Showing posts with label Trevor Stewart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trevor Stewart. Show all posts

Friday, March 3, 2023

‘Huge investment preserves venerable Masonic hall’

    
Historic England photo
The southeast of the lodge room of Phoenix Hall, Sunderland.

In England, a massive cash infusion preserves a Masonic hall that has been in use almost 240 years.

Sunderland Echo reported last Friday on the success to keep one of that city’s two oldest buildings intact and operational for today and tomorrow thanks to a preservation grant. Click here for the story and to see a video montage of the dazzling interior.

Historic England photo
Facade of the building on Queen Street East.

This isn’t any old lodge building. Constructed in 1784-85, Phoenix Hall, on Queen Street East, actually is England’s oldest building made for, and still in, Masonic use. It is home to Phoenix Lodge 94 and a few other groups (and not to be confused with Wearside Masonic Temple, also in Sunderland).

While I’ve never been there, I have followed news of the hall for nearly twenty years, ever since I first met Trevor Stewart on his Prestonian Lecture tour of 2004. He presented me this framed rendering of Phoenix Hall:


If I remember right, Trevor was raising funds to help save the historic site.

Click here for a BBC story from last April. And here for some background from Historic England. 
     

Friday, September 19, 2014

‘A Scots Lodge in England’

     
RW Trevor Stewart presenting the 2011
Wendell K. Walker Lecture at The Players.
With results of Scotland’s plebiscite expected momentarily, and having just gotten home from The Old Lodge, the Wendell K. Walker Lecture of 2011 is an apt choice for today’s Flashback Friday. None other than RW Bro. Trevor Stewart was chosen to present the lecture to Independent Royal Arch Lodge No. 2, highlighting a great evening at The Players. I just wish I could remember what he said.

The lecture is an annual tradition, and this one was part of the 250th anniversary celebration of “Old Number 2.” It is named for a notable figure in the world of Masonic learning. MW Bro. Walker was one of the forces who made the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library the world renowned institution we know today, and who helped launch The American Lodge of Research in 1931. And what better lecturer to bring to the podium than Trevor? The then Right Worshipful Master of Sir Robert Moray Lodge No. 1641 in Edinburgh is no stranger to the First Manhattan District. He came, as he phrased it, “to make announcements of small discoveries that I have made that make a contribution.”

Unfortunately, that quotation is the extent of my notes from the night of March 24, 2011 to have survived to this day, and I have that little notebook page thanks only to a phone number on the back, although I don’t know now whose number it is. So I apologize for this anti-climactic conclusion, but all I remember for certain is that Trevor told us how Robert Moray’s initiation into Freemasonry not only predates Elias Ashmole’s by almost six years, but also that the event bears the bizarre significance of it being the work of a Scottish military Masonic lodge at labor on English soil at Newcastle, while the Scottish army was besieging that city. There were other very odd circumstances at work, but I cannot remember with any accuracy what Trevor shared with us. That’s no reflection on Trevor’s research or delivery, of course, but simply is my own failing. (Trevor, if you happen to see this and care to e-mail me your lecture, I’d love to share its salient details here.)

So, on that disappointing note, have a nice weekend. Oh, the 2015 Wendell K. Walker Memorial Lecture is scheduled for Thursday, March 19. Details TBA.


The other memorable event that evening was the arrival of New York's Bravest, prompted by the accidental triggering of the establishment's fire alarm. Sadly, The Players had to kick us out and lock up for the night, by order of the Fire Marshal. There's Trevor in the foreground, trying, I think, to use his considerable powers of persuasion to keep the party going.
     

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

‘Prestonian Lecture 2015’

     
The United Grand Lodge of England has announced the Prestonian Lecture for 2015, titled “Wherever Dispersed: The Traveling Mason,” to be presented by Bro. Roger Burt of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, among other Masonic affiliations.

Read and download the paper here.

