There are still spots left at the Winter Chant Intensive 2012, Houston, TX, January, 4-6, 2012.
Chant workshop with one of the greats
Wassim Sarweh is one of the most creative and innovative directors of chant in North America. If you live anywhere near Detroit, Michigan, his workshop in Ann Arbor on January 7th 2012 should not be missed. You can see the entire website devoted this here. This is going to be great.
St. Louis Conference on Chant
The 2012 Musica Sacra Saint Louis Conference will be held Thursday, February 16 through Saturday, February 18 at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. The 2012 Conference will be presented by the Musica Sacra Saint Louis Conference Committee in conjunction with the Cathedral’s Office of Sacred Music and the Saint Louis Chapter of NPM. One highlight of the conference will be the opportunity to sing for the 5:00 pm Saturday Mass at the Cathedral.
Gregorian Chant and More Workshop
St. Benedict Church in Richmond, Virginia, will be sponsoring The Gregorian Chant and More Workshop on Nov.11-12, 2011.
The workshop will feature Fr. Robert A. Skeris, Director, Centre for Ward Method Studies at The Catholic University of America. Sessions will alternate singing Gregorian Chant with lectures on Sacred Music. All are welcome, from novices to experienced singers. The workshop will conclude with a Missa Cantata. All sessions will be held in Saint Anselm Hall at St. Benedict Parochial School. The workshop is free for St. Benedict Church members, however you must register. Registration includes lunch on Saturday as well as a copy of the Liber Cantualis, the book used for the workshop. For non-St. Benedict Church members, the fee is a modest $5 to cover lunch expenses. The Liber Cantualis will be available for purchase at the workshop. To register, or for more information, please email your contact information to jdorn@saintbenedictparish.org or ccrafton@saintbenedictschool.org. You may also mail your contact information and payment to St. Benedict Church Office, attn: Chant Workshop 206 North Belmont Avenue Richmond, Virginia 23221.
Tournemire Conference in February
A conference exploring Charles Tournemire’s landmark L’Orgue Mystique on February 1-3, 2012 takes place on the campus of Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale and at the Church of the Epiphany in South Miami. The conference seeks to explore the aesthetic, liturgical, and compositional principles of L’Orgue Mystique, the implications of the work for modern compositions inspired by Gregorian chant, and the role of modern compositions and the organ in the Catholic liturgy.
Conference highlights include:
– Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, celebrated by His Excellency, Thomas G. Wenski, Archbishop of Miami. Musical highlights include Tournemire’s office from L’Orgue Mystique for the day (Purificatio B. Mariæ Virginis), a Missa Brevis by Zachary Wadsworth, and a commissioned motet by Dr. Paul Weber.
– Opening and Closing Recitals by Rudy de Vos (Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland, CA) and TBA
– An entire day of recitals featuring repertoire ranging from Naji Hakim and original compositions and improvisations by conference artists to the works of Tournemire, Franck and Langlais.
– The keynote lecture entitled “The Composer as Textual Commentator: Music and Language in Tournemire‘s Symbolist Method” will be given by Dr. Stephen Schloesser, S.J. Schloesser is an Associate Professor of History at Loyola University in Chicago and the author of Jazz Age Catholicism with its noted chapter on Tournemire. He is currently working on a book about Messiaen.
– Conference sessions will explore the shape of the Catholic liturgy and of L’Orgue Mystique, harmonic, improvisation and performance practice as it relates to L’Orgue Mystique, as well as teacher and student relationships to Tournemire.
All conference events at the Church of the Epiphany are free and open to the public, though a free-will donation will be accepted at the door. However, in order to attend all of the conference events, including the events at NSU, registration is required. The deadline for conference registration and payment ($75) is Monday, January 3, 2012. The registration fee is non-refundable. Only complete registrations will be available; no 1-day or partial registrations are available. Advance registration is required; no on-site registration is available.
How To Learn Chant (Houston, Jan 4-6, 2012)
We live in a culture of instant everything. We get a new cellphone and expect it to work for us immediately and without reading the instructions. We get travel the world instantly in a mall food court: choosing between Indian, Chinese, Tex-Mex, Italian, or anything else. We scroll through our MP3s and listen to any and every style: rap, rock, country, opera, or chant. All things must be plug-and-play or they are not worth having. If something is boring, we multi-task.
But real learning takes time, and it is getting harder and harder for us to mentally commit to giving that. What if you still feeling a burning passion to learn something new? You have to make the effort, give the time, pay the fee – but consider it an investment. Hardly anything is really worth having it is costs you no time, no money, no effort. Things that truly makes a difference in this world and in our lives require something of us first.
What about singing at liturgy? Many people suppose that if you have a pretty voice, there is nothing else to learn. You just need a mic and a tune. But this is far from the case. The job of providing music at Mass or any Catholic liturgy is a substantial undertaking. You need to understand the Roman Rite. You need to learn to sing without accompaniment. You need to be able to make your way around the Church’s own music, which is Gregorian Chant above all else.
To be a singer at liturgy requires these things. The benefit of gaining these skills is that you now have a gift that you can give to the thing you love: the beautiful expression of the faith through its liturgical art. And now is the time. The Church desperately needs singers as never before. The talent pool has shrunk over the years, but now there is a renewed push to make the music right again. The call is for all people who are able to begin the training, to approach and eventually master the material, and to become a valuable asset to the parish and to the faith. Then you also enter into a proud heritage that dates back to the earliest years of Christianity: you become a singer for the Christian liturgy.
