MARY LEE TALBOT
Staff Writer
“Come, said the Muse, / Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, / Sing me the Universal,” wrote Walt Whitman. The Sacred Song Service at 8 p.m. Sunday evening in the Amphitheater will explore how time, space and creation come together to form “the universal.”
The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton will preside. The Chautauqua Choir will be under the direction of Sonya Subbayya Sutton, interim director of Sacred Music, and accompanied by Owen Reyda, organ scholar. Members of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will be guest musicians.
Readings will come from the Book of Common Prayer, a poem by Susan Palo Cherwien and Psalm 145 from the St. Helena Psalter. Anthems include “O Inexpressible Mystery,” music by Tawnie Olson and text by St. Gregory Nazianzen, and “Song of the Universal,” music by Ola Gjeilo and text by Walt Whitman. The scores for “Song of the Universal” were donated to the Chautauqua Choir library in memory of Richard Pedersen. The accompanying instrumentalists are playing as an expression of gratitude for the Richard G. Pedersen Endowed Chair for Viola in the Chautauqua Symphony, established in 2026 by his wife, Alice Pedersen.
Congregational hymn singing and the playing of Handel’s “Largo” from Xerxes will complete the evening.