Roger Burt, Ph.D. enjoyed a lengthy academic career at the University of Exeter, where he is an Emeritus Professor, studying and teaching the effects of the Industrial Revolution on society. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Geological Society, and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. In Freemasonry, Burt is a Past Master of Vectis Lodge No. 3075 in West Kent; a Past Master of Quatuor Coronati; a Royal Arch Mason; and an Honorary Professor in what was the Center for Research into Freemasonry at the University of Sheffield.



Magpie file photo
Front: Trevor Stewart and Roger Burt. Rear: John Acaster and Peter Currie
at Alpha Lodge No. 116, December 12, 2007.


A Prestonian Lecturer is appointed annually by UGLE to promote education among the brethren in the jurisdiction. By tradition, the lecturer travels about England presenting his work, and raising funds for a charity of his choice. In more recent years, it has become common for Prestonian Lecturers to travel abroad, with a number of them accepting speaking engagements in New Jersey and elsewhere in America. I shot this photo of Bro. Trevor Stewart (Prestonian Lecturer 2004) and Bro. Burt December 12, 2007 at Alpha Lodge No. 116 in East Orange.

Additionally, the Norman Spencer Prize for 2014 has been awarded to Bro Michael Karn of Temple of Athene Lodge No. 9541 in Middlesex, England for his paper “English Freemasonry During the Great War,” which presented the effects of the First World War on English Masonic lodges. The Spencer Prize is QC2076’s only honor named for a person; Norman Spencer served as Master of the lodge in 1959-60. In 1970, two years after Spencer’s death, the lodge instituted this tradition of honoring scholarly achievement in this way. He was a veteran of the First World War, having served in Egypt and France, making this year’s prize-winning paper an apt choice.

My thanks to The Canberra Curmudgeon, Bro. Neil Wynes Morse, for this news from England.

In closing, let us pray and send healing energies to Bro. Trevor Stewart, who is facing a daunting health challenge at this time. My brother, you are in my thoughts often, and I wish there were something I could do to spare you this trial. I hope to sit in lodge with you again soon.
     

Saturday, May 17, 2014

‘A Saturday Satie memory’

     
For some reason—I don’t know why, and I’m not necessarily proud of it—many of my earliest memories are of things seen on television. Bill Jorgensen with that day’s Vietnam body count on the Ten O’Clock News. Nixon’s resignation speech. Munich. A snippet of some cartoon showing anthropomorphized vegetables (e.g. an ill-tempered tomato) splashing down inside a stomach, or maybe a garbage can, and bickering among themselves about it.
One day at age three or four—definitely before kindergarten—I squeezed in a full morning of Sesame Street and other such programming before it was time for a nap. I abandoned the television in the master bedroom, but left it turned on, and walked a straight line of no more than twenty feet to my bed. Sacking out for a while and still able to hear the TV, I held still as haunting music reached my ears. A melody so laden with pathos that it made me afraid and sad. My eyes began tearing. I listened for maybe a minute more, feeling very uneasy, before venturing back to my parents’ room to see whatever trouble the program was. It showed wild animals, in slow motion, running through the grass and trees of some jungle-like setting. Which animals I do not remember; the music stayed with me for life.


Erik Satie
It was Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, as I would learn some 35 years later, in an arrangement—if I really can recall correctly—for guitar.

Erik-Alfred-Leslie Satie, says Encyclopædia Britannica, was a French composer “whose spare, unconventional, often witty style exerted a major influence on 20th-century music, particularly in France.” If you’re a fan of John Cage, you are acquainted with the sparse composition style and unconventional harmonies that are Satie’s legacy.


My proper introduction to M. Satie came courtesy of the Rose Circle Research Foundation, specifically Trevor Stewart’s lecture at our first conference, held in April 2006. Trevor spoke at length on the Salon de la Rose + Croix movement, led by Joseph Péladan in fin de siècle Paris. In short, it was an artistic movement wed to Péladan’s self-styled Rosicrucianism, a highly idiomatic esoteric Christianity indeed. (Now that is a subject any Rosicrucian ought to explore for personal edification.) The goal of the annual art salons was to restore the expression of spirituality to the Paris art scene, which at the time was devoted almost entirely to Realism. The art itself expressed themes from mythologies, mysticism, dreams, and other such intuitive inspirations. We can tell these paintings were generations ahead of their time because today they are merely awesome. A hundred and twenty years ago they were explosive.



