Views from the Choir Loft

Andrea Leal • Article Archive

Andrea Leal is a wife and homeschooling mother of 6 children. She holds a Bachelor's Degree from UC Berkeley in Peace and Conflict Studies, and serves as choir director for the Traditional Latin Mass in Las Vegas.—Read full biography (with photographs).

Andrea Leal · April 26, 2020

Trust the Good Shepherd

These difficult times call for an extra measure of humility, patience and trust.

Andrea Leal · April 10, 2020

Do Not Let Your Voice be Silenced

On spiritual dryness and the loss of the sacraments.

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Andrea Leal · April 4, 2020

Repeating Repertoire? • Andrea Leal

To repeat or not to repeat: that is the question!

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Andrea Leal · February 25, 2020

Why Should You Come to the Symposium?

The fruits of attending the Symposium will extend throughout the generations.

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Andrea Leal · January 29, 2020

In Which a Neo-Pagan Converts

I could feel that this Glory was immense, and mysterious, and real. But I could not quite grasp what that meant for me or what I should even do about it.

Andrea Leal · November 21, 2019

PDF Download • “Erunt Signa In Sole” (Advent)

“One of the challenges of a small choir is having enough singers to pull off any kind of polyphony. ” —Andrea Leal

Andrea Leal · January 3, 2013

Andrea Leal • Biography

While studying for her Peace and Conflict Studies degree at UC Berkeley, a chance encounter with some Dominican seminarians led to an invitation to attend Mass.

“Yahweh” in church songs?

My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Music List” • Pentecost Sunday

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)

I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Antiphons Don’t Match?

A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).

—Corpus Christi Watershed

When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962

There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop

—Veronica Brandt

The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum

Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.

—Daniel Tucker