|
This past week I’ve been preparing for our new chant year – practices begin on August 22nd, and our first Mass is September 19th. As before, I was able to have a 1-on-1 discussion with almost every member of our schola, and got some great feedback and ideas about what challenges we should take on [...] CMAA Colloquium XX 2010 from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo. In addition, the audio recordings are all available on http://music.dierschow.com/2010Colloquium. At the Colloquium last week, one of the priests mentioned the relationship between sacred music and worship in his homily. He said something which was quite interesting, that I’ll attempt to paraphrase as best I can: “Our music is the tabernacle, the means of delivery of the Word to the faithful.” This is a fascinating [...] I’m really enjoying God’s gift of yearly cycles. During the summer, especially, is my time to refresh, re-energize, and re-commit. This is possible because so many things slow down during this season as people focus on vacations and family. Sometimes the summer “break” feels a little weird because our kids are grown up and I’m [...] Yesterday was a challenge! Up at 3:00AM, to drive to Denver, grab a flight. Then hang around in Milwaukee for 4 hours, and finally on to Pittsburgh. OK, that’s enough whining. Meeting up with all my great Colloquium buddies was wonderful, as expected. I started out tired, but when we got to singing … heaven! [...] Colorado's state flower Summer is my time to reflect and renew my commitments for the coming year. I talked about this some last June, when I was struggling with whether our schola would achieve critical mass. Looking back on the progress, we now have grown to a dozen loyal and talented members, now including [...] If you want the audio recordings from the 2008 or 2009 Sacred Music Colloquiums in Chicago, drop me an email. They’re available on the website at music.dierschow.com/2008Colloquium and music.dierschow.com/2009Colloquium, but the recordings are pretty huge if you want to download ALL of them. I’ll also be making recordings next week of Colloquium XX in Pittsburg, [...] For the third time now, we pulled together all the chant choirs from the parishes in Fort Collins to do a single Mass. Or in this case, two: one at my home parish, and one next Sunday at the most traditional church building in town. I’m glad that this one wasn’t the first time we [...] There was an interesting piece on a local news channel about a teacher at the University of Northern Colorado who uses the Ward Method to successfully teach music. I haven’t met her yet, although I’ve been interested to attend one of her workshops. The reason for mentioning it here is that our chant schola is [...] I absolutely love this time of year. Easter is a chance for a deep spiritual renewal – in so many ways. I’m heavily involved with the RCIA program in our parish, which builds toward the Night of All Nights that we just experienced yesterday. A three hour Mass brings into clear focus how we are [...] |