Armand Point's poster promoting the 1895 Salon de la Rose Croix depicts Greek mythical hero Perseus, slayer of Medusa the Gorgon, holding up decapitated Emile Zola. 


In the liner notes of the CD Musique de la Rose-Croix (LTMCD 2469), James Nice summarizes Satie’s involvement with this arts movement:


A Templar Knight Rose Croix meets
Leonardo da Vinci in this Salon poster.
For a short period Erik Satie was appointed official composer for the esoteric Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, founded in Paris by the flamboyant mystic ‘Sar’ Joséphin Péladan. The first Salon de la Rose-Croix was held in March 1892, at which Satie’s solemn Trois Sonneries de la Rose + Croix were performed for the first time. Satie also composed music for Péladan’s play Le Fils des Étoiles (Son of the Stars), as well as two preludes for a chivalric play, Le Nazaréen. Satie subsequently broke from the Order in August 1892.

It would be too wonderful a coincidence for the sublime melody that upset me in a moment of early childhood to be among the composer’s Rosicrucian works I enjoy in middle age, and that is not the case, but I am delighted—très content—to connect the pieces and enjoy them. Erik Satie was born on this date in 1866, and when today settles down enough so I may sneak off with some tobacco and a glass of whiskey, I surely will toast his memory.
     

Thursday, July 18, 2013

‘Trevor Down Under’

    
Trevor Stewart is headed back out on the road next month. Lots of air travel, actually. He e-mailed me his itinerary today for publicity purposes, I assume, but I can’t promise you anything, Trevor. The places you will visit have relatively few Magpie readers. (In five years of publishing The Magpie Mason, it has been visited by only 1,071 unique readers in Australia! Don’t they speak English down there?)

Magpie file photo
Trevor Stewart
Regardless, it looks like a truly wonderful way to spend the coming two months, even if it is the dead of winter there. Over the years, I have been very fortunate for either having attended or read a number of Trevor Stewart’s lectures, and they are exceptionally rewarding experiences. His presentations gratify the intellect, reassure the soul, and the camaraderie engendered by those in attendance is an energy all its own, which I have to assume is how these speaking engagements come about.

Without further ado, Bro. Trevor Stewart’s (if you somehow don’t know who he is, just scroll down to the Magpie Index at bottom left and click on his name) 2013 ANZMRC Lecture Tour of Australasia!

I simply have copied and pasted Trevor’s own format: Date, Locale, Lodge Name & Number, and Lecture Topic.


Monday, 5th August
Singapore
Lodge St Michael 2933 EC
A Fresh Look at Some Masonic Symbols: A Personal Perspective

Wednesday, 7th August
Kuala Lumpur
Lodge Tullibardine-in-the-East 1118 SC
TBA

Monday, 12th August
Hong Kong
Lodge Cosmopolitan 428 SC
Scottish Masonic Processions

Thursday, 15th August
Bangkok
Combined Lodges SC, EC & IC (Lodge Lane Xang)
TBA

Saturday, 17th August
Auckland (North Shore)
ANZMRC and SRIA combined
The Remarkable Contribution of Martinez de Pasqually – A Truly Original French-born Masonic Innovator

Monday, 19th August
Winchester (Canterbury)
Midland District Lodge of Research 436 NZC
A Fresh Look at Some Masonic Symbols: A Personal Perspective

Tuesday, 20th August
Dunedin
Research Lodge of Otago 161 NZC
Gentlemen Entrants in 17th Century Scottish Lodges: Motivations, Processes and Consequences

