This Sunday we will celebrate the Feast of the Ascension with a Family Eucharist at 10:30 a.m., with the children and teens of our parish serving in liturgical ministries. The service will also include special prayers for the women in our lives who care for us: mothers, grandmothers, aunts, godmothers, and friends. All are welcome!
Next Sunday, May 19, we celebrate the Day of Pentecost—the birthday of the church. On this day we give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit given to all people—people of different backgrounds, cultures, and languages.
As a spiritual practice, we invite you to learn the Lord's Prayer in a new language. During our worship on Pentecost Sunday, the congregation will be invited to recite the Lord's Prayer in many different languages, all at once. You may choose to learn the Lord's Prayer in a language that your ancestors spoke, or in a language that is completely new to you. We invite you to let the Holy Spirit move in and through you in a new way.
Would you like to lead our congregation in these prayers? We are looking for a few volunteer lectors to come forward to recite the Lord's Prayer in different languages simultaneously (with microphones at the 10:30 service and without at 7:45). Email Rev. Heidi if you are interested! hthorsen@trinitynewhaven.org
Join IRIS and friends for a gathering to raise awareness about the war in Sudan, especially the impact on families and to support grassroots humanitarian work. Eman Salih, Yale Postdoctoral Associate in Public Health, and other Sudanese women leaders will share their experience, insight, and resilience. This is an opportunity to build solidarity with Sudanese communities in Connecticut. This kid-friendly event is FREE for all. Enjoy henna designs by refugee artists, tea, and sweets. In partnership with CRIW (Collective for Refugee & Immigrant Women’s Wellbeing).
As we turn to the warmer months, our beloved Walden Moore will soon be leaving his post as Director of Music. In addition to our remaining legacy events (scroll for more info!) we are organizing a retirement purse for him to show our appreciation for his dedication and talent. Your generosity will not only express our gratitude but will also help Walden as he embarks on his retirement. Thank you for your support in this farewell gesture!
Click HERE to donate online, or mail a check to 950 Chapel Street, Floor 2, New Haven, CT 06511 made out to "Trinity on the Green" with "Walden Purse" in the memo line.
Join the Trinity Yarn Works group in the undercroft on Sunday, June 9, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. to discuss items to make for this year's Christmas Market. We have lots of patterns and and yarn to share and are looking for new ideas to create! A light lunch will be provided.
The Rector, Wardens, and Vestry of Trinity Church on the Green are delighted to announce the appointment of Simon Lee as Interim Director of Music for the 2024-25 academic year. Simon is a very seasoned musician with extended expertise in choral teaching, conducting, and singing. It is a tremendous honor to welcome him to Trinity and we are so looking forward to his leadership and guidance during this transition period. As we continue the search for a permanent Director of Music with new energy and inspiration, we feel blessed and guided by God's providence in having Simon Lee come to Trinity to empower our choirs and our congregational singing during this transition period.
Simon Lee holds a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music where he studied under the tutelage of Marguerite L. Brooks, Jeffrey Douma, and David Hill. During his time in Connecticut, he was conductor of the Marquand Chapel Choir at Yale Divinity School and temporarily the Director of Music at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, New Haven. He also worked with the Morse Chorale, part of Yale’s Morse Summer Music Academy program.
Born and raised in the northwest of England, Simon began his musical career as a chorister at Lancaster Priory. He studied clarinet and saxophone performance at Leeds University where he was also a choral scholar at Leeds R.C. Cathedral. Upon graduation from Leeds in 2009, he moved to Durham to take up the post of tenor Lay Clerk at the Cathedral. He completed a PGCE in Primary Education at Durham University in 2012, and having done this taught in schools across the north-east. After his graduation from Yale, Simon returned to Durham to rejoin the Cathedral Choir and concurrently pursued a career as a choral conductor and tenor soloist. He currently conducts a range of choirs in Durham and Newcastle including Cappella Newcastle; the Durham Cathedral Consort of Singers; Tune Central, an office choir shared between Muckle LLP and RBC Brewin Dolphin’s Newcastle offices; and his own professional ensemble, Northern Consort . In 2017, he was a semi-finalist in the American Choral Directors’ Association’s national Graduate Conducting Competition.
