Weeknotes 2026-W04 [2026-W04]
- January 25, 2026
- Liam O'Connor
This week was primarily spent travelling, although I have safely made it to Edinburgh. I'm here for two weeks or so, and I'm trying to maximise the amount of good church singing I do while I'm here.


David Byrne: Who is the Sky? [loc-0030]
- January 21, 2026
- Liam O'Connor

Today in Sydney I saw David Byrne's concert tour, Who is the Sky?. The guy has incredible energy, even now that he's in his seventies. While he's not as active as he was in Stop Making Sense, he is still a mesmerising performer. The setlist included a surprisingly large amount of Talking Heads classics: Houses in Motion (which was simply amazing), Life During Wartime, And She Was, Slippery People, This Must Be The Place, Once in a Lifetime, Burning Down the House, Heaven, Psycho Killer and Nothing but Flowers. There were also a few solo tracks I recognised: Like Humans Do, Strange Overtones and Everybody's Coming to My House.
What stands out to me is the extremely tight choreography and use of the stage space. The entire performance was just the performers carrying all their instruments like a marching band while wearing blue jumpsuits, with various images projected on the screens behind them. Somehow, it never got old. It was an utterly captivating performance, and the music was fantastic of course.
Church Music Corner › Third Sunday after Epiphany 2026 [loc-002Z]
- January 25, 2026
- Liam O'Connor
Dóminus secus mare Galiláeae vidit duos fratres, Petrum et Andréam, et vocávit eos: Veníte post me: fáciam vos fíeri piscatóres hóminum.
Adoráte Deum omnes Angeli eius audívit, et lætáta est Sion: et exsultavérunt fíliæ Iudæ.
This Sunday I sang with two choirs: St. Michael and All Saints for the morning mass and Old St. Paul's for evensong, which included lucernarium and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. In the morning we sang Franck's Panis Angelicus and a simple choral mass setting whose composer I can't now recall.
Panis angelicus Bread of angels fit panis hominum; Becomes the bread of men; Dat panis cœlicus figuris terminum: The heavenly bread ends the old figures: O res mirabilis! O wondrous thing! Manducat Dominum To eat of the Lord pauper, servus et humilis. The poor, the servant, the humble.
I cantored for the propers. In the evening, as it's the Conversion of St. Paul, the namesake of the church, we performed some ambitious repertoire, including the Bairstow Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, as well as Palestrina's Magnus Sanctus Paulus for eight voices, which I can't find a recording of anywhere.
Magnus sanctus Paulus, Saint Paul the Great, vas electiónis The vessel that was chosen, vere digne est glorificándus, truly worthy to be praised, qui et thronum duodécimum méruit possidére. who merited the twelfth throne. intercéde pro nobis ad Deum, Intercede for us to God, qui te elegit, ut digni efficiamur gratia Dei. who chose thee, that we may be made worthy of the grace of God.
We also performed Widor's Tantum Ergo for the Benediction.
In between those two services I also stopped in to hear Evensong at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh's west end. The choir there is very good, and I always like attending evensong there, although one of the sopranos was annoyingly out of tune this time.