Friday, 23rd August
Invercargill
Research Lodge of Southland 415 NZC
Robert Burns: Bard, Mason, and National Treasure

Saturday, 24th August
Christchurch
Masters & Past Masters Lodge 130 NZC
Gentlemen Entrants in 17th Century Scottish Lodges: Motivations, Processes and Consequences

Saturday, 31st August
Blenheim or Nelson
Top of the South Research Lodge 470 NZC
The Remarkable Contribution of Martinez de Pasqually – A Truly Original French-born Masonic Innovator

Monday, 2nd September
Wellington
Research Lodge of Wellington 194 NZC
Those Two Pillars Again! – A Personal Re-examination of a Recurring Masonic Image

Thursday, 5th September
Inglewood (Taranaki)
Research Lodge of Taranaki Province 323 NZC
Robert Burns: Bard, Mason, and National Treasure

Friday, 6th September
Palmerston North
Research Lodge of Ruapehu 444 NZC
The Curious Case of Bro Gustav Petrie: A Model for Doing Masonic Research

Tuesday, 10th September
Hastings
Hawke’s Bay Research Lodge 305 NZC
Gentlemen Entrants in 17th Century Scottish Lodges: Motivations, Processes and Consequences

Thursday, 12th September
Tauranga
Waikato Lodge of Research 445 NZC
The Curious Case of Bro Gustav Petrie: A Model for Doing Masonic Research

Saturday, 14th September
South Auckland – Mangere
United Masters Lodge 167 & Research Chapter 93 (NZ)
Robert Burns: Bard, Mason, and National Treasure

Monday, 16th September
Cairns
WHJ Mayers Memorial Lodge of Research UGLQ
The Edinburgh Register House MS (1696) – Our Earliest Known Masonic Ritual

Wednesday, 18th September
Brisbane
Barron Barnett (Research) Lodge 146 UGLQ
Rev’d Dr. J. T. Desaguliers’s Visit to Edinburgh, 1721

Friday, 20th September
Townsville
WH Green Memorial Masonic Study Circle UGLQ
A Fresh Look at Some Masonic Symbols: A Personal Perspective

Monday, 23rd September
Sydney
Discovery Lodge of Research 971 NSW/ACT
The Edinburgh Register House MS (1696) – Our Earliest Known Masonic Ritual

Tuesday, 24th September
Canberra
Linford Lodge of Research NSW/ACT
TBA

Friday, 27th September
Melbourne
Victorian Lodge of Research 218 UGLVictoria
The Remarkable Contribution of Martinez de Pasqually – A Truly Original French-born Masonic Innovator

Monday, 30th September
Launceston
Launceston Lodge of Research 69 Tasmania
Rev’d Dr. J. T. Desaguliers’s Visit to Edinburgh, 1721

Thursday, 3rd October
Adelaide
Lodge of Friendship 1 South Australia/NT
TBA

Between Wednesday to Friday 9 – 11 October
Perth
Western Australia Lodge of Research 277 WA
TBA

Additional papers which can be chosen:


  • Enlightenment in the Alps – Shelley’s forgotten ‘Rosicrucian’ novel, St. Irvyne (1811)
  • Polymnia and the Craft – a preliminary examination of some early Scottish Poetry and the Craft
  • The HRDM – a fourth visitations to a curious eighteenth-century Masonic phenomenon from the north-east region of England

    

Sunday, February 26, 2012

‘Lunch with Trevor’


Bro. Trevor Stewart in the spotlight.


One of the changes made at Masonic Week this year was the addition of a Friday luncheon. It was hosted by the Grand Council of Knight Masons, which seems determined to liven up things a bit. Like an idiot, I slept through the Grand Council’s annual meeting at eight in the morning (in all fairness, I had just driven down to Virginia, arriving at the hotel at 6 a.m., and I was bushed), which included degree work and other “must see” attractions. But I wasn’t about to miss lunch, especially with Trevor Stewart slated to speak!


