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Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Experience the Stunning Beauty of Catholic Liturgical Music

Sacred Music Colloquium XXII will be the most exciting and largest in history. It will be held at the remarkable Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, Utah
Dates: June 25-July 1, 2012.

This year we are expanding in new directions. You do not need to regard yourself as a singer or even a musician to attend. There are plenty of Gregorian choirs for first-time singers, and sessions are available for those who opt not to sing in a polyphonic choirs. There will be opportunities for both professional musicians and non-musicians who are just interested in the well-being of music at liturgy.
The venue of the Cathedral in Salt Lake is beautiful beyond description. Historically significant as well as aesthetically magnificent, the Cathedral of the Madeleine ranks among the finest locations ever made available for the Sacred Music Colloquium, which has grown in size in scope every year for six years.

The year 2012 promises to be the grandest ever with new opportunities for learning, singing, listening, and interacting with the best minds and musicians in the Catholic world today. The Cathedral Choir School has been wonderfully accommodating and opened up the full use of its facilities for the Colloquium.

You will have the opportunity to see how the Choir School functions, experience the amazing acoustic of the Cathedral, study under the best conductors and intellectuals in the entire Catholic music world, and form new friendships that you will value for years to come.

The primary focus of the Colloquium is instruction and experience in chant and the Catholic sacred music tradition, participation in chant choirs, daily and nightly lectures and performances and daily celebrations of liturgies in both English and Latin. You are there not merely as an attendee but as an integral part of the greatest music you will ever experience. It will will touch your heart and thrill your artistic imagination.

Attendance is open to anyone interested in improving the quality of music in Catholic worship. Professional musicians will appreciate the rigor, while enthusiastic volunteer singers and beginners new to the chant tradition will enjoy the opportunity to study under an expert faculty. Those who choose not to sing at all but merely want to learn will find a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to absorb the full ethos of a world of the best liturgical music.

Do you want to make this trip your family vacation? There are so many things so see and do in the Salt Lake City area.

Once registered, there is no required sign up for individual choirs, scholas, or breakout sessions. Attend as suits your needs.

SOME COLLOQUIUM HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Extensive training in Gregorian chant under a diverse and world-class faculty, with choices of a chant class for beginners, and intermediate and and advanced chant classes;
  • Morning and afternoon sessions all week with lectures and workshops with the best of the best thinkers and doers in the world of Catholic music;
  • Optional choral experience with one of four large choirs singing sacred music of the masters such as Palestrina, Vierne, Bruckner, Victoria, Byrd, Tallis, Josquin, and many others;
  • Daily liturgies with careful attention to officially prescribed musical settings;
  • Experience in singing or just listening to Mass settings, motets, chants, and responses;
  • Residency in a full service hotel;
  • Two gala dinners with top lecturers and events;
  • Training in English chant from newly published works;
  • Training in vocal production and technique;
  • Conducting practicum;
  • Training for Priests in the sung Mass;
  • Pedagogy demonstrations;
  • Composers’ Forum;
  • Seminars on parish music management, integrating sung parts of the liturgy, polyphonic repertoire for beginning and more established choirs;
  • All music, including prepared packets of chant and polyphony, as part of registration.

LOCATION

Salt Lake City is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with some of the finest dining, mountainous views, and nicest people anywhere. Under the leadership of the Right Reverend Lawrence Scanlan (1843 – 1915), the first bishop of Salt Lake, the construction of The Cathedral of the Madeleine was begun in the year 1900 and completed in 1909. On August 15 of that year, the cathedral was dedicated by Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore. The architects were Carl M. Newhausen and Bernard O. Mecklenburg.The exterior of the cathedral remains substantially the same today as it was in 1909. The interior of the cathedral was largely created under the leadership of The Right Reverend Joseph S. Glass, who became Bishop of Salt Lake in 1915. A man of refined taste and strong artistic sensibility, Bishop Glass enlisted the aid of John Theodore Comes, one of the leading architects in America at the time, to undertake beautification of the original plain interior. The Comes interior, begun in 1917, was inspired in great part by the Spanish Gothic of the late Middle Ages. the colorful murals were added at that time, as was the dramatic polychrome evident throughout the building. The ornate reredos shrine of St. Mary Magdalen and the various shrines were notable features of the Comes renovation. Under the leadership of The Most Reverend William K. Weigand, who was appointed bishop of Salt Lake City in 1980, a much needed restoration of the interior, which had suffered the effects of dirt and pollution in the intervening decades, was planned and executed. The results are on full display today in breathtaking beauty.

