Titanic events for church memorial weekend

New play remembers church woman’s sacrifice

A play about a young Scottish woman who died in Auschwitz in 1944 will be performed on Friday 30 March and Saturday 31 March in Theatre at Queens at 170 Queen’s Drive, on Glasgow’s Southside. It tells the true story of Jane Haining who was matron of a home for orphaned girls in Budapest. Run by the Church of Scotland, the home was a safe haven until the Nazis moved into the city. At that point she was ordered to return to Scotland but she twice refused as she knew it would leave her children defenceless. The result was the Gestapo imprisoned her and eventually killed her in the death camp.

She had worshipped at Queen’s Park Parish Church in Glasgow and that congregation installed two stained glass windows to remember her and her sacrifice. They also play host each year to the school aged winners of a competition in English speaking which is run in Budapest in her memory.

When Tram Direct founder Isobel Barrett moved her theatre school into community space at Queen’s Park Church, she heard the story of the windows and of Jane Haining’s dedication to her children. She commissioned Ian Morland to write a play of the moving story.

‘It is true to the facts and quite harrowing in parts,’ said Isobel. ‘But everyone is glad to have been a part of this.’

The play has been produced with the cooperation of South Glasgow Heritage and Environment Trust, Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Life and Glasgow Community Planning Partnership. An exhibition of Jane’s story will be on display at the church’s community hall during the run of the play.

Titanic weekend set to save Glasgow souls

It is almost 100 years since the Titanic sank with the loss of more than 1500 people. Glasgow has its own direct link to the Titanic through a church off Paisley Road West.
Called the Harper Memorial Baptist church, it is named after a Scottish preacher called John Harper who was aboard the Titanic when it was holed by an iceberg on 14 April 1912.
And next month when many Titanic events are scheduled to remember the tragedy, the congregation will hold a Titanic Weekend.

Starting on Friday 13 to Sunday 15 April they aim to let a wider audience know that the faith of the man whose name was given to the building, is still valid for people today.

Said church Deacon Gordon Webster: ‘We wanted to make use of the fact that most people know about the Titanic to tell the story of John Harper and win people for the Lord.’
A widower, John Harper was travelling with his niece and his six-year-old daughter to be a guest speaker at the Moody church of Chicago for a second season. One of the survivors of the disaster told how John Harper asked him as the ship was sinking: ‘Has your soul been saved?’ When the man said ‘no’ John took off his own life vest and gave it to him.
Born in Houston, John Harper became a preacher at an early age. When he was appointed to a congregation in Glasgow it had 25 members. When he left it for a post in London in  the early 1900s, the church had its own purpose built ‘tin kirk’ in the Plantation district of the city which could seat 1000. It was named after John Harper when a new building was opened in 1921 by his daughter, Nan Harper who survived the disaster.
John’s wife  had died a week after their daughter had been born.  She was buried in Craigton cemetery. The details of John’s heroic death were added to her grave stone soon after the Titanic disaster. For the church’s Titanic Weekend a memorial and rededication service will be held at the cemetery in Cardonald at 2.30pm on Saturday 14 April. Bailie Iris Gibson and Councillor Alistair Watson are expected to attend.

That evening – 100 years to the day, after the disaster – Dr Erwin W. Lutzer of the Chicago Moody Church, will preach in the Harper Memorial Baptist church in Glasgow at 7.30pm. His church in Chicago was the one that John Harper was travelling to.  John had been invited back to preach because of the success of his first visit. Some of the meeting rooms in the Chicago church are dedicated to him. A play about John Harper will be performed in Glasgow on Saturday 14 April,  and there will be music by Father’s Song.
Dr Lutzer will also speak at the Sunday 15 April morning service when communion will be celebrated and again in the evening when music will be provided by the Govan Salvation Army Band.
There will be a holiday club for primary school children on Friday 13 April. The local Lorne Park Primary School has already studied the Titanic story and some of their work will be on display in the church during the weekend. On the Friday evening a Christian rock band ‘Superhero’ will perform for the teens, twenties and music minded people. This is the only Scottish date for the band which is on tour in Europe currently and will be touring the United States following the Titanic weekend events.

‘This is a big step for us to have a rock group – they’ll be the first we’ve had. But we think we’re well prepared,’ said Deacon Webster. He added: ‘The whole process of planning this weekend has been amazing. It is a wonderful experience for the team of 13 volunteers from the church who have organised it. We’ve been taken aback at the world wide interest with people emailing from abroad asking to book seats.’ The church can seat 600 people and has a hall for an additional 100 where a video link will enable them to share in the proceedings. Leaflets have been distributed throughout the local community and visitors to the city that weekend will also be invited specially. For further details see the website: www.harpermemorial.net For tickets for the rock concert email: superhero@harpermemorial.net or call GLO Bookshop, Motherwell: 01698 275343

image copyright : ©Graeme Hewitson  Eikon Bible Art.