(If you haven’t attended a Grand Council of Knight Masons annual meeting at Masonic Week before, then you cannot appreciate how necessary the changes wrought at this meeting are. It was at the 2011 meeting, approximately three-quarters through an intricately detailed financial report of some 30 minutes, that I cried out “Eli, Eli lama sabachthani?”)

This luncheon was a success, as shown by the production value from start to finish. The officers entered the dining room in a formal procession, led by a bagpiper. (Knight Masonry originates in Ireland, and our degrees are dubbed “The Green Degrees.”) A talented harpist provided perfect music for ambiance. Dull formalities were minimized. Host and guest exchanged presents. And of course there’s Trevor.

He spoke on the nature and history of knighthoods, mentioning some—it probably is not possible to list them all—of the knighthoods among the many colorful titles in Freemasonry, before explaining the more general and historical purposes and meanings of various knighthoods. I didn’t take notes, but I did shoot some photos:


From left: our harpist, Past Great Chief Kevin Sample, Trevor, Cousin X, and Cousin Aaron.
Our bagpiper. (Sorry, didnt catch his name.)

The exchange of gifts: Kevin gave Trevor a beautiful fountain pen, and Trevor reciprocated with a copy of his book Looking Back, Looking Forward.

Trevor Stewart is one of the best speakers on the Masonic scene today.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

'Deadline'

  
Today is the deadline to lock in the group rate on your hotel reservations for Masonic Week 2012. In addition, next Tuesday is the deadline for reserving for the various banquets and other meals, and there are two events in particular you should attend.

The Masonic Society's Annual Feast and Forum is set for Friday, February 10 at 6 p.m. at the Alexandria Mark Hilton in Alexandria, Virginia. Our keynote speaker will be Mr. Brett McKay, who is half the married team behind the Art of Manliness, the online men's magazine that recommends the internal (values and virtues) rather than the external (the usual narcissism in men's magazines) to men today.

Brett and his wife Kate started the website in 2008, making it a source of wit and wisdom for those seeking the views and customs that "turn boys into men of substance and character." In fact, look at this recent post, and see if you recognize a Masonic message.

The Art of Manliness has grown to nearly 3 million visitors a month, more than 4 million page-views a month, and more than 100,000 daily subscribers. In addition, its online social network unites nearly 18,000 members discussing 4,000 forum topics - "a community of men and women who have a passion for reviving the lost art of manliness." And then there are the McKays' books "The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man" and the new "Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues."

Trevor Stewart
And when you're there, be sure to visit The Masonic Society's hospitality suite for "libations, sensations that stagger the mind."

And earlier that day, make sure you attend the luncheon to be hosted by the Order of Knight Masons at noon because Trevor Stewart will be our guest speaker. I don't know what his topic will be, but he is one of the best in the business, and you will not be disappointed. (And frankly, twenty bucks for lunch in that hotel is a steal.)

You'll have a great time, I hereby promise and vow, but you have to book your reservations first.
  

Monday, January 23, 2012

'Coming to Atlas-Pythagoras'

    
Coming later this winter to the Provincial Grand Lodge of Union County are two events worth your time.





Bro. Andrew also will appear at Peninsula Lodge on the evening of Thursday, March 22. Peninsula is located at 888 Avenue C (at 40th Street) in Bayonne.

A-P 10 has much more on the agenda for the year, such as RW Bro. Thomas K. Sturgeon, Past Grand Master of Pennsylvania.

Check The Magpie Mason for updates.
     

Monday, October 24, 2011

'Celts, kilts, and the Most Excellent Sample'

    
Well, it seems sleep is out of the question for the 412th consecutive night, so I may as well edit the photos I shot Thursday at the meeting of the local Knight Masons council, and if I'm going to do that, I might as well share some of them with the regrettably neglected readers of The Magpie Mason.