FACULTY

  • Mary Jane Ballou, Cantorae St. Augustine
  • Wilko Brouwers, Monterverdi Choir, the Netherlands
  • Dr. Horst Buchholz, St. Louis Cathedral
  • Charles Cole, Westminster Cathedral; Brompton Oratory
  • Charles Culbreth, Chant Cafe
  • Rudy de Vos, Oakland Cathedral
  • Aristotle Esguerra, Cantemusdomino.net
  • Dr. Paul Ford, St. John Seminary; Camarillo, CA
  • Gregory Glenn, Cathedral of the Madeleine
  • David J. Hughes, St. Mary, Norwalk, CT
  • Dr. Ann Labounsky, Duquesne University
  • Dr. Mee Ae Nam, Eastern Michigan University
  • Kathleen Pluth, St. Louis Church, Alexandria, VA
  • Dr. William Mahrt, CMAA President, Stanford University
  • Dr.Jason McFarland, Assistant Editor, ICEL
  • Jeffrey Morse, St Stephen, the First Martyr Church, Sacramento, California
  • Arlene Oost-Zinner, CMAA Programs Director; St. Cecilia Schola
  • Jeffrey Ostrowski, Corpus Christi Watershed
  • Sister Marie Agatha Ozah, Ph.D., Duquesne University
  • Rev. Robert Pasley, CMAA Chaplain; Pastor, MaterEccelsiae, Berlin, NJ
  • Dr. Kurt Poterack, Christendom College
  • Jonathan Ryan, Organist; Jordan Prize Winner
  • Dr. Edward Schaefer, University of Florida
  • Dr. Susan Treacy, Ave Maria University
  • Jeffrey Tucker, Chant Cafe, CMAA Director of Publications
  • Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth, Executive Director, ICEL
  • Dr. Paul Weber, Franciscan University of Steubenville

UNDERGRADUATE OR GRADUATE CREDIT OPTIONS

The Mary Pappert School of Music at Duquesne University will be extending the option of two hours of undergraduate or graduate credit to interested Colloquium participants. Dr. Ann Labounsky, chair of Sacred Music at Duquesne University and internationally known organist, will be your faculty adviser. Registration and payment information for undergraduate or graduate credit is provided by Duquesne Universtiy and payable to Duquesne University. Summer Course Registration Sheet 2012. If you are interested in obtaining two undergraduate credits, you must first file a formal application with Duquesne University. For more details about the application process, please contact Director of Music Admissions, Troy Centofanto, at musicadmissions@duq.edu Note that registering for credit at Duquesne is supplemental to registering for the program with the CMAA through the registration process outlined below. Any questions concerning Duquesne’s policies should be directed to Mr. Steve Groves at 1.412.396.6083 or groves108@duq.edu

REGISTER NOW

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Hollywood to Regina Laudis

Wonderful story in the Telegraph

As a young starlet in 1960s Hollywood, Dolores Hart had it all. Billed as “the next Grace Kelly” for her beauty and acting talent, she had a seven-figure studio contract, roles opposite some of the industry’s biggest names and was the envy of girls everywhere for giving Elvis Presley his first on-screen kiss.

She acted alongside legends of the silver screen including Anthony Quinn, Robert Wagner and Montgomery Clift and was the top-billed star of MGM’s highest grossing film of 1962, Where the Boys Are.

She had partied at the Oscars, won the adulation of millions, fallen in love and had her wedding dress – made by a top designer – at the ready.

Then during a break from promoting her latest film in 1963, aged 24, she told her bosses at MGM Studios that she was heading to see friends in the country. They sent a limousine to drop her off at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. It turned out to be a one-way journey.

