Category: Events

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Kalamazoo Workshop on English Chant, June 4, 2011

This workshop has been postponed for a later date.

A Workshop in English Chant in the Third Edition of the Roman Missal
With Jeffrey Tucker and Arlene Oost-Zinner
Saturday; June 4, 2011
Saint Mary’s Church
939 Charlotte
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49048

Is the music at your parish the best it can be? The promulgation of the 3rd edition of the Roman Missal can mean dramatic change for a parish music program. It can be a new beginning. Whatever the status quo in your parish, the future can be one in which the music is intimately connected to the liturgy. To make that possible, the celebrant, the people, and the schola must discover how to “sing a new song.”

In practice this means a shift away from singing only hymns and common Mass parts. Instead, chanting the propers of the Mass can take on a primary role. This is the new emphasis of many Church officials and a great hope of those who have labored so hard for this new and beautiful translation. The normative ideal is Gregorian chant, as the Second Vatican Council said, but an excellent step is to sing chant in English.

Chant in English was something that began to make headway in the early 1960s in the Catholic world but was then swept away with the experimentation of the late 1960s. Today, there is new enthusiasm for English chant such as we find in the new translation of the Missal. Many composers are hard at work writing English settings.

This one-day event will be the first in our times that seriously focuses on English chant as part of a broad transition in parish life. We’ll concentrate on the Missal chants, including seasonal chants, learning them as a foundation of parish life. Among these will be the Creed and the Our Father, with the new settings as found in the new Missal.

We will also cover new approaches to singing the propers of the Mass in English, starting with the Entrance, Offertory, and Communion chants. We will also take a new look at the Psalm singing between the readings, with approaches that will make them more beautiful and solemn.

The workshop will be practical, showing how every parish can have beautiful music that is part of ritual – an approach that will revivify parish life with a new love of solemnity and tradition. The presenters will also show you how to make all this happen without spending vast amounts of money on resources or new staff. The goal is to provide an upgrade in the music program of your parish, to coincide with the release of the new translation in Advent 2011.

Singing the Mass is a great way for the congregation and the schola to learn the new text. And if the new Missal can be presented in a liturgical framework that emphasizes prayer and solemnity, the Missal is more likely to be learned and embraced by this generation of Catholics, who can grow to know and love it more readily.

Who is this for?

  • Existing singers in Catholic parishes
  • People who have never sung in Catholic parishes but have an interest in the issue
  • Priests who worry about Missal implementation
  • Music professionals who want to learn about the Roman Rite
  • Directors of religious education who have some liturgical responsibilities
  • Deacons who need to understand singing as part of liturgy
  • Laypeople interested in the new translation and its role in Catholic life

The Workshop will begin at 9AM with registrations, and the participants will sing at the 4.15 anticipated Sunday Mass. Lunch will be provided at no cost (but donations accepted).

Please RSVP by THURSDAY; June 1st. The workshop fee is $25.

“The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”—Sacrosanctum Concilium; #116; Vatican Council II.

Jeffrey Tucker is polyphony director of the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum in Auburn, Alabama, and managing editor of Sacred Music. Arlene Oost-Zinner is the chant director of the St. Cecilia Schola and a faculty member of the Sacred Music Colloquium sponsored by the Church Music Association of America.

10:00-10;30 Introduction
10:30-11:45 Missal Chants
12:00 Lunch is provided
1:00-2:00 Introduction to the Propers
2:00-3:00 Learning the Propers
4:30 Mass

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

London Gregorian Workshop in May (with Dom Yves-Marie Lelièvre)

