Music: Singing Priest

A white-haired but boyish-looking priest in a knee-length clerical coat strode to the dais in the Waldorf-Astoria's Jade Room one afternoon last week, took a soldierly stance between the grand piano and a bowl of pink-and-white chrysanthemums, and faced the expectant crowd. Scotland's Roman Catholic Father Sydney MacEwan, 45, started to sing in a small voice that recalled much of the bewitching sweetness of the late John McCormack. He sang the centuries-old songs of plaintive and merry love, of the sea and of the rugged Hebrides, while mink-jacketed matrons and sober monsignori dabbed...

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