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Views from the Choir Loft

Announcing: Saint Rita Choral Academy!

Lucas Tappan · July 30, 2019

83540 sperabo N THE WAKE of my cri de coeur last week to American choir directors, asking them to push forward the musical and liturgical training of our children, it gives me great pleasure to highlight such a program opening this fall at St. Rita’s Catholic Church in Dallas, Texas. The parish’s new venture, the St. Rita Choral Academy, is the brainchild of Dr. Alfred Calabrese, one of Corpus Christi Watershed’s many great writers.

Calabrese, who holds a doctorate in choral conducting from Indiana University, took the reigns of the parish youth choir in 2014, which at that time had approximately 14 students in grades 4 through 8—a small number considering the church is the spiritual home to 3,500 families. By the end of last school year, the choir boasted an enrollment of 65 children, boys and girls, in kindergarten through the eighth grade.

    * *  PDF Download • Saint Rita Choral Academy

As currently constituted, the choir consists of three groups, the first of which is the Cherub Choir. These children in kindergarten and first grade attend a 25 minute weekly session similar to kindermusik, where they move to music, play rhythm instruments and work on unison singing.

    * *  Listen: “Adam lay ybounden” (Peter Warlock)

83542 SAINT RITA ACADEMY The second group, the Seraphim Choir, meet for an hour once per week and focus on unison repertoire, although they make the occasional foray into part-singing with wonderful little works like Praetorius’ Jubilate Deo. The Voice For Life workbooks from the Royal School of Church Music provide choristers with helpful instruction in music theory.

Beginning in the fifth grade, students graduate to the Jubilate Deo Choir. These children, all with unchanged voices, meet for an hour-and-a-half each week and focus  their efforts on more advanced repertoire in order to join the treble ranks of the church’s very fine adult choir. Two part treble repertoire as well as Adam Bartlett’s Simple English Propers are also familiar to the singers.

Each Advent the Cherub and Seraphim Choirs perform a simplified Lessons and Carols, while the Jubilate Deo and adult choirs sing the full version. Later in the month the Seraphim Choir is given the opportunity to sing alongside the Jubilate Deo and adult choirs for the Christmas Eve Mass. Dr. Calabrese was especially pleased last year when the the Jubilate Deo Choir lead the singing entirely on their own for Holy Mass on the Feast of Divine Mercy.

Enter the St. Rita Choral Academy.

83541 sperabo Beginning in the fall, the St. Rita Choral Academy will expand the scope of Calabrese’s current work by offering students a chance to augment their training via weekly music history and theory classes and private or group piano and voice instruction, all focused on developing musicianship skills and deepening the child’s knowledge of the beauty of the Catholic Church’s sacred heritage. Calabrese is join by a talented faculty who will, no doubt, offer choristers a wide variety of musical experiences.

It is my hope and prayer that more Catholic musicians take such bold steps, each of which will provide another brick toward the rebuilding of Christendom in a world more in need of it than ever. Please keep Dr. Calabrese, his colleagues and their work in your prayers and be sure to watch for great things coming from the St. Rita Choral Academy in the coming years.

LMT St. Rita Choral Academy

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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About Lucas Tappan

Dr. Lucas Tappan is a conductor and organist whose specialty is working with children. He lives in Kansas with his wife and four children.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

14 May 2022 • “Pure” Vatican Edition

As readers know, my choir has been singing from the “pure” Editio Vaticana. That is to say, the official rhythm which—technically—is the only rhythm allowed by the Church. I haven’t figured out how I want the scores to look, so in the meantime we’ve been using temporary scores that look like this. Stay tuned!

—Jeff Ostrowski
14 May 2022 • Gorgeous Book

If there is a more beautiful book than Abbat Pothier’s 1888 Processionale Monasticum, I don’t know what it might be. This gorgeous tome was today added to the Saint John Lalande Online Library. I wish I owned a physical copy.

—Jeff Ostrowski
Sound Familiar?

1 June 1579: “The chapter passes a rule that anyone ascending to the new organ without official permission shall be fined a month’s pay.”

26 October 1579: “The altar boys remain always separate and distinct from choirboys—the one group learning only plainchant and assisting at the altar, the other living with the chapel-master and studying counterpoint and polyphony as well. Father Francisco Guerrero postpones his departure for Rome and instead spends the entire year in Seville making ready for the trip. In the meantime he neglects his choirboys. On 16 November, after considerable complaint against their unruliness and ignorance, he engages an assistant, Bartolomé Farfán.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“Custom preserves many things in liturgy after their first reason has ceased.”

— Father Adrian Fortescue (writing in 1916)

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