Catholic musicians gathered to blog about liturgy and life
This weekend, as part of the Colloquium, I attended the annual CMAA member meeting in Indianapolis and Janet Gorbitz announced that the next colloquium will be at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh – June 29 – July 4, 2015. Mark your calendars!
The mood has been bittersweet as we complete our final day. My apologies for the missed video yesterday, so I incorporated some clips from yesterday before playing today’s clips.
And again, if you haven’t been following Charles Cole’s photos on New Liturgical Movement, I’d highly encourage you to check them out, particularly pictures of today’s amazing requiem for deceased CMAA members.
If you’ve ever seen the film version of Carl Sagan’s “Contact,” you’ve seen two of many magnificent earthbound radio telescope installations, namely the Large Telescope in Arracebo, Puerto Rico and the Very Large Array of dish telescopes in the New Mexico desert. Jodie Foster’s character resolutely believes that “little green men” have and are trying to contact “us.” So, she and her crew relentlessly listen for frequencies that are unidentifiably “foreign” to cosmological emmissions.
I’ve had my second bout of bronchitis at a colloquium this year, but got antibiotics called in from California which I got onboard immediately. That allowed me to participate in my schola and choir for each day, amid getting some rest at other points of the day. But, during yesterday’s Mass (Latin OF) and Wednesday’s EF I purposefully sat in the very back- does that make me a real Catholic or just a conscientious PIP?- even though bronchitis isn’t contagious.
The Reverend Doctor Ed Schaefer’s schola chanted the Latin Introit from the very front of the nave on the gospel side. From the back of the church I could hardly hear them without intensive focus on my part. When I psychologically adjusted to that I heard first the men effortlessly sailing through the antiphon in a manner that would suggest an almost sotto voce vocal technique, but it really wasn’t. They sang with what Horst Buchholz says, “sing with two ears, not one mouth.” And then the more accessible treble women took over the antiphon adding the beauty of womenchant with almost sheer perfection. I had to write down, “I’m listening to angelic choirs (literally?) crossing, or permeating the noises and frequencies that reverberate through both the cosmos and our earth. AKA, “Contact.”
It was yet another revelation to me from yet another moment in a colloquium. Actuoso means that, like those telescopes, we have to have our human “operator,” our will and desire, predisposed to listen for those beatific sounds. Maybe all of them won’t be perfect or pretty or pristine, but they’re there at every Mass. And if you don’t understand what I’m saying, get thee to a colloquium.
Just one of the many, many beautiful pieces of music we are blessed to be able to hear this week here in Indianapolis.
HT Matt Williams
Day four has come and gone. I was lucky enough to be able to be able to learn how to better harmonize chant, then play the big organ as well! We also had vespers and compline. Check it out!
For you readers at home following the Chuch Music Association of America’s annual Colloquium in Indianapolis here at the Café with my videos and Mr. C’s posts, I’d encourage you to check out one of the CMAA’s other sites, New Liturgical Movement, where you can find pictures of all our liturgies to get a small taste for one of the most beautiful parts of the Colloquium. I’d encourage you to check it out every day this week for all the fantastic photos you could want from the Colloquium Masses and other liturgies!
Here’s a small selection of his photos from this week, check out New Liturgical Movement every day for more photos of our all beautiful liturgies!
And we’re into day three for the 2014 Colloquium! Another full day with organ recitals, more rehearsals, preparations for solemn vespers tomorrow afternoon, and crazy architecture professors spreading the love around for sacred architecture!