New look for befriending service

The Mount Befriending Service:

 Open event and the official launch of, new, separate charitable status and the rebranding of the service.

 4 Clincart Road

6pm – 8pm

Wednesday 28^th March

SPEAKER: Professor Pauline Banks, University of the West of Scotland. Dr Banks was appointed last year to lead research and development in Older Persons’ Health.

 Councillor Archie Graham will be in attendance. Archie has represented the Langside Ward since the Council was formed in 1995, and is the Council’s Executive Member for Culture and Sport, with responsibility within the Council for the delivery of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Email: themountbefriendingservice@btconnect.com

Website: www.themountbefriendingservice.org.uk

Scottish registered charity: SCIO; SC042651

Ukrainian nightingale sings in Kelvingrove

Something out of the ordinary will take place in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum on Sunday 18 March at 3pm.

During the concert on that day a song composed by the father of Russian classical music, Mikhail Glinka, will be sung by pupils from Glasgow Russian School who are members of the new Singing Studio there.

Glinka wrote the song using a poem entitled ‘The Nightingale’ by a local poet when he was a guest on the estate of his friends the Tarnovskys. Their estate was Kachanovka, in the Ukraine.

The current representative of the Tarnovsky family, and former owner of the estate, Mrs Tanya Hine, OBE, lives in Bearsden, and will be at the concert with members of her family. Mrs Hine will hear the song written on her family’s estate performed in Russian by schoolchildren of Russian heritage along with Russkaya Cappella, the adult Scottish choir that sings Russian music.

Said Svetlana Zvereva, co – director of Russkaya Cappella: ‘It’s remarkable that Scotland now has enough children to form a children’s choir singing in Russian. Sometimes the children are of

purely Russian parentage or have one parent from one of the republics of the former Soviet Union. Whatever their background, these children now have the chance, through the Glasgow Russian School, of preserving their Russian cultural heritage, including its musical component.This is also enriching Scotland’s artistic traditions.’

Picture shows children of the Glasgow Russian School’s Singing Studio in rehearsal.

Stabat Mater and Martyr Ogilvie provide moving Lentfest productions

Lentfest continues with exciting music and drama.

Don’t miss the only performance of the hauntingly beautiful Stabat Mater by Pergolesi in Glasgow this year. It will be sung on FRIDAY 16 March at 7.30pm, by two soloists from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland who are giving their last performance in the city before going to London to join London Opera companies. Both alumni of the Conservatoire and having graduated with distinction, Soprano Maria Kozlova and Mezzo soprano Beth Baxter will be with the St Patrick’s Ensemble in the glorious acoustic of St Mungo’s Church in Townhead.

This will be the premier of a new Stabat Mater setting by young Scottish composer George Tongchai Duthie and was commissioned by St Patrick’s Ensemble for Lentfest this year. In 2009, the group made its sold-out debut in Edinburgh’s Greyfriars’ Kirk. They were subsequently invited to perform the Vivaldi Four Seasons at the Usher Hall in May 2010. In November 2011, the ensemble returned there to perform works by Vivaldi, Dvořák and Hans Gál.

Tickets £8 (£5 concessions) available from 0141 554 1333 or lentfest@agap.org.uk

The interest in Lentfest events this year has been an exhilarating experience for the organisers. Said Stephen Callaghan, Lentfest Director: ‘The growth and demand has been almost overwhelming. There has been response from almost every dioceses in Scotland and interest from Venezuela, Russia and Italy. For some people the event they attend this Lentfest may be their only experience of Church for a year. I believe the Holy Spirit is at work.’

Among the drama events is the absorbing production of the Martyrdom of St John Ogilvie. Written and produced by Lentfest director Stephen Callaghan

himself, it is based on the dramatic events that surrounded the death of Scotland’s martyr, John Ogilvie, who died at Glasgow Cross in 1615. Because the actor rehearsing to play the part of Ogilvie, had to move to another part of the country at the last minute – the understudy Stephen Callaghan – had to step in by default. Performed by AGAP Community Theatre which includes many people who are acting for the first time, the touring production can be found on the following dates and locations among others: Saturday 17 March at 7.30pm St Gregory’s, Wyndford; Sunday 18 March at 2.00pm (Matinee) St Martin’s, Renton; Friday 23 March at 7.30pm St Helen’s, Langside; Saturday 24 March at 7.30pm St Lucy’s, Abronhill. For full details and for the entire programme for Lentfest check the website: www.agap.org.uk/lentfest

 

Russian musicial treat in museum

Russkaya Cappella
Glasgow’s Russian choir
presents
‘Musical Echoes of Russia’

A free event at 

Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery
Sunday 18th March at 3.00pm

