The Eastman School of Music announced the tenth annual Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative (EROI) Festival that will be presented in conjunction with the 16th annual American Guild of Organists (AGO) Conference on Organ Pedagogy. The Festival, themed “Improvisation and Organ Pedagogy,” will take place November 10 through 14 in Rochester, NY.
This year’s festival will present the topic of organ improvisation through a variety of compositional techniques and styles. The conference will alternate master classes featuring students at a variety of levels, panel discussion addressing the teaching of improvisation, and sessions that will provide attendees with resource material in the pedagogy of improvisation. The scholarly portion will include panel presentations on a variety of topics.
The concerts will be heard on organs throughout the city, including several church organs and a Wurlitzer theater organ. The organists will be asked to improvise on a theme (anything from a nursery rhyme ditty to a classical work to a pop song). All of the concerts will include a Gregorian chant. The performers’ improvisations will be tailored to each individual instrument, to demonstrate the aesthetic of the style in which the organ was built.
Weber Gloria in English
The Weber Files feature a new Gloria for schola and congregation.
Tribute to Applegate
Blake Applegate, 40, was destined to become a guardian of sacred music.
In 1983, his father Dean began the Portland liturgical choir Cantores in Ecclesia. Young Blake would sit outside the rehearsal room and listen to Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian chant issuing forth, thrilling him.
After years of singing and then assisting his father as conductor, the younger Applegate is now director of Cantores. The choir, which has won medals in Europe, sings for 7:30 p.m. Mass every Saturday at St. Stephen Church in Portland.
Years in, the task has not lost its appeal.“I have the music in my blood,” Applegate says.
After 25 years, the father stepped down and it seemed natural for the son to step up.
“It’s kind of a humbling role to assume,” says Applegate. “My father formed my musical identity. I just knew that keeping the tradition going was important.”
ChantCafe Interviews Chris Mueller
We had a slight connection problem so be patient with the audio. It was still valuable enough to post. In any case, it was a thrill to get to know Chris and his work. His website is Benesonarium
Where the Vatican Stands on Liturgy and the Extraordinary Form
Sale on Hayburn Masterpiece
For 2000 years, the Popes have taught consistently on Sacred Music. Here is the book that documents everything, point by point. There are documents here that have been before appeared in English. Papal Legislation Concerning Music is a book that every Catholic musician must own. And Roman Catholic Books is seriously discounting this amazing work – and this publisher is also responsible for rescuing the book from obscurity.
On a person note, this was the book that turned everything around for me. It is absolutely amazing.
The Beautiful Freedom of Chant
I was presenting a seminar on chant last evening for some Catholic musicians and, near the end, a hand went up and said something like this following.
All evening long you have been singing various parts of chant. I don’t understand how it is that chant people just start singing on any note. There’s no piano, no pitchpipe, no keyboard or recording. You just start singing and then the music comes out. How do you do that? Is it perfect pitch? How do you know where to begin?
This is the sort of question only a trained musician would ask. For anyone else, the question probably doesn’t make any sense. I mean, if you are going to sing “Happy Birthday” you just start singing, right? Well, the trained musician is puzzled at how you can pick up a piece of music and just start singing it without knowing what note to start on.
The answer speaks to the remarkable flexibility of chant notation. It actually doesn’t matter where you start. All that matters is that you keep the relationship between the notes correct. There are only two possible ways that one note can be related to another note: whole step or half step. All music consists of combinations of those two things. The starting place doesn’t matter at all so long as you preserve those relationships.
This is not obvious at all from the way we conceive of music today: this is a C, this is a B, this is an Eb and so on. This is not the case with chant. It can start on a pitch that is best for the human voice. To sing a chant you only need to start singing.
As with many aspects of chant, the truth is much simpler than the perception. This is why sometimes people with no training in modern music make better chanters than people with years of training. Without training, you have nothing to unlearn, which is a huge advantage.