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Saxophonist Ray Herrmann’s productions support missionaries
By John Gleason
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Photo provided |
For musician Ray Herrmann, life on the road doesn’t want to end.
A Grammy-award winner who has performed in concert with Herbie Hancock, Santana and Bob Dylan, Herrmann is spending the summer doing one of the things he loves best: Playing with the band. In this case, the band he’s on the road with is Chicago.
Chicago kicked off a six-week U.S. tour July 24 at Red Rocks.
Just back from a European tour, Herrmann spoke to the Denver Catholic Register by telephone last week from his home in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“Denver is the first stop but we’ll be playing in California before moving across the southwest toward the east coast,” he said. “It’s a busy time.”
The concert at Red Rocks featured Chicago sharing the stage with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, an experience sax player Herrmann described as “really cool.”
“It gives the band a new perspective, we don’t get to play with a 60-piece orchestra every night,” he said, “It’s a thrill.
“The best thing about concerts,” he added, “is the audience and feeling their response—there’s nothing like it. The worst thing is the travel, especially the flying. It takes a lot of time.”
Despite the demands of the road, Herrmann finds time for other projects close to his heart. Through a music company he and his wife Theresa own called Little Lamb Music, Herrmann partnered with the Redemptorist order to produce a series of CDs featuring the music, meditations and prayers of St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori, founder of the order properly known as the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.
The CDs, or “prayer aids” as Herrmann likes to refer to them, were produced with the aim of inspiring more people to pray the rosary. Proceeds from the three volumes: “Praying the Rosary with St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori,” “Praying the Seven Sorrows of Mary with St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori” (led by EWTN’s Father Pablo Straub) and “Praying the Way of the Cross” (narrated by actor Liam Neeson) are used to support the Redemptorists’ missionary work.
“My hope is that these will help people get closer to God,” Herrmann said, “if they touch people’s souls that would make me happy.”
A religious congregation of Catholic priests and brothers founded in 1732 in Italy, today there are 5,000 Redemptorists working for the poor and abandoned in nearly every part of the world. More than 400 Redemptorist priests, brothers and students represent the Denver Province in much of the United States and in Brazil, Nigeria and Thailand.
The CDs have raised more than $50,000 in support of the order’s missions, said Bruce Crane, Denver Province communications manager.
“Right now, we have our people ministering to the poor who live along the Amazon River in Brazil,” Crane said. “They travel to remote areas to celebrate the Eucharist, hear confessions—whatever is needed to be done.”
The St. Alphonsus Liguori CDs retail for less than $20 each and are available online through www.littlelambmusic.com (where you can listen to samples as well), iTunes and amazon.com or by calling 1-888-753-0333.
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