Orange County – the place name conjuring images of the spray-tanned secular class splashing in the salty mist of the Pacific Ocean – may seem an unlikely place to look for signs of a renaissance in Catholic sacred music. But on a golden OC evening in late June, two events took place, eight miles from each other as the seagull flies, that point to the arrival, at long last, of renewal.
On 20 June, at Christ Cathedral, the Pacific Symphony and Chorale performed “Fiat Lux”, a choral work composed by the Scottish Catholic composer Sir James MacMillan. The work was commissioned to mark the reconsecration of the building formerly known as the Crystal Cathedral, the church home of tele-evangelist Robert Schuller and his Hour of Power broadcasts, but now owned by the Diocese of Orange. MacMillan had been in town all week, the world premiere having taken place a few days earlier at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.
