Articles for St. Luke's

September Artist of the Month One of nine children, MaryAnn Lucas was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, moving to Houston in 1982 with her family. She has studied and practiced art since the late 1960’s, and currently belongs to and participates in the Watercolor Art Society of Houston, Visual Art Alliance, First Frontier Collage Society, Art League of Houston, and Lone Star Art Guild art shows, winning various ribbons and awards at each. She is past President of Visual Arts ...

Fall Choir Season! Our youth and children's choirs have exciting plans for Labor Day weekend: SundaySing and SundayRing will kick off the season with a day of fun and music from 9:30 - 2:30 on Saturday, September 4 in the Blanton Building. Children in grades 1-5 are invited to come find out just how much music can be! Lunch included. The 15th Annual Pure Sound Labor Day Retreat is for youth in grades 7-12; buses leave at 5:30 on Friday afternoon, Sept. 3 and return on Labor Day ...

Summer Stock Theater Continues in August The Bridges Fine Arts Academy Summer Stock Theater Series continues this month with more music and fun over the next three weekends: August 6 & 7: "The Best of Motown II" with the Encounter Band (in Fellowship Hall) 7 p.m. August 12, 14 & 15: "Side by Side by Sondheim" featuring an all star St. Luke's cast (in Fellowship Hall) 7 p.m. on Thursday and Saturday, and 2:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. August 19-22: The 10th annual ...

August Artist of the Month Our Rotunda Gallery Artist in August is Carol Yip Choy, the daughter of two newspaper journalists from Cape Cod Massachusetts. Carol has always enjoyed painting and being involved with the arts. She attended The Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. Carol has been a volunteer for M.D. Anderson Children's Card project, HISD schools and the Houston Public Library. She once worked at River Oaks Baptist school and at our St. Luke's Day School, ...

College Chorale Calling all college students! The College Chorale will be the choir for the 9:45 a.m. worship service in the Sanctuary through the end of July. Come join us! Just show up in the Choir room at 9:15 a.m., dressed in your Sunday finest. The music is easy to learn, and after warming up together, you'll be ready to sing in worship. It's a fun and important way to serve your church. Recent high school ...

July Artist of the Month Our July Artist in the Rotunda Gallery is painter, Tony King. Tony is a native Houstonian who grew up watching his mother paint. He says that he has always enjoyed visual art, and studied it at Southwestern University in Georgetown. Tony never thought he had much talent as an artist, so he did not begin creating his own pieces until a few years ago. At that point, he started painting as a way of working things out for himself on canvas. Each piece is ...

Summer Stock Theater Begins! Bridges Fine Arts Academy's annual Summer Stock Theater Series kicks off this weekend and continues all summer. Here is the lineup for the next two weeks: June 11 & 12: Original Musical Review “What Was A Woman To Do?” with four fabulous femmes (Monica Griffin, Jennifer Johnson, Wanda Fowler, Beverly Laubach) & Sid Davis at the piano. June 18 & 19: "The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber" with the amazing Susan Shofner & Adam Stout at the piano  ...

Our June Artist of the Month in the Rotunda Gallery is painter, Bob Thomas, who is a long time member of Gethsemane UMC (now a sister church to St. Luke's UMC); this is his first exhibit in our Gallery. Bob came to Houston in 1964, fresh out of art school. His first few years were spent working as an artist in the advertising and design community, and he even did several projects for St. Luke's in the 1970s. For the past 35 years Bob has worked as a free-lance designer for several Houston ...

Bridges Academy's 10th anniversary summer promises to be extra special! This year, our two exciting and popular Summer Music Theater Camps offer a new focus on the basics for those who enjoy performing onstage and want to hone their skills: The Jerry Eckles Music Theater Camp (JEMTC) targets youth entering 7th grade through newly graduated 12th graders who love to act, sing and dance. Led by director, Mark McCarver, music director, Elizabeth Pearson and pianist, BB Bamberg, this exciting ...

To help celebrate the 10th anniversary of St. Luke's Bridges Academy of Fine Arts, international opera sensation, Laura Claycomb will perform in a benefit recital on Sunday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Sanctuary of St. Luke's UMC (Westheimer campus). Bridges Academy, founded in 2000, offers private music lessons and group classes as well as a music outreach program for schools in the Houston area in need of music instruction. Proceeds from the May concert will enable Bridges to continue to ...