A programme including sacred compositions by

Bortnyansky, Glinka and Gretchaninoff, as well as Russian folk songs

Directed by Svetlana Zvereva and Stuart Campbell
Malcolm Sim, Organ
with a special guest appearance by the members of
the Children’s Singing Studio of the Glasgow Russian School

Lentfest and Holy Week events

The wonderful selection of events and art works for Lentfest are underway. Check the website www.lentfest.co.uk

One of the highlights will be on  Wednesday 7 March at 7.30pm in the University of Glasgow Memorial Chapel when James MacMillan, Scottish composer, will introduce his own work ‘Why is this night different?’  It is centred around the Passover inspired String Quartet No 2 and will be played by St Patrick’s Ensemble.

There are also talks, exhibitions and the launch of the play by Stephen Callaghan, The Martyrdom of Saint John Ogilvie. This will tour almost a dozen community church halls starting on Saturday 10 March at 7.30pm in Glasgow University Memorial Chapel and finishing on Saturday 31 March at St Aloysius Church in Garnethill. It will be performed by people from across the Archdiocese of Glasgow as AGAP Community Theatre.

During Holy Week Glasgow Cathedral in Castle Street G4, will be the venue for three important works. On Monday 2 April the Great Passiontide Works for Organ – Bach, Brahms, Liszt and Reubke – will be played by Iain Simcock.  On Tuesday 3 April he will direct the Choir of Glasgow Cathedral in Miserere (Allegri, Charpentier, Victoria, Brahms, Bruckner, Poulenc). On Wednesday 4 April, Iain will lead Lecons de tenebres by Francois Couperin with Morgane Collomb, soprano, Laura Jarrell, soprano and Alexandre Ducene, Viole de gambe.

 

Southside woman’s sacrifice honoured in new play

Retreat to the desert from Edinburgh

Two-Day Retreat

Saturday 10 March – Sunday 11 March 2012

Desert Wisdom Retreat:

Nature, Nomads, Prophets – inspiring sources of simplicity, clarity, transformative healing and renewal.

Facilitators: Alan Heeks, with musical accompaniment by Dominic Ashmole.

Venue: Mull Room, Gillis Centre, 100 Strathearn Road, Edinburgh, EH9 1BB.

Dates: Saturday 10 – Sunday 11 March 2012.

Time: Registration: 9.30am-10am. Retreat Days: 10am-4.30pm.

Cost: £50 (both days), £30 (per day).

Registration Form: http://www.eicsp.org/downloads-org/category/192-mesp-2012-registration-forms

On-Line Booking: http://www.eicsp.org/mesp-2012-retreatworkshop-events-

Contact: Neill Walker, mesp2012@hotmail.co.uk, 0131 331 4469.

Event Description: The space, beauty, silence and solitude of the desert make it a profound source of inspiration, simplicity, clarity, transformative healing and renewal. Its nomadic peoples offer us a potent role model in finding stability and renewal amid constant change and uncertainty. And the prophets who found their voice in the desert offer us deep wisdom and practices which can still guide and transform us now.

Alan Heeks has led a dozen retreats in the Tunisian Sahara, travelling by foot and camel with Bedouin guides. In this retreat, he offers a chance to experience the wisdom of the desert for yourself, to find new insight, healing, and inspiration. The retreat will use a range of approaches, including guided meditations, periods for silent reflection, desert walks, Dances of Universal Peace based on texts from Jesus and Muhammad, and extended translations, sound mantras and body prayers from the book Desert Wisdom by Neil Douglas-Klotz.

In the desert, it is easier to feel oneself in unbroken connection with the peoples, the spiritualities, and the questions of the eras of Muhammad, Jesus and Moses. This weekend can help you to feel this continuity with the Caravan of Creation, and to find ancient keys and practices to current simplicity, clarity, transformative healing and renewal.

Alan Heeks is a practical visionary. After a Harvard MBA and highly successful business career, he has spent the past 21 years leading retreats and workshops, and creating three unique land-based teaching centres, all aiming to help people connect with spirit, nature and sustainability in practical ways. Alan is Director of Hazel Hill Wood, a 70-acre conservation woodland retreat centre in Wiltshire, and founded the Magdalen Project, a 130-acre organic farm and teaching centre. He also founded the Threshold Centre, the first mixed tenure co-housing community in the UK. Alan has a long-standing passion for the people, spiritualities and landscapes of the Middle East and North Africa. He has studied under Neil Douglas-Klotz since 1995, and has led retreats on Desert Wisdom and Aramaic Christian texts in the UK and internationally. His book the Natural Advantage: Renewing Yourself was published in 2000, and he is currently writing Maturing Men: a guide to life beyond 50. For more information, including Alan’s desert retreats, see: www.living-organically.com

 

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