Musical Coincidence

Yesterday, before I went out to the ocean, I was driving around the lake near my house. There are two cemeteries side by side on one side of the lake, and for the first time, I decided to drive through one of them. Several of the roads were snow-blocked, but I found one that reached back to the lake's shore.

I was listening to music while driving slowly through, looking for older graves. John Rutter, a contemporary English composer-conductor, is a personal friend of the orchestra I toured with for three years back in the 90s (the same orchestra my sisters played with in the 70s and 80s, and the one my niece now plays with in the summers). I had the privilege of playing his compositions under his direction in Carnegie Hall several times during those years, and often listen to his work when I drive.

So, I was listening to Rutter while driving around the far edges of the cemetery, looking at names on the gravestones when one caught my eye: Rutter! I couldn't believe it! I stopped, rolled down my window, and took a picture while letting Rutter's music waft over Rutter's family plot. It made me smile, even though I know it meant nothing to anyone but me.

The piece I was listening to was Rutter's setting of Psalm 100:

O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands: serve the Lord with gladness,
and come before his presence with a song. Be ye sure that the Lord
He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are
His people, and the sheep of His pasture. O go your way into His
gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful
unto Him, and speak good of His Name. For the Lord is gracious, His
mercy is everlasting: and His truth endureth from generation to
generation. Glory be to the Father, and to the Song, and to the Holy
Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world
without end. Amen.