Can you give three days? It will change your life and change your parish.
Presenting the 2012 Winter Chant Intensive at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston, Texas. January 4-6, 2012. Sponsored by CMAA Houston.
The Winter Chant Intensive is intended for beginning and continuing students and all who love and appreciate the central role that chant plays as the prayerful song of the Roman Rite – not only at cathedrals and Basilicas but also in every parish. The conference will both train and inspire toward the goal of continuing the renaissance of sacred music in our time, both in the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Mass.
The Chant Intensive lives up to its name: though no previous experience with chant is required, beginners and intermediate chanters should be prepared for full immersion from the get go. You will learn or review how to read and fully navigate all aspects of traditional Gregorian notation (square notes). The course will also address correct Latin pronunciation, the sound and mystery of the eight Church modes; Psalm tones and their application; questions concerning the rhythm of plainsong, and more.
The course will be offered in two sections, chant for men, taught by Jeffrey Ostrowski, and chant for women, with instructor Arlene Oost-Zinner. Classes will begin at 1:00pm on Wednesday, January 4, and conclude with a 4:00pm chanted Mass in the Ordinary Form on the Solemnity of the Epiphany, January 6th.
Jeffrey Mark Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004), where he also did graduate work in Musicology. A pianist and composer, Mr. Ostrowski was elected President of Corpus Christi Watershed in February of 2011. His scholarship has focused on the historical performance of plainsong and polyphony of the High Renaissance, resulting in several early music CDs and an internationally broadcast television documentary.
Arlene Oost-Zinner is conductor of the chant schola at St. Michaels Catholic Church in Auburn, Alabama, composer of the popular English Responsorial Psalms, and director of programs for the Church Music Association of America. She has taught chant at all levels for the CMAA’s Sacred Music Colloquium and at workshops around the country, and has trained under several chant masters in a variety of traditions of thought and practice. She is also an accomplished pianist and translator, and has written for the Catholic Answer, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Inside Catholic, among other places.
Tuition is $170 for all sessions and materials, including a copy of the Parish Book of Chant, compiled and edited by Richard Rice, as well as coffee breaks and lunch on Thursday and Friday. You will receive all course materials upon arrival. Class will be held in the seminary’s Bishop Nold Education Center. Mass on Friday will be in the chapel.
Missal Chant Workshop, New York
THE CHURCH OF SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA
THE NEW ROMAN MISSAL AND GREGORIAN CHANT –
JOIN FR. GABRIEL O’DONNELL, O.P. AND FR. COLUMBA KELLY, O.S.B., FOR A TWO-DAY SEMINAR HOSTED BY THE SIENA FORUM FOR FAITH AND CULTURE ON 7-8 OCTOBER 2011
Contact: Camille St. James
215-715-3896
camille.siena@gmail.comNEW YORK, NY — Fr. Gabriel O’Donnell, O.P. and Fr. Columba Kelly, O.S.B., will present a seminar, We Lift Up Our Hearts: The Roman Missal and Its Chant on 7 October, followed on 8 October with a Master Chant Workshop led by Fr. Columba Kelly, O.S.B., both events will be held at The Church of Saint Catherine of Siena, 411 E. 68th Street, New York, NY 10065.
Father Gabriel O’Donnell is a spiritual master and a natural and enthusiastic teacher. Father O’ Donnell will bring both of these gifts together as he demonstrates for us the real purpose of the Liturgy: praise of the Triune God and experiencing here on earth what we hope to enjoy forever in Heaven. In his talk, Heaven Wedded to Earth: The Importance of the Roman Missal and Its Implementation, Father O’Donnell will show his listeners what the Third Edition of the Roman Missal will accomplish and how very important it is for all of the faithful to embrace the new Missal with thought, prayer, understanding and without reservation.
Fr. Columba Kelly, O.S.B. shares his expertise in his talk, Liturgical Chant As An Icon In Sound: God Speaks and We Respond. He will discuss how the Church has always been clear about the importance of Gregorian Chant. Both Musicam Sacram of the Second Vatican Council, and more recently Sing to the Lord (USCCB, 2007) speak of the pride of place which is to be given to Gregorian Chant and to its unique suitability for the Liturgy.
“As a Dominican Parish, the Church of Saint Catherine of Siena places the prayerful and reverent celebration of the Church’s Liturgy as its primary mission. Music is an essential part of that prayerfulness, and there is no more prayerful music for the Liturgy than Gregorian Chant,” said Father Jordan Kelly, O.P., Pastor of Saint Catherine’s. “To welcome to Saint Catherine’s Father Gabriel O’Donnell and Father Columba Kelly, is a great privilege. Both priests are highly respected experts and men of prayer. Both their prayer and their expertise will help us understand the theology of the new translation of the Roman Missal and guide us to not merely ‘sing at Mass,’ but ‘to sing the Mass,’” said Father Jordan.
Registration is required by 30 September
Where: St. Dominic’s Hall
The Church of Saint Catherine
411 E. 68th Street, NY, NY 10065
Cost: Event is $30 for either session or $50 for both.
Cost covers lunch and materials.
Reservations and payment in advance by 30 September
Please make checks payable to: The Church of St. Catherine of Siena.
Contact sienafaith@gmail.com or call 212-988-8300×182
For more information contact:
Paul Zalonski
212-988-8300 x182
sienafaith@gmail.com