Dr Lucas Tappan

Lucas Tappan · June 8, 2022

“Chorister Summer Camp” • Eight Ideas

Every choirmaster should place a high priority on recruitment, otherwise in time he commits a form of “choral contraception”…

Lucas Tappan · May 5, 2020

What Makes a Great Conductor?

At the heart of the great conductor is one who is born in wonder, one who stands in awe and amazement of heaven’s divine gift of music.

Follow the Discussion on Facebook

Vespers Booklet (4th Sunday of Lent)

The organ accompaniment booklet (24 pages) which I created for the 4th Sunday of Lent (“Lætare Sunday”) may now be downloaded, for those who desire such a thing.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Vespers Booklet, 3rd Sunday of Lent

The organ accompaniment I created for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (“Extraordinary Form”) may now be downloaded, if anyone is interested in this.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Weeping For Joy! (We Hope!)

Listening to this Easter Alleluia—an SATB arrangement I made twenty years ago based on the work of Monsignor Jules Van Nuffel—one of our readers left this comment: “I get tears in my eyes each time I sing to this hymn.” I hope this person is weeping for joy!

—Jeff Ostrowski

Had the Church never spoken on this matter, it would still be repugnant to our Catholic people’s sense of what is fit and proper in the holiest of places, that a priest should have to struggle through the prayers of the Holy Mass, because of such tunes as “Alice, where art thou?” the “Vacant Chair,” and others of more vulgar title, which, through the carelessness or bad judgment of organists, sometimes find their way into our choirs.

— Preface to a Roman Catholic Hymnal (1896)