This is May 5-8, 2011, at St. James’s Catholic Church, London

Gregorian Chant Workshop
Instructor:  Dom Yves-Marie Lelièvre
Choirmaster, Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Solesmes, France
St. James’s Roman Catholic Church Spanish Place
22 George Street
London  W1U 3QY
5-8 May 2011
There are separate sessions for advanced singers (e.g., Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge) and the volunteer schola members (e.g., St. James’s and St. Mary Magdalen).
Please review the schedule and contact Candy Bartoldus (cbartold@gmu.edu ; mobile 0754 010 8204) to register for all or part of the workshop.
Advanced singers are invited, especially to sing the daily scheduled Liturgy of Hours and the Propers at the 6 PM Mass on 7 May.  
Voluntary donations to cover costs (5 Pounds) are welcome.
Thursday – 5 May
2-3.40 pm
Lower Sacristy
Advanced singers:  Introduction to the Graduale Triplex (Part I).  An introduction the fundamental principles of neumatic notation,. Suitable for singers with little knowledge of this book. 
3.40-4 pm
Lower Sacristy
Tea
4-5 pm  
Lower Sacristy
Advanced singers:  Rehearsal of music for the 6 PM Mass on Saturday 7 May, e.g., study Propers.
5 – 6 pm
Church
Vespers – All welcome
6 pm      
Church
Parish Mass – All welcome.  Dom Yves Marie concelebrant – No music
6.30 pm
Free Time (e.g., Dinner available locally by your own arrangements)
8.00 pm
Lower Sacristy
Get organized – warm up before Compline
8.30 pm              
Church
Compline (sung by attendees)–  All welcome
Friday – 6 May
8.30 am
Church
Lauds
9 am
Church
Mass –  Dom Yves Marie celebrates Mass.   All welcome to participate and to sing ordinaries.
10 am to 12 pm
Lower Sacristy
Beginners – Singing the Liturgy of Hours  – Stan Metheny will teach this session in preparation for Compline and Vespers. 
Noon
Lower Sacristy
Sext
2-3.40 pm
Lower Sacristy
Advanced singers – Introduction to the Graduale Triplex (Part II – Dom Yves Marie – A more advanced session on Graduale Triplex, suitable for those with prior experience of its use. [Starting where Dom left off on Thursday, and including discussion of the quilisma, oriscus, etc.]
3.40-4 pm          
Lower Sacristy
Tea
4-5 pm
Lower Sacristy
Advanced singers – The new Solesmes editions of the Antiphoner.. -. An introduction to recent editorial and performing practice at Solesmes.
5.15 pm
Church
Vespers  (sung by attendees).  All welcome
6 – 7.30 pm
Free time  (e.g., 6 PM Parish Mass, Dinner)
7.30 to 8:00 pm
Lower Sacristy
Advanced singers – Questions and answers.   Discussion.   Sing more chants.
8.30 pm              
Church
Compline – (sung by attendees).   All welcome
Saturday – 7 May
8.00 am
Church
Lauds
8.30 am
Church
Mass –  Father celebrates Mass.   Anyone welcome to sing ordinaries. 
9.15 am
Social Hall
Tea
10 am to 1 pm
Social Hall
Beginners Session  I
1 – 1.15 pm
Church
Sext –  All welcome.  Advanced singers encouraged to lead
1.15– 2.30 pm
Lunch
2.30 – 4.30 pm
Social Hall
Beginners Session  II – All welcome
4.30 pm
Social Hall
Vespers – All welcome.  Advance singers encouraged to lead.
(Note:  Wedding in Church)
5 – 6 pm
Social Hall
Tea and preparation for Mass
6 pm
Church
Mass – All welcome.  Advanced and Beginners participants sing under direction of Dom Yves Marie
Sunday – 8 May
10:30 Mass  –   Dom Yves Marie celebrate Mass – All are welcome!
St James’s website, including directions:
Lower Sacristy – Enter and walk to the front of the Church.  Entrance door on left.
Social Hall –  Pass through gate to the left of the main church entrance and walk through garden to the lower entrance.
Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Laetare Vespers, Schola Cantorum of St. Matthew’s

On Sun., April 3, 2011, 4:00pm, the Schola Cantorum of St. Matthew’s Cathedral presents the Office of Vespersfor Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent. The Office will be sung entirely in Latin, in Gregorian chant enhanced with renaissance motets of Tomàs Luis de Victoria and Heinrich Schütz and a setting of Deus, Qui Illuminas –  the Prayer after Communion for Laetare Sunday – by Spanish composer Julio Domínguez. The liturgy will be presented according to the Roman Liturgia Horarum, complete with the censing of the altar during the singing of the Magnificat. Texts and translations will be provided. The annual celebration of Gregorian Vespers is one of the most beloved musical events at the Cathedral each year.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Faculty Profile: Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth

In the right sidebar of this site, there is a list of must-read articles, and among them is “Towards the Future – The Singing of the Mass” by Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth. This brilliant speech put in words what many of us had intuited for a very long time. The language is diplomatic, the message very precise, and the argument at once clever and pastoral. His message concerns the role of music at Mass, which isn’t about entertainment or showcasing but rather about giving flight to the language of prayer that is the liturgy itself.

Taken seriously, this message would amount to dramatic shift in the Sunday praxis of nearly every parish in the English-speaking world. And so this speech – which he wisely released into the commons – has become something of a model going forward as we cross into another reform with the Third Edition of the Roman Missal.

Here too, Msgr. Wadsworth has played a huge role as head of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy – and this role has been essential. He has been a great friend to people on all sides of the current liturgical divide, showing himself to be a master of the liturgical arts but also a great intellectual and diplomat as well. As an observer from the outside, it strikes me that his role has been to make possible what many people (I’m included here) thought was probably impossible. For this reason alone, he enters into the annals of Church history.

