(Full Disclosure Note: We also used this as an excuse to have dinner together at a restaurant which features all sorts of sandwiches and melted cheese creations.)The Taizé community in France is an ecumenical monastic community which has become known for its simple songs and chants. Here is an example of their singing. (We were fewer than a dozen, and we didn't have musical instruments, so we didn't sound much like the YouTube version here.)
Compline (which is an evening service similar to Vespers or Evening Prayer) is an excellent setting for this sort of meditative music. St. Alban's has enormous windows to look out on the gathering evening, and all of us agreed that the prayer service was really profound.
The point of all this is to learn whether we should incorporate this kind of music at St. Matthew's. Thursday Evening Prayer seems like the place we would see it first.
(OK—here's another advertisement: Singing at Evening Prayer will go a lot better if we have a few more voices. We generally meet every Thursday at 5 p.m. for about half an hour. It's a great way to close out a work day.)