“I am absolutely delighted to be returning to New Haven and joining the team at Trinity on the Green," says Simon. "It feels like a homecoming since I graduated from Yale five years ago. I visited the church last summer and received a very warm welcome and it was good to renew old friendships as well as make new ones! The heritage of the choirs is undeniable, and I am looking forward to working with both children’s choirs as well as the adult choir and taking part in all of the other musicmaking which goes on in the church.
"Music has the wonderful ability to bring all people together; we have a visceral reaction to it and it can heighten and elevate a situation making it all the more meaningful for all those present. This is true all the way through our lives, from our earliest moments of comprehension to our last hours. It is at the heart of a living parish and I feel honoured that I am able to be part of the musical story of Trinity.”
Welcome, Simon!
Dear Trinity members,
A big thank you for all your support during my two years at Yale and Trinity. Thanks to your support, I am please to invite everyone to hear my final Yale organ recital! It will be this Saturday, May 4, at 7:30 p.m. in Woolsey Hall. Admission is free. I will play works by Tournemire, Messiaen, Franck, Rachmaninoff, Ives, Lemare, and Vierne. Please consider attending!
Thank you,
David Preston
This Sunday we welcome a special “guest” preacher, our Director of Music Walden Moore. As Mr. Moore is drawing near to his retirement, he is privy to many experiences and reflections from his forty year tenure at Trinity. Walden has met numerous people, seen many situations, and heard many a sermon that has enriched his life throughout his ministry and given him a throve of stories and wisdom to share. To offer us a glimpse of his treasure of insights, Walden will mount our pulpit this Sunday and offer this Sunday’s sermon.
This Sunday we will offer another service of Sacred Earth Evening Prayer at Edgerton Park (gather at the Edgehill Road entrance).
In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, “Creation is the primary and most perfect revelation of the Divine.” Our Sacred Earth service is a time to connect with nature, its beauty, its message, its care. The prayers seek to connect us with the divine expression in creation. It is a place where faith and science meet, where our souls find their home in a way we not always remember, given our lifestyle away from nature. During this prayer time we open our hearts to the richness of nature, like Gerard Manley Hopkins expressed: “What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wilderness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; long live the weeks and the wilderness yet.”
Come and join us in the park to enjoy the beauty of spring with prayer.
Please be aware that a major protest, "March for a Free Palestine," is scheduled to take place on the New Haven Green this Sunday, April 28, at noon. We plan to hold our morning services and 5 p.m. service as scheduled, with some modifications to Chapel on the Green at 2 p.m. Please plan for extra time in your commute to and from church and be aware of increased activity throughout the downtown area. We continue to join the church and the world in praying for peace in Israel and Palestine.
This Sunday at our 10:30 a.m. service we pay tribute to our dedicated Parish Choir. We thank each of our choir members for their hard work and beautiful singing throughout the year: Al Atherton, Peggy Atherton, Kristin Barendregt-Ludwig, Marybeth Bean, Sheila Bonenberger, Susan Boyan, Mark Branch, Mark Brombaugh, Jenny Briggs, Peg Chambers, Anne Cheney, Laura Davis, Catherine Jackson, Colleen Kiel, Karen Kostak, Geri Lemert, Warner Marshall, Rhea McTiernan Huge, Erika Nemeti, Kathryn Nichols, Kyle Picha, Sarah Reed, Rachel Scotch, David Soper, Jonathan Taylor, Catherine Williams, and Anna Zhao Sandine.
We also thank their leaders, our music staff: Walden Moore, Sarah Johnson, and David Preston.
We invite all children and families of our parish to our "Sunday Spark" at 9:30 a.m. in the undercroft! Children in Pre-K through sixth grade will learn about the Beatitudes in a large group before breaking into age appropriate classes with our faith formation volunteers. Parents are invited to attend the Bible Study in the Upper Room happening at the same time.
This Sunday at 5 p.m., we are delighted to welcome back the Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers to sing Vespers at Trinity. The group will perform several songs alongside readings and prayers for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. Many of our parishioners participate in this group, and we hope you will come and hear this soul-searching music. All are welcome!
The annual Wake Up the Green festival will take place on Saturday, May 11! The day begins with Clean the Green at 9 a.m. followed by a reenactment of Powder House Day (a must if you haven't seen it!). From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Christine Janis will offer a self-guided tour of the stained glass windows at Trinity. We hope you can join!
On Saturday, May 18 at 10 a.m., Trinity will host a Confirmation liturgy presided by Bishop Jeff Mello. All are invited to attend and support those confirming and reaffirming their faith! Reception to follow.
As an Episcopal Church with a rich choral tradition, one simply cannot pay a fitting tribute to Walden without a final Evensong. All choir alumni are invited to join a special alumni choir—register below! Following Evensong, join us for a community dinner at Center Church Parish House. The dinner will be a potluck featuring a detailed menu of some of Walden’s favorite foods. Everyone attending the dinner will be asked to bring a dish from the menu that will be provided or contribute money to purchase food.
We invite you to join us for Choral Evensong this Sunday—Walden Moore's penultimate Evensong at Trinity. In keeping with Good Shepherd Sunday, the Choir of Adults & Girls and the Boys Choir will sing Benjamin Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb as the anthem, a joyful multi-movement cantata with poetry by Christopher Smart. The choir will also premier a set of Preces and Responses by our own Nathaniel Adam, which he has titled O lux beata Trinitas. Come and pray with some stunning music!
Pre-Service Organ Recital
Prior to Evensong, Walden Moore will play a short organ recital at 4:30 p.m. featuring "Choral in E" by César Franck and "Meditation" (from Trois Improvisations) by Louis Vierne (transcribed by Duruflé). All are welcome.
Trinity's Children, Youth, & Family Ministry is sponsoring Chapel on the Green this Sunday! We need many hands to help make sandwiches for our neighbors. Parishioners are invited to help make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches among other things to be served by our Youth Group and Confirmation candidates. This is a terrific family service project and all are welcome! Meet in the undercroft at 9:30 a.m. and we'll get busy.
On Saturday, April 13, Sweet Honey in the Rock captivated a packed Trinity Church with a stunning and sensational concert. Our own Choir of Men & Boys and Choir of Adults & Girls opened the concert with three pieces—"Wondrous Love" arranged by Paul Christiansen, "The Road Home" by Stephen Paulus, and "Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal" By Alice Parker. Director of Music Walden Moore called particular attention to Parker, who died last December after a trailblazing career in the world of women composers.
Sweet Honey sang two sets of songs that included their own staples (like "Ella's Song" and "I'm Gon' Stand"), arrangements of other well-known classics like "Feeling Good," and newer compositions that explored contemporary issues—race, gender, war and peace. Before their finale, the group celebrated their fiftieth anniversary while also paying tribute to Walden Moore's 40 years of dedicated service to Trinity. "I honestly could not listen to the fantastic repertoire given the heat of the moment," says Legacy Committee Co-Chair Duo Dickinson, "but the joy on Walden's face seeing Sweet Honey's performance was transcending."
Originally planned for the spring of 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic, this concert became one of the core events celebrating Walden’s legacy. “We had a record crowd of over 500 people honor Walden and over 100 people who have donated to Trinity’s music program through the Doing a Walden Campaign,” says Dickinson. “Costs and revenues are virtually at a break-even level which was an ambitious goal without any concert sponsors. The performers were ecstatic with our accommodation and the outcome, and over half the audience were completely new to experiencing Trinity’s beauty and welcome—a fully great event!”
It’s not every day that you get asked to perform Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. Why? Well, to put it plainly, it’s huge. Running 90 minutes in length, it calls for two orchestras and three choirs, plus soloists. The week after Easter, Trinity’s choristers joined forces with fellow New Haven superstars the Elm City Girls Choir, the Yale Glee Club, Yale Camerata, and Yale Symphony Orchestra for performances of this monumental piece in Woolsey Hall in New Haven and St. Bart’s in New York City with glorious projections provided by Camilla Tassi. Congratulations to all on a musical (and logistical!) triumph!