Next Sunday, nearly half a century after she gave up a life of fame, glamour and wealth to become a cloistered Benedictine nun, Mother Dolores Hart – now aged 73 and the abbey’s prioress – will return to Hollywood to soak up the thrill of celebrity one more time.


More Here

Update: Maureen Dowd covers the same topic (snarkiness warning)

Posted on by Adam Bartlett

Lumen Christi Missal – Now Taking Pre-Orders!

I mentioned this toward the end of another post the other day, but want to repeat more explicitly here that Illuminare Publications has now begun taking individual pre-orders by credit card, PayPal or check for the Lumen Christi Missal at a discounted pre-order price.

You can pre-order your copy here

Be sure to also take a look at the new Illuminare Publications website which is soon to become a thorough catechetical resource for parishes, and digital library of sacred music scores for free download, all of which will be built upon the Lumen Christi Missal, and will integrate and harmonize with it seamlessly.

The new site now contains generous and expanded sample contents, including a very compelling draft of all of the liturgies of Holy Week.

The Lumen Christi Missal is expected to ship in the Spring to Summer of 2012. You can help assist in its timely delivery by pre-ordering a copy for yourself today. I am grateful to those who have already pre-ordered one or more individual copies, and especially thank the seven “Charter Parishes” who have already pre-orderd the LCM in bulk for their parishes. Thank you for your support, and please keep this new and groundbreaking endeavor in your prayers.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Treasures in the Simple Choral Gradual

Recently, our schola at the parish sang a Requiem Mass in the ordinary form, and the music question was wide open. We chose Gregorian settings of the entrance and communion. For offertory, we relied on a resource that has become essential for our weekly work: The Simple Choral Gradual. It contains four-part settings for all the propers of the Mass for the entire year.

No matter how much I write about this book, I can’t get over the sense that it is underappreciated. Especially for these special Masses, the composer (Richard Rice) provides outstanding music that is not difficult and yet expresses a unmistakable liturgical solemnity. The offertory for the Requiem Mass was a great example of this.

A disadvantage that this book has is that there are no score-displaying youtubes of this book, unlike the Simple English Propers. If we had more recordings, I feel sure it would be more well known than it is. The fact is that this resource is something that no ordinary form schola can do without, provided the schola is interested in singing the liturgy as versus just singing something at Mass.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The USCCB’s Divine Worship on Hymns and Proper Chants

I find it extremely encouraging that the Office of Divine Worship is answering questions about music and the propers of the Mass. The questioner in this case is not correct in assuming that the practice of singing both a hymn and the proper chant is wrong. And the answer clearly states this. In any case, the very fact that this exchange is taking place at all is a very good sign. To ask the right questions on the right subjects is more than half the battle.

As relayed by the musicasacra.com/forum:

Dubium: A Major Catholic Basilica in America has the following practice: as the priest processes to the altar, they sing an opening hymn. Then, as the Bishop incenses the altar, they sing the Proper Introit in Gregorian chant. Is this practice licit?

Responsum (Feb 14, 2012 at 7:29 AM): Thank you for your question. Why would you think it illicit to sing both a hymn and the antiphon during the entrance, especially at a more solemn liturgy involving the bishop when the procession and the incensation of the altar might require more music to accompany the action? This is, in fact, the practice in many cathedrals, especially at stational masses of the bishop which include the whole presbyterate of a diocese (such as the Chrism Mass or ordinations).

Executive Director, Secretariat of Divine Worship, USCCB, 3211 4th St. NE, Washington, DC 20017

Dubium: What is the proper response to people who point out that the current GIRM does not allow this practice?

Responsum (Feb 14, 2012 at 9:58 AM): To say “the GIRM does not allow for this practice” is a bit of a stretch, because it simply gives several options for what could be sung at the entrance. It does not speak in one way or another about whether one could do both, because it speaks only to the normative practice of an entrance procession that includes priest, deacon, and other assisting ministers, and not a more elaborate entrance procession at a stational mass with the bishop and the presbyterate. The GIRM never speaks to every possible scenario that could take place.

Executive Director, Secretariat of Divine Worship, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 3211 4th St. NE, Washington, DC 20017