Upcoming Musical Performances: St. Cecilia Pop Concert, April 24 Treat your special someone to an outstanding evening of music, as the St. Cecilia Choir presents its annual Pop Concert, scheduled for Saturday evening, April 24 at 7:00 p.m. in Fellowship Hall. The ladies of the choir will be performing favorite "Music from the Movies", so you can expect a wide variety of memorable songs, all presented with great flair! Soloists, ensembles and the entire choir will be offering ...

The Rotunda Gallery Artist of the Month for April is native Houstonian, Joan Breckwoldt, who graduated from UT Austin with a BS degree in Petroleum Engineering in 1982. Over the past ten years she has studied at the Art League of Houston, the Glassell School and the University of Houston. Joan spent two years in the Netherlands at the Konigs Schule in the Hague and studied with the Dutch portrait artist Marika Bok. She has also studied with Bruce Williamson, William Kalwick, Steve Parker, Dan ...

To help celebrate Bridges Academy's 10th year of Music Education at St. Luke's, we are offering some fun, short term classes for adults during the month of April that will introduce you to various art and craft skills and more! Think about learning to make jewelry under the guidance of Joe Eason. Or how about taking some cooking classes? Other options include a calligraphy class, a beginning voice class and yoga. What a great way to learn a new skill and make some new friends at the same ...

Pure Sound Spaghetti This Weekend! Come get your groove on this Sunday, March 7 as Peace, Love & Pure Sound will take over the Activities Center for the annual Pure Sound Spaghetti Lunch and Auction. Proceeds from this event are used to fund the activities of the choir, including scholarships for retreats and tours. With continuous lunch service from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (offering the best spaghetti in the world, salad, bread, beverages and homemade desserts), happening music, ...

Chancel Choir Presents Gospel Mass For a very special Lenten worship experience, make plans to attend church at St. Luke's UMC on Sunday, February 21 to enjoy the music of Dr. Robert Ray's Gospel Mass, as performed by the Chancel Choir, with guest musician Rev. Cynthia Wilson and accompanied by the Rob Landes Trio. The Mass will be performed during all three morning worship services in the Sanctuary (8:30, 9:45 and 11:00). Dr. Ray is Professor of Music at the University of Missouri at St. ...

Probably the first of the seasons to develop in the early church, Lent is a season of preparation that begins forty days before Easter, not including the Sundays. It was originally a time when new converts to the faith were put through a final examination before their baptism at dawn on Easter morning. This is a very important time in the worship life of the church which begins with Ash Wednesday (February 17) and includes Palm Sunday (March 28), Maundy Thursday (April 1), and Good Friday ...

Dawson Paintings Return to St. Luke's The Rotunda Gallery of St. Luke's was established in the early 1980's to provide a place for visiting artists to exhibit their work. In lieu of paying a fee to use the space, rather the artists pay a commission to St. Luke's each time a piece is sold. This money is put into the Fine Arts Fund, which goes towards repair, restoration and acquisition of pieces in our permanent art collection. The scope of our collection is vast, with a wide variety ...

Spring Registration at Bridges Academy! Exceptional Instruction in the Fine Arts Have you ever wanted to learn to play the piano? Or a flute, violin or cello? The spring semester at Bridges Fine Arts Academy begins this month, with private lessons for children, youth and adults in voice, piano, strings, winds & guitar. Bridges prides itself on providing a safe, nurturing environment in which all students can thrive. Regarding her voice students, Bridges Director, Beverly Laubach ...

Pure Sound Open House 2010 will be an exciting year for our Pure Sound Youth Choir, with a full stage production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in May in addition to fun weekly rehearsals and singing in worship. If you are in the 6th through 12th grades and want to serve our church by participating in the Music Ministry, consider visiting the Pure Sound Open House, this Sunday, January 10. We'll gather in the Choir Room at 3:30 p.m. to enjoy great food and fellowship, and then ...

Christmas Festival This Sunday! One can only imagine the thrill that the shepherds experienced when they heard "the great company of the heavenly host" singing on the night of Jesus' birth. But one can experience a similar thrill in person by attending St. Luke's annual Christmas Festival on Sunday morning, December 13! Our Chancel Choir has prepared a morning of fabulous Christmas music that will evoke the joy, wonder, tenderness and mystery of the season during all three traditional ...