joining details below.

Meeting ID: 863 8487 7974

Passcode: 691100