And I confess to an ulterior motivation: It was a great night that needs to be publicized not so much for the Who, What, When, Where, and Why, but for the How To. Freemasonry has many men who find themselves prematurely or otherwise inappropriately hired to preside. I offer the following only to suggest that all things are possible when it comes to planning a Communication or a dinner, or anything really. "Just do it," sayeth the ad campaign of the athletic supply company named for the ancient goddess of victory.

Here's the rundown on what happened: It was the Knight Masons' final meeting with David Lindez as Excellent Chief of Northern New Jersey Council No. 10. That alone is important to the story because it brought forth Celtic dancers, Scottish bagpipers, poetry, and the initiation of, I think, more than a dozen new Cousins for two councils. (We're called Cousins in Knight Masonry.) Plus the Great Chief of the United States, Most Excellent Kevin B. Sample, was in attendance. Our Council usually hosts the MEGC every year. Also present was Right Excellent Douglas Jordan, Grand Scribe. Doug was in New Jersey only three months ago as the honored guest, in his capacity as Most Venerable Grand Master of Allied Masonic Degrees of the USA, at the Harold V.B. Voorhis Ingathering, our annual statewide AMD conference. Also present was Very Excellent Matthew Dupee, Grand Senior Warden of Grand Council, who came from Pennsylvania, as did Very Excellent George Haynes, the Superintendent of that state. There even was a Cousin from Kentucky! (I think there used to be a song called 'Cousin from Kentucky.') And the V.E. Grand Sentinel was with us too, but he's a member here. Past Great Chief Thurman too. The distinguished East also included Cousin Piers Vaughan, wearing red, in his capacity as R.E. Captain of the Host of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of New York.

What I'm trying to say is this was a big night! Anyway, the pictures will tell the story.


Cousin David leads his Rampant Lion Pipe Band through a march that opened the festivities. 
The distinguished East gets settled on the dais.
Our master of ceremonies welcomes Excellent Chief David Lindez to the podium.
V.E. George Haynes, Superintendent of Pennsylvania, and V.E. Matthew Dupee Grand Senior Warden.
R.E. Doug Jordan, Grand Scribe.

John Barnes, Excellent Chief of the new Jersey Shore Council, and Piers Vaughan, Grand Captain of the Host of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of New York.
David welcomes M.E. Kevin B. Sample, Great Chief of the USA.
It's hard to convince some people, but oftentimes the best photos
are taken without the subjects' knowledge.
But there's nothing wrong with a posed picture either: Makia and Bill.
Only in Freemasonry can a father and son also be brothers and cousins! The Mario Brothers.
The ceremonies begin.
The grand officers in the East of the Council.
It is hard to say one particular portion of the evening was the best moment, but this gets my vote. At right is Rich Hammill, one of our Past Excellent Chiefs. He was surprised with an appointment by the Great Chief to the position of Very Excellent Superintendent for New Jersey.
Utterly stunned, here he receives the congratulations of his cousins. It is an honor earned and deserved. Rich labors mightily in Knight Masonry, and throughout the York Rite.
Time for the entertainment portion of the evening. The Rampant Lion Pipe Band returns.


Talented and brave performers from a dance school treat us to several Celtic folk dances.


Another attraction of the evening was the constituting of a new Knight Masons Council. Jersey Shore Council is the third in New Jersey. It will serve the central area of the state.

M.E. Sample presents the charter to inaugural Excellent Chief John Barnes, as David looks on.
The gratuitous end-of-the-night photo of all the big shots.
Actually too many of them to make for a decent photo.

Cousins, if you plan to attend Masonic Week in February, make sure you get to the meeting of our Grand Council on Friday morning. I know, I know, it's always a grueling business meeting that makes you want to kill yourself, but the 2012 meeting will be very different. New blood has been transfused into Grand Council, and things are changing. And then, at noon, there will be a luncheon hosted by Grand Council. Trevor Stewart will be our guest speaker!
    

Thursday, February 24, 2011

‘Wendell K. Walker Lecture 2011’

    
Independent Royal Arch Lodge No. 2 has announced the Annual Wendell K. Walker Lecture will take place on the evening of Thursday, March 24.


