So Sad, So Grateful: rest in peace, dear Patrick

Patrick Wedd during the rehearsal with our choir for his final Evensong before retirement, in June, 2018.

Patrick Wedd, consummate musician, choral director, and my dear friend, died yesterday. I was extremely fortunate to sing under his direction at Christ Church Cathedral for the past eleven years, to hear such a master play the organ, and to perform music he had written as well as the huge repertoire of Anglican liturgical music that he brought to us, week after week. He was a mentor to all of us, but especially to the young organists who were our assistant organists and organ scholars, and it was a joy to watch them grow in confidence and ability under his eye.

Patrick and I worked together on a number of projects, including educational programs, fundraising concerts, and a CD of contemporary Canadian liturgical music sung by our choir and published by Phoenicia, and during his last year, on the process for the transition to his successor. I'm especially grateful for his close and steady friendship over all these years: he was supportive, enthusiastic, and interested, and sympathetic whenever there was a problem, and I hope I returned the same kind of friendship to him and to his husband Rob.

Many people are writing today about him; I feel more like being quiet, and letting music speak for me. Last night I sat down at the keyboard and played some Bach preludes and fugues, and then a few of Patrick's own hymns from the Canadian Anglican hymnal. His music will live on, through all of us, and the person he was will continue to influence me all my life. Patrick, I'm so grateful to have known you. May you rest in peace. 

Comments

[Vivian Lewin]

Dear Beth--Patrick always said that if he had one impossible wish it would be to hear Bach himself playing his organ works. Who knows but that this might be granted to him... Love and sympathy to you & your fellow choir members. Vivian

[Jean]

I'm so sorry you've lost such a great friend and inspiration.
Your tribute really gives a sense of Patrick and his work.
Much love

[Beth]

Thank you very much, Vivian. You knew him for a lot longer than I did - I never heard him express that wish but I can well imagine it! Who knows...

Thank you, Jean. I'm really sad today, but it wasn't unexpected -- he's been in and out of hospital for the past year, and looked very thin and drawn the last time I saw him. A precipitous decline in less than a year since retirement. Lots of people are writing about him on FB; he touched so many of us.

[Edward Yankie]

Thank you. He did indeed touch so many of us with his genius and his kindness and humanity. We all loved him. I am very sad at this news, especially for dear Rob who is one of my favourite people in the world.

[Martine]

Triste d'apprendre le départ de votre ami. Je sais que c'est quelqu'un qui était très cher à vos yeux et avec qui vous avez passé de bons moments. Je vous envoie mes pensées chaleureuses.

[Magda Kapa]

Dear Beth, I‘m very sorry for your loss. Sometimes there is no need for many words to read a big friendship between the lines. My thoughts go out to you and the ones who mourn him.
Love, M.

[Roderick Robinson]

A friendship in music. I may just about understand your loss. In even the most detailed and repetitive practice music generates the grip that binds those involved in common purpose. Mine with V is merely that of basic student and teacher, you - at a much higher level - have shared moments of creation with Patrick. I can only dream of such intensity.

At the core is the sharing. The moment (for me) when after twenty minutes of close analysis we embark on yet another run-through and - wondrously - I sense V's acknowledgement of progress: in the freeing of the piano accompaniment, in the more pronounced swells of her soprano voice. You will have known variants of this and much much more, the joy of meeting numinous goals together with another human being. In retrospect an intellectual as well as an emotional delight that lasts and lasts. And will, I am sure, endure through the pain.