NE OF THE GOOD things about our present age is the explosion of interest in sacred music. Consider the widespread viewership of Corpus Christi Watershed, a web archive which represents an incalculable investment of time and energy from the indefatigable Jeff Ostrowski: collecting musical resources, writing columns, and soliciting reflections from many writers (most of whom are also excellent musicians). Just last week I was pleased to become aware of the website of REBECCA DE LA TORRE, one of our new contributors, who published her inaugural article. I’m told we also have several more ‘incoming’ contributors, which is exciting. But even with as much as CCW has contributed to the church music scene—and it’s a lot—there are still many others working online to deepen our understanding of sacred music.
In a show of “web-ecumenism,” I’d like to mention five today:
The Benedict XVI Institute, Archbishop Cordileone’s foundation to foster beauty in liturgy and sacred art, has just released the first issue of a monthly newsletter called Cantate. This online & email publication features three writers in rotation: Florida-based conductor Kevin Faulkner; Ohio composer Mark Nowakowski, who also writes under his own name here; and this author. (If you aren’t yet aware of San Francisco’s Benedict XVI Institute, they have an elegant website.)
Each newsletter has three principal goals:
—to showcase a current composer writing worthy liturgical music;
—to highlight a conductor who runs or is building a substantial program of sacred music at a parish;
—to offer tips for church music conductors, to help them achieve greater mastery in their hallowed labors.
The first newsletter features composer Jeffrey Quick (also from Ohio) and Florida conductor Ashley Adams. Both have a lot to say about the beauty and necessity of sacred music. Sign up here on the SubStack platform — it’s free! — and join us each month for thoughtful and insightful commentary.
Italian composer and conductor Massimo Scapin, the organist and music director at Saint John Cantius in Chicago, writes regularly for the OnePeterFive website, with a new article coming out every few weeks or so. He writes about all sorts of interesting people, including composers, popes, and saints, most of whom have made contributions to the world of sacred music — not always liturgical music, but sacred nonetheless; sometimes directly, while in other cases a bit more tangentially. Learn new things about familiar composers like Byrd, Schütz, Beethoven, and Milhaud. Become acquainted with unfamiliar figures like hymn-writer Saint Nerses, sculptor Antonio Canova, and the Mozarabic chant of Saint Isidore. Massimo’s topics are often surprising and always fascinating. His breadth of curiosity and scholarship redound to our benefit!
Another Italian composer and conductor is Aurelio Porfiri, who lives and works in Rome. He has a Substack newsletter called Cantus (subscribe here) that arrives in each day’s email inbox. The email typically offers an introductory portion of the day’s article; a paid subscription unlocks the articles in their completeness. Recent topics include: (a) Why Sentimentalism is the Ruin of Liturgical Music; (b) Eucharistic Motets and the Crisis of the Liturgy; (c) Sacred Music and Rome; (d) Inter Oecumenici and Sacred Music; (e) Music as Prayer: Elevating Souls through Sacred Sound.
Other recent topics by Porfiri include meditations on Saint Francis, Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Most Holy Name of Mary, SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM on Sacred Music, and much more. Porfiri is a musician of considerable accomplishment and experience, and his wide-ranging daily reflections are a good introduction to the panoply of topics relating to sacred music.
If you want to see what dozens of church musicians are up to in real time, there’s no place like the online forum of the Church Music Association of America. See job offers as they become available; learn about chant, or polyphony, or tips for musical engraving; discover newly-composed motets, hymns, and texts; or commiserate with other musicians about the challenges, struggles, and joys of running or participating in a parish music program. There’s something for everyone here! And various contributors post throughout the day, so it’s always worth checking back in!
Last and perhaps least is my own website, which features twelve years of repertory lists (scroll down a bit), several dozen free motets in clean engravings (sortable by title, composer, and liturgical use), and if you’re looking for new music for your program, an extensive catalog of my own compositions, available for sale. CCW’s own Richard Clark wrote a brief column on some of these pieces a few years back.
Final Thoughts • To sum up: keep CCW as the always-open tab and first bookmark in your web browser.1 Then consider signing up for Cantate, or visiting Massimo’s writings, or getting a subscription to Cantus. Visit the CMAA forum for an in-the-moment look at church music as it happens. Finally, buy a piece or two of mine for a modern (but still reverent!) approach to liturgical composition. You’ll be so glad you did!
1 If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to the CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED email newsletter. It’s completely free! All you have to do is scroll to the bottom of any blog article and plug in your email address.
