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Views from the Choir Loft

Opportunity to study Polyphony in San Francisco

Corpus Christi Watershed · April 23, 2018

89404 Michael Alan Anderson HE Sacred Music Symposium, held each year in Los Angeles, has taken the church music scene by storm—but this is by no means the only summer gathering worth considering.

Dr. Michael Alan Anderson, of the Eastman School of Music, who serves as artistic director of Schola Antiqua in Chicago, has asked us to alert our readers to the following:

Singing Gregorian Chant
and Renaissance Polyphony
in San Francisco

(Details)

The course will balance exposure to the genres and styles of traditional Western plainchant with the study and execution of Renaissance vocal polyphony. Sessions will center not just on performance but also on historical background, notation, and contemporary theory and practice.

In a short concert at week’s end, students will present—as an SATB choir—an unpublished sixteenth-century polyphonic Vespers, which incorporates both chant and polyphony. This course is appropriate for church music directors, choral directors, and singers wishing to gain a stronger foundation in early music. The institute takes place in San Francisco’s historic and awe-inspiring St. Dominic’s Catholic Church.

Here is an excerpt of Dr. Anderson directing his group:


Hearing a beautiful choral sound like that, there really isn’t anything more to add. As Roger Wagner said constantly: “Never apologize for your choir, because they’re as good as you are!”

Dr. Anderson is clearly a superb director.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Quick Thoughts

    Hymn by Cardinal Newman
    During the season of Septuagesima, we will be using this hymn by Cardinal Newman, which employs both Latin and English. (Readers probably know that Cardinal Newman was one of the world's experts when it comes to Lingua Latina.) The final verse contains a beautiful soprano descant. Father Louis Bouyer—famous theologian, close friend of Pope Paul VI, and architect of post-conciliar reforms—wrote thus vis-à-vis the elimination of Septuagesima: “I prefer to say nothing, or very little, about the new calendar, the handiwork of a trio of maniacs who suppressed (with no good reason) Septuagesima and the Octave of Pentecost and who scattered three quarters of the Saints higgledy-piddledy, all based on notions of their own devising!”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Introit • Candlemas (2 February)
    “Candlemas” • Our choir sang on February 2nd, and here's a live recording of the beautiful INTROIT: Suscépimus Deus. We had very little time to rehearse, but I think it has some very nice moments. I promise that by the 8th Sunday after Pentecost it will be perfect! (That Introit is repeated on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost.) We still need to improve, but we're definitely on the right track!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Simplified Antiphons • “Candlemas”
    Anyone who desires simplified antiphons (“psalm tone versions”) for 2 February, the Feast of the Purification—which is also known as “Candlemas” or the Feast of the Presentation—may freely download them. The texts of the antiphons are quite beautiful. From “Lumen Ad Revelatiónem Géntium” you can hear a live excerpt (Mp3). I'm not a fan of chant in octaves, but we had such limited time to rehearse, it seemed the best choice. After all, everyone should have an opportunity to learn “Lumen Ad Revelatiónem Géntium,” which summarizes Candlemas.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Ambrose and Prudentius took something classical and made it Christian; the revisers and their imitators took something Christian and tried to make it classical. The result may be pedantry, and sometimes perhaps poetry; but it is not piety. “Accessit Latinitas, discessit pietas.”

— Fr. Joseph Connelly (1954)

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