Bro. Trevor Stewart
on “Masonic Lodges in Colonial North America.”

16 Gramercy Park South
Manhattan

Cocktails at 7 p.m. in the Sargent Room (cash bar)
Dinner at eight in the Ball Room – $65 per person

Attire: Business

Open to Freemasons and their guests


Advance reservations are essential, and must be received no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, March 18. Leave a note, with your e-mail address, in the Comments Section below (which will not be published) and I’ll send you the contact information.


Bro. Trevor Stewart is a retired lecturer who was educated at Birmingham, Sheffield, Durham and Newcastle universities. His academic work specialised in 18th century English literature, and his doctorate research focused on a coterie of gentlemen Freemasons who lived in the north of England during the Enlightenment period.

Trevor has continued to give fully documented papers on various Masonic subjects in American, Belgian, French, German and Scottish lodges – at both lodge and Provincial Grand Lodge levels – as well as in many English Lodges and Royal Arch Chapters, and in London’s ancient Guildhall. He also has taught in history seminars at Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard universities, which focused on newly discovered contributions which early 18th century English Freemasons made to the development and spread of Newtonianism. In October 2007 he was invited by the Pennsylvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge to give his paper titled “A Way Forward – Some Seminar Techniques.”

Trevor contributed papers on Freemasonry in the Enlightenment period to international conferences held at the Canonbury Masonic Research Centre in London, the University of Bordeaux, and the International Conference on the History of Freemasonry in Edinburgh in both 2007 and 2009. He has published several other papers in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, the annual book of transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076; for Leicester Lodge of Research; for Hibiscus Masonic Review; and The Ashlar, the leading Masonic quarterly in Scotland. He edited the 2005 and 2006 editions of The Canonbury Papers for the Canonbury Masonic Research Centre in London. He also has edited From Across the Water, an anthology of eight past papers from AQC on North American Freemasonry in the colonial era.

In 2004, Trevor was appointed by the United Grand Lodge of England to be the Prestonian Lecturer, during which time his speaking tour brought him to the United States. He is a Past Master of three English lodges, including Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, and is currently Master of Lodge Sir Robert Moray No. 1641, a research lodge in Edinburgh. In December 2007 he was elected to Honorary Membership in both Alpha Lodge No. 116 in East Orange, and St. John’s Lodge No. 1 in New York City. He recently was elected to Honorary Membership in Cincinnati Lodge No. 3 in Morristown, and Atlas-Pythagoras Lodge No. 10 in Westfield, and he is particularly delighted to be associated so strongly with New Jersey Freemasonry. He was created a IX° (Magus) by the Masonic Rosicrucians in Washington in 2007.

Trevor has held office in all of the Orders which grace the English Masonic landscape; is a Life Member of various Scottish Orders, including the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland; has been honored with Grand Rank in the Rectified Scottish Rite in Belgium; and has achieved the 30° in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in Germany. In the SRIA, the earliest modern Rosicrucian society, he was a member of its High Council, a Chief Adept of a Province, Director-General of Studies, and an active member of its Executive Committee. He edited the SRIA Transactions of 2005.

The Players is a private club founded in 1888 by Edwin Booth, Mark Twain, William T. Sherman, and a dozen others for the “promotion of social intercourse between members of the dramatic profession and the kindred professions of literature, painting, architecture, sculpture and music, law and medicine, and the patrons of the arts.”

The Wendell K. Walker Lecture is an annual event in memory of Bro. Walker, a beloved leader in the field of Masonic education.

Independent Royal Arch Lodge No. 2 is one of the oldest fraternal and social institutions in continuous existence in the City of New York. Chartered on December 15, 1760, “Old No. 2,” as it is popularly styled, has, for two-and-a-half centuries, exerted a civilizing and fraternal influence in New York.
    

