Unitarian Universalist Church

Edwin M. Talbott Jr., who held a variety of occupations during his lifetime and was a founder of the Towson Unitarian Universalist Church, died Sunday from complications of dementia at the Edenwald retirement community in Towson. He was 86. Mr. Talbott was born in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton. He was a 1941 graduate of Polytechnic Institute and earned a degree in electrical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 1944. From 1944 until being discharged with the rank of lieutenant junior grade in 1945, he served in the Navy aboard submarines in the Atlantic Theater of operations.

If the names Francois Chauvon, Jacques Hotteterre and Marin Marais don't ring any bells, check out next weekend's "Music in the Great Hall" concert. Works by those three late-17th and early-18th century composers, along with a more familiar fellow named Johann Sebastian Bach, will be played on instruments of the period by a group called Tibiades. The ensemble -- John Moran on viola da gamba, Collin St. Marten on traverse flute, Billy Simms on theorbo -- takes its name from a collection of pieces by Chauvon published in 1717.

On December 12, 2004 FREDERICK J. AMIRAULT of Aberdeen loving husband of Ruth Amirault (nee Scholz); devoted father to Paul W. Amirault and wife Cynthia, Gary and wife Michelle, Janet I. Amirault and Alan Foote, Nancy Clifford and husband James, Jr.; dear brother to Bernard and Paul Amirault, Allan Muise and Alice Richardson; loving grandfather of Scott, Elena, Kerrie, Ryan and Kelsey Amirault, Matthew and Colleen Clifford and Sean and Justine Foote....

Music in the Great Hall, one of the region's consistently appealing concert series, opens its 2002-2003 season this weekend with a program called "Marian Hahn and Friends." Hahn, a noted member of the Peabody Institute's piano faculty and the faculty at the new Singapore Conservatory being established in collaboration with Peabody, will be joined by violinist Lucy Stoltzman, violist Maria Lambros and cellist Lisa Lancaster. The program offers a violin sonata by Mozart and piano quartets by Faure and Turina.

Thomas A. Whiles, an artist and former oil company geologist, died of spinal melanoma Wednesday at his Towson home. He was 58. Mr. Whiles was born in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in Midland, Texas. In 1969, he earned a bachelor's degree in music from North Texas State University in Denton. During the 1980s, he earned a bachelor's degree in earth geology, and in the 1990s, a bachelor's degree in mathematics, both from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa. In the 1970s, Mr. Whiles began working in the drafting department of Conoco Oil Co., and in the early 1980s took a similar post at Union Texas Petroleum.

Annapolis minister author of two books on faith, Unitarianism Having two books published simultaneously may seem quite an accomplishment, but their author - the Rev. Fredric John Muir, parish minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis - says it was more of an accident. The paperbound books, one looking at religious vocabulary through liberal eyes and the other on the Unitarian church in the Philippines, were planned for publication a year and half apart. But the first, "Heretics' Faith," was eaten by his computer - "erased," he said, leaving him faced with rewriting the entire volume.

A plain banner imprinted with a brief prayer hangs at the front of Cedarhurst Unitarian Universalist Church. The words, an "amen" repeated at the end of each service, embody the spirit and camaraderie of worship.From you I receive To you I give Together we share And by this we live The first Unitarian Universalist church to open in Carroll County meets in what used to be the Congoleum Corp. employees' club house, just off Route 140 in Finksburg. Members have signed a two-year lease, with an option to buy the building.

The Rev. William L. Barnett, minister emeritus of Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, died Nov. 19 of heart failure at his Severna Park residence. He was 84.Mr. Barnett was a journalist for the Herald Tribune in Paris and HAVAS News Agency in New York, and later was an advertising executive for Packard automobiles and an antiquarian bookseller. He abandoned his successful business career to become a minister."He really had a great skill and calling, and a deep desire to help people," said his wife of 38 years, the former Ethel Gandy.

"How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, like softest music to attending ears," says Romeo in Act II of Shakespeare's ultimate love tragedy. That silver sweetness will reverberate in the lofty space of Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis this weekend when coloratura soprano Kathleen Kinhan, tenor Vincent Tulli Chambers and baritone Joseph Specter visit the church for a program of vocal music, "Love Songs Through the Ages." "Music in general touches people on a visceral level," says Tulli Chambers, who has sung with New York's Dicapo, Amato and Regina opera companies.

Sisters establishing 'sister' cityA delegation sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy Baltimore Regional Community is scheduled to return Saturday from a weeklong trip to El Salvador, where members helped develop a medicinal herb garden and a building to dry and package herbs.The delegation's eight members are establishing a "sister city" relationship between the Sisters of Mercy and the village of Calle Real outside of the capital, San Salvador.In 1990, the Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador provided start-up money for the herbal garden, uniting native knowledge of herbs with the scientific study of herbal medicine at the National University of El Salvador.