He is a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster in the United Kingdom as well as an accomplished musician. His first degree was in music (majoring in voice and piano). After graduate studies in choral conducting and piano accompaniment at Trinity College London and the Royal Academy of Music, he trained as a répétiteur with English National Opera. In 1985, he was awarded the coveted Ricordi Prize for Choral Conducting. As a singer, he has performed extensively and has recorded as a soloist with the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge under the direction of the late Dr Mary Berry, the person who, more than anyone else in the whole of the UK, served as a bridge for Gregorian chant to cross between the preconcilar and postconcilar periods.

Msgr. Wadsworth holds graduate degrees in Italian from the University of London and Theology from the Pontifical University of Maynooth. Ordained in 1990, he has had a wide range of pastoral experience in parishes, schools, universities and hospitals. A former professor of Ecclesiastical Latin and New Testament Greek at the Westminster Diocesan Seminary, he has also taught Italian at college and university level. From 1998-2009, he was full-time chaplain to Harrow School where he also collaborated on a number of performance and recording projects in choral music and music theater. His published research is in relation to Dante, Marian studies, and the history of liturgical translations in English since the Second Vatican Council.

In recent years, he has traveled extensively, directing a number of seminars for priests concentrating on the ars celebrandi in both forms of the Roman Rite. He was appointed Executive Director of ICEL in Fall 2009 and currently resides in Washington DC where the Commission’s Secretariat is based. He is in demand as a speaker and has lectured and conducted workshops on the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal both throughout the United States and in England, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Canada, France and Italy.

I should also mention that it has been during Msgr. Wadsworth tenure that ICEL has taken a new progressive direction in using technology to distribute music of the Roman Missal. All the music from the Missal is now posted online and has been for the full year leading to implementation – something that was nearly unthinkable five years ago. This is a dramatic and bold move on the part of ICEL, one that has earned ICEL praise from musicians all over the world. This giant step has prepared the way for chant to regained its first place at the liturgy, making the dreams of several generations of musicians seem realizable. For this, and for whatever role he played in taking this step, he has earned the gratitude of everyone who loves sacred music, and solemnity and beauty in liturgy.

At the Sacred Music Colloquium, he will speak on the new Missal and work with attendees on methods and approaches for implemented the musical side of the changes implied by the Missal. 

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Cantores in Ecclesia, April 17

CANTORES IN ECCLESIA PRESENTS THE CHORAL CONCERT ATTENDE DOMINE: MUSIC FOR HOLY WEEK AND LENT, SUNDAY APRIL 17, 7:00 PM, AT ST. STEPHEN’S CATHOLIC CHURCH, 1112 SE 41st AVE., PORTLAND.

Cantores in Ecclesia, Blake Applegate, director, presents the choral concert Attende Domine: Music for Holy Week and Lent. Music for this concert spans the 16- 20th centuries with sacred works by Bruckner, Byrd, Casals, Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Poulenc, Purcell, and T.L. Victoria. Highlights of the program includes Victoria’s mystical Lamentations of Jeremiah, Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsoria for Holy Saturday, the mournful Ne Irascaris by William Byrd, and the harmonically striking Four Motets for the Time of Penitence by the 20th century French composer, Francis Poulenc.

About Cantores in Ecclesia: Blake Applegate, director

Established in 1983, Cantores in Ecclesia (singers in church) specializes in Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony in the liturgical context of the Latin Mass of the Catholic Church. Cantores in Ecclesia has sung in concert and for liturgies at home and abroad, including tours to Mexico, Spain, France, England and Italy and has recorded compact discs independently and for Oregon Catholic Press. Featured in print media and on the web, with articles in BBC Music Magazine (August 1997), Brainstorm (February 2004), and The Early Music Review (2008), Cantores has established itself as a leader in liturgical performance, winning loyal supporters at home and gold medals in international competition. Now in residence at St. Stephen’s Church 1112 SE 41st Ave, Portland, Cantores sings for the Latin mass every Saturday evening. Cantores is a 501 (c) 3 organization. www.cantoresinecclesia.org

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Who: Cantores in Ecclesia, directed by Blake Applegate
What: Attende Domine: Music for Holy Week and Lent
When: Sunday, April 17, 7:00 PM
Where: St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, 1112 SE 41st Ave, Portland OR
Tickets: $20 general, $15 Students and seniors. Available at the door or in advance at
www.brownpapertickets.com or 1-800-838-3006.
Contact: Blake Applegate, 503-295-2811