Thursday, September 16, 2010

‘One World’s two concerts’

    
In another instance of the Magpie Mason wishing he could be in two places simultaneously to enjoy a concert and a lecture, tomorrow offers the almost painful choice of attending either Atlas-Pythagoras Lodge to hear Bro. Trevor Stewart, or visiting St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church for the One World Symphony’s performance, featuring Bro. Michael Crane.


Fortunately, Trevor will speak again Saturday night at St. John’s Lodge, and Michael will perform again Sunday night at the Church of the Holy Apostles. Still I want to attend them all!

Crane is a member of Kane Lodge No. 454 of the Fourth Manhattan District. He will perform Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 4 (For the Left Hand), Op. 53. Composed in 1931 (debuted in 1956), Prokofiev dedicated this piece to pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I. The calamities and horrors of war appear to be the unifying theme of the program for these two concerts, which begin One World Symphony’s tenth anniversary season.

The other performances:

John Lennon: Imagine (1971), the world premiere of the orchestral arrangement by Andrew Struck-Marcell.

Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs (1948), the composer’s final work, musical meditations on the destruction wrought on his country during World War II.

Olivier Messiaen: From Quartet for the End of Time (1941), was composed while Messiaen was a prisoner of war, this piece was premiered in Stalag VIII-A to an audience of 5,000 POWs. This performance will be the world premiere of new orchestration by Sung Jin Hong.

Dmitri Shostakovich: Four Songs, Op. 86 (1951), was written at the request of Yevgeni Dolmatovsky for a play that needed an “aeronautical beacon,” or songs for a pilot to sing to help him navigate through the Alps. This will be the world premiere of orchestration by Eric Lemmon.

Sung Jin Hong: Eye of the Storm (for audience and symphony) (2010), another world premiere, inspired by traditional Korean drumming, pulsates with his personal experiences at the Demilitarized Zone. Commissioned by West Village Concerts.

Dates, times, and other information:

Friday, September 17 at 8 p.m.
St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church
157 Montague St. in Brooklyn Heights

Sunday, September 19 at 7 p.m.
Church of the Holy Apostles
296 Ninth Ave. (at West 28th Street) in Manhattan

Tickets:
$30 students/seniors with ID
$40 general

Proceeds will benefit One World Symphony’s Community Music Program, which enables students and parents, who otherwise would not be in a position to afford classical concerts, to obtain tickets to live performances of One World Symphony’s season.

Each concert is estimated to run an hour and 40 minutes, with an intermission.
   

Saturday, December 19, 2009

‘Into the Oriental Chair, II’



Congratulations to Bro. Mohamad Yatim, the newly installed Master of Atlas-Pythagoras Lodge No. 10 in Westfield, New Jersey.

Mohamad’s installation took place Friday night in the presence of more than 150 well wishers. Masons came from all over New Jersey, plus Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and elsewhere, I’m sure. One visiting Worshipful Master stood to praise Mohamad as one of the guys who gets it, an “education Mason,” the likes of whom we need more.

Among the visiting lecturers scheduled to appear at Atlas-Pythagoras in 2010 include RW Rashied Bey, of Cornerstone Lodge No. 37 under the MWPHGL of New York; Bro. Tim Wallace-Murphy, of Lodge Robert Burns Initiated No. 1781 in Edinburgh; W. Trevor Stewart of Quatuor Coronati 2076, et al.; W. David Lindez, of historic Alpha Lodge; and the Magpie Mason of The Magpie Mason. However, Atlas-Pythagoras’ “theme” for 2010 will be “Enlightening the Temple,” so there will be thoughtful discussion of the meaning of Masonry at most, if not all, the meetings.




The lodge is blessed with a full line of enthusiastic and talented officers, and a cadre of experienced Past Masters; all are supportive of Mohamad’s plans for the year, which is a great indication that the lodge will continue on this path in 2011 and beyond.



I was going to joke that he is singing “My Way,” but it is enough to know that W. Bro. Mohamad will set the Craft to labor his way during the coming year.