Francisco Carbonell is the Director of Music at St. John the Evangelist in Indianapolis, where last year’s Summer Colloquium celebrated its Masses. And he’s a rising star as a young composer. Carbonell just won the Chorus Austin Young Composers competition. Here’s a YouTube of one of his compositions for your listening enjoyment:
Just a Bit of Straight-Tone Women’s Singing from the Santa Fe Desert Chorale
I’ve been a fan of this style of singing since hearing “Les Voix Mysteres” back in the 1970s. Here’s a link to a rehearsal video from the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, a professional ensemble, preparing for appearances at the ACDA in Salt Lake City earlier this year. This full-throated style is probably what most vocal music sounded like for centuries.
The world of choral music is so vast. When I explore it, sometimes I feel like St. Brendan paddling across the sea in his coracle and making remarkable discoveries.
(Apologies for not being able to connect to this more elegantly, but sometimes Blogger just confuses me.)
Extension of Regular Registration for the CMAA Summer Colloquium in Pittsburgh, June 29-July 4, 2015
As a special indulgence (not found in the Raccolta), the regular registration period for one of the summer’s best sacred music conferences has been extended. The May 15th deadline has been changed to MAY 31ST!
Join us at Duquesne University for mornings of chant instruction, breakout sessions on a smorgasbord of topics, a New Music workshop, afternoons of polyphony practice from Faure to Palestrina, as well as a class in fundamentals of chant and a beginning choir for those just dipping a toe into the waters of the polyphonic sea. Wait – I forgot about the opportunity for private organ and voice instruction. Splendid Masses in both the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms, sung by the workshops and choirs, plenary lectures, world-class faculty, fellowship with old and new friends, an opening banquet, dorm accommodations available, a multitude of food plans.
I hope to see you there. Follow this link to find out more and register: http://musicasacra.com/events/colloquium-2015-details/
So, if you’re sitting on the fence about the Colloquium, hop off and come along for 5 days of wonderful sacred music-making.
Aurora lucis rutilat
An Easter hymn by St. Ambrose
The light of dawn is reddening,The heavens’ morning praises spring,The earth exults: “The morning! Hail!”While hell’s sad dwellers groan and wail.Our King, the victor in the strife,When death was smashed apart by life,Has trampled hell triumphantlyAnd captive led captivity.The Lord, whose barricade of stoneThe soldiers kept sharp eyes uponIn vict’ry conquers through that gateAnd rises forth in pomp and state.“The Lord is risen from the dead!”The splendid angel loudly said.And hell is evermore left freeTo grumble in its misery.Be this our thought through all life’s days,Our Easter joy, our Paschal praise:The grace in which we are rebornWas won in triumph on that morn.Jesus, to You let glory rise,Who vanquished death and won the prize;With Father and the Spirit blest,Be endless ages’ praise addressed.
Trans. c. 2013 Kathleen Pluth
Where Angels Fear to Tread
As someone who produces art intended for the liturgical use of the Catholic Church, I can testify to the fact that it is a very intimidating ambition.
As Catholics, basically, we’ve already won the art contest. Any historical survey of visual or musical art makes it perfectly clear that the Church is peerless. In order to maintain “top chef” status, the Church in its art simply has to basically not ruin its own reputation.
It is worth asking whether we are currently meeting the standards that have been set over the two millennia. How is our drawing in the churches, for example? How is our sculpture? Do our churches show a concern for proportion and shape? How are we doing with verbal art, in hymnody?
And of course, how is our music?
My sense is that we’ve lost a dimension or two over the last century. For a thousand years, the visual quest involved depth: portraying the third dimension as a way for the viewer to enter into the frame.
Often enough now, and disappointingly, this third dimension is missing from liturgical visual arts. We’ve gone from paintings, which invite the viewer in, to flat cartoons.
Music, uniquely capable of providing a fourth dimension and an artistic representation of life in time, has similarly lost richness and joy. Too often, liturgical music is merely serviceable, barely imaginative, and almost entirely a matter of patching things through from one cadence to the next.
My purpose here is not to cast blame but to suggest that our devotion to God should involve the highest aspirations possible, particularly in our art, which, when excellent, has the power to make one Christian’s devotion accessible to another.
What does the present look like–and what would we like the future to bring?
Get On Board with the Colloquium Now!
We’re in the 2-week countdown for the CMAA Summer Colloquium. Regular registrations end on May 15th and after that it will cost you an extra Benjamin (aka $50) to register.
[Correction, thanks to Richard Chonak: – you can only save a Ulysses Grant! But remember – this is the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War.]
What could you do with that $50? I can think of lots of musical purposes: a chunk of your meal plan, some of the nifty CDs that you’ll find on the book table at the Colloquium, drinks for the new friends you’ll make during the rehearsals or breakout sessions,etc.
Join us! There’s no other conference that provides the variety and depth that you’ll find at the Colloquium: chant, polyphony, practical instruction, and uplifting experience, world-class faculty, and the chance to join forces with peers who cherish the liturgical patrimony of the Latin Rite. And lest I forget – the daily Masses that are so far from the “I-know-it’s-valid-but-boy,-it’s-painful-musically” world that many of us know.
Come to renew, rejoice, and restore your musicality and your spirit! And do it now!
I look forward to seeing you there.
,
Let the feast begin!
This year of Roman-American festivities in honor of Blessed, soon-to-be-Saint Junipero Serra, was kicked off today in a big way at the North American College, our American seminary in Rome.
My friend Rev. Mr. Richard Miserendino had the honor of serving as the deacon of the Holy Father’s Mass. Isn’t that wonderful?
Looking forward to a blessed year!
Update: