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Views from the Choir Loft

Biography • Christopher Mueller

Christopher Mueller · January 3, 2013

HRISTOPHER MUELLER is a church musician, conductor, and composer. His most well-known composition, the Missa pro editione tertia—a congregational setting of the 2011 ICEL translation of the Ordinary of the Mass—has been purchased by parishes in Australia, Canada, the UK, and throughout the USA. Most of his compositions are choral works written to be sung at Mass, including 40 Gregorian Introits (in Latin), a nearly-complete set of Responsorial Psalms for the 3-yr. cycle, 35 Offertory settings (in English), and numerous Masses, motets, sequences, and other works. He aims to write music befitting the liturgy out of gratitude to God, the Author of beauty. His two decades of work as a church musician—in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite—have focused on Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian chant (as well as his own compositions), first with a volunteer choir at the Church of Notre Dame in New York, NY, then with the professional SCHOLA POLYPHONICA at the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist in Stamford, CT; following that with the volunteer choir at the Church of St. Bernadette in Silver Spring, MD, and the professional schola he instituted at the National Shrine of St. John Paul II in Washington, D.C.  He is presently the organist and choirmaster at St. Louis Bertrand Church in Louisville, KY, where he serves with a wonderful cadre of Dominican Friars and directs a small professional schola.

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1,400 Motets • His choirs rarely repeat music during the course of the choral year, singing 100 or more different motets each season, and he has created editions of at least 200 motets himself. Similarly, his choirs seldom repeated music from one year to the next (with notable exceptions), so that the always-changing musical experience of Mass was a reflection of the ever-new experience of Christ in the Eucharist. The texts of the motets are drawn from sacred Scripture: sometimes a setting of the day’s Offertory or Communion proper, sometimes a passage from the day’s readings, and occasionally an Office hymn or other related text. He estimates that his choirs have sung at least 1400 different Renaissance motets over the years. In addition to his musical work, he also spent seven and a-half years coordinating the marriage preparation program for the Archdiocese of New York, over the course of which he and his wife taught pre-Cana classes to thousands of engaged couples. He has an undergraduate degree in piano performance (classical) and theory/composition (jazz) and has done graduate work in theology. And he loves the novels of Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton.

Please visit Mr. Mueller’s website for more information, to listen to excerpts of his compositions, or to purchase scores.

The following shows Chris Mueller directing a choir at WORLD YOUTH DAY in Krakow, Poland:

Here’s the direct URL link.

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

Filed Under: Articles, Biographies Last Updated: January 4, 2024

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About Christopher Mueller

Christopher Mueller is a conductor and composer who aims to write beautiful music out of gratitude to God, Author of all beauty.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “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

Quick Thoughts

    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

Random Quote

“In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church’s ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man’s mind to God and to higher things.”

— Vatican II Council

Recent Posts

  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension

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