Colloquium Friends & Chant Workshops

F YOU’VE BEEN to a CMAA Colloquium before, chances are that you have “Colloquium friends.” I certainly do. These are people whom you might not see except for those seven days each summer. Throughout the other 51 weeks of the year, you might encounter them virtually someplace in the blogosphere or on the forum, but that’s the extent of it. Still, the simple knowledge that they are out there—like-minded folks trying to think with the heart of the Church out in the trenches—lends motivation to our work for the sacred liturgy.

I was ecstatic to receive an email from one such Colloquium friend the other day. Mona Hauslik emailed to tell me about a chant workshop she has been organizing at her parish, Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Ramona, CA, where she serves as Liturgical Music Coordinator. The event is being organized together with her colleague and Music Director at the parish, Steven Holc, another Colloquium friend.

I first met Mona & Steven at Colloquium 2012 in Salt Lake City. They have attended the last three Colloquia together, and they even managed to bring their parish priest along as we gathered in Indy in 2014. They are a terrific witness of parish musicians trying to improve liturgical music at the grassroots level.

A flyer with details about the workshop is available HERE.

The upcoming workshop is entitled Adventus Dona (“The Gifts of Advent”), and it will focus on the chants of the Advent season. Presenters will include Dr. Jon Naples & Mary Ann Carr-Wilson. Jon Naples is organist and Director of Sacred Music at St. Margaret Parish in Oceanside, CA, and he has published music through CanticaNOVA and Corpus Christi Watershed. Mary Ann Carr-Wilson is the organizer of the Gregorian Chant Camp for Children at St. Anne’s in San Diego, where she is also a choir director.

Another highlight of the workshop will be a presentation on the vestments and vessels of the Eastern & Western Churches, given by the Society of Saint John Chrysostom. In addition, the Brothers of the Little Oratory will be present to sing Vespers for the First Sunday in Advent in the Extraordinary Form.

If I weren’t so far from the West coast, I would love to attend this workshop and catch up with some Colloquium friends. If you live anywhere in the San Diego/Los Angeles area, try to make it to Adventus Dona. You will certainly learn a few things, and perhaps even make a new friend!