I know of a Catholic high school here that just hired a music director who is going to try to build a program with sacred music. I believe he plans to do Gregorian propers and Byrd Mass for Four at their next school Mass. I might send him a message and invite him to join this conversation.

Have you heard of American Federation Pueri Cantores? I only learned of the group recently because their inaugural Michigan High School Festival is taking place on March 20, 2015 at St. Joseph Church in Detroit. http://www.pcchoirs.org/about-us

Here's an outside-of-the-US choir of amazing kids 10-17 we heard nearby recently:

Pueri Cantores of Daegu, So. Korea
http://www.pueri.or.kr/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcNCLfedCqY

Here's where a homeschool cooperative could do something extraordinary (pun intended).

Frankly the lack of seriousness in choral music is part of our present anti-culture, apart from a few places in the Mid-West that pride themselves on the High School Music Competition Circuit, there is very little quality music, especially vocal. Part of this problems stems from the requirement for Band Directors with no real Vocal training or piano skills having to teach people to sing (sound familiar?) and direct/accompany a chorus. Someone who is an excellent Band-man can be an absolutely abysmal choral director, and therefore literature slips into the easy way out. Since the person in charge cannot cope with the requirements of getting a high school group proficient enough in singing to do a simple Madrigal like Farmer's 'Fair Phyllis I saw' in tune, let alone unaccompanied, the greats of Choral literature are simply impossible - better to do simple music moderately well, than difficult music badly.

Add into this sorry situation two very unfortunate aspects of contemporary culture:

1) Singing is for sissies: You will find in the average High School chorus 70 Sopranos, 150 Altos (some are sopranos who don't want to work on high notes!), 1 Tenor (who's usually a baritone with enough high notes on a good day to fake it), and 5 Basses. So you do mainly SAB arrangements of pop-songs with their demo/accompaniment CD's sent through the letter-box by JWPepper.

2) No Sacred Music - it offends people of other cultures: Let's face it, while there are many wonderful Madrigals, Partsongs and Glees, the greatest part of the treasury of choral literature are sacred works, and with the desire to be inclusive (even in 'Catholic' Schools) this part of the repertoire is gone. I feel, as a musician, that we should do good music - sacred & secular - because it is good music. Period. And anyone who is offended by a performance of an 18th Century Italian Vespers Psalm is a bigot and a philistine and obviously isn't interested in culture or in good music. Should we remove the pictures of Michelangelo or Raphael's sacred works from the Art History text-books because someone might be offended? Give Me A Lancastrian Break!

Absolutely not.
Do them before the hymn and figure out a way to cut the entrance hymn.
They migt like both, but most people do not hate sacred music, at the very least.

My hs choir sings proper chants, renaissance polyphony, and SATB hymns, all a capella--except when the excellent 10th grade violinist joins in.

Thank you for all your responses. I'm currently training our four "cantors" to sing the Choral Missal (R. Rice) anyway, and will try to switch to "Mass in honor of St. John Paul II" (RJ Clark), at least for now. Probably will bring in a keyboard to connect to Hauptwerk. Hate to do it w/o permission, but going to try anyway.

MatthewRoth: Yeah, I'll try, but I think there's no getting around the hymn for now.

gregp: An "underground" schola is in the works. Thank you!

Kathy: Wow! How do you manage to accomplish all that? I guess you have better PTB.

chonak: No, he's just a lay person who would perfer the mass to be an evangelical concert, but oh well, what can you do.

Someone needs to report him to the bishop.

No one knows about Holy Roodmas? Why, you fool, if you and others like you had done your #&%*?!! job, they would.

MatthewRoth: The funny thing was, the previous bishop had a set music plan, but because he wasn't "trained in liturgy", he deferred to the better judgement of the campus ministry director, because the campus ministry director MUST know better, right?

That’s just baloney. P&W is equally imposed. We cannot genuinely say that it will be received this, that, or the other way if we don’t actually use it. There must be solid catechsis, and as useful as that is, nothing beats the reaction of someone hearing chant or Palestrina for the first time.

The reason it is disengaging is our Low Mass culture without proper ritual. On a feast such as Holy Rood, what a wonder it would be to hear the Introit while watching the procession and the incensation. Of course it’s odd if they get this at school and not at their home parish...

Look, don’t lose your job, but just do it!

Re: the reaction of college-age kids to P&W, for whatever it's worth, my 20 y/o daughter has been researching a well-known Catholic college in the midwest and was about to apply for admission, until she checked out the campus ministry page and watched some of the liturgies which heavily feature P&W, and that was it. She couldn't get away from it fast enough.

I knew beforehand that liturgical pop music was this university's signature trademark but refrained from saying a word since I didn't want to influence my daughter in any way. I just asked her if she had applied yet, and she said, "No way. I can't stand their liturgies, and I'd be miserable since that's the only Mass I could go to since it's out in the middle of nowhere."

Granted, my daughter has been singing chant and polyphony in choirs for several years and was home educated, but she loves all kinds of music and isn't fond at all of renaissance or classical music. When I have classical CD's or WQXR on in the car, she can't wait to take it out and put on someone like Michael Buble, Frank Sinatra or Brad Paisley, but she HATES folk/pop music at Mass, and my college-age boys who play in a 70's-style rock band roll their eyes and look embarrassed and hate it, too, and make fun of it all the way home in the car--- and I can assure you that I try to be as moderate and non-judgmental as possible in that area, since I firmly believe the quickest way to immunize your kids against your opinions and preferences is to force them upon them. I try to lead by example and dialogue whenever I can and not by lectures. : )

We'll keep looking. Thanks for the idea, Kathy.

I don't think people react so differently.

I took a group of young singers to a diocesan youth rally, which is an all day affair featuring catechesis, team-building exercises, praise and worship, adoration, pizza, vocational talks, and inflatables. At the start of the Mass there was that buzz of noise that happens when a crowd of people is waiting.

We busted out with the Veni Creator--and the silence was astounding. It wasn't scattered silence, but a full-on total listening, from an auditorium full of teens.

my 20 y/o daughter has been researching a well-known Catholic college in the midwest and was about to apply for admission, until she checked out the campus ministry page and watched some of the liturgies which heavily feature P&W, and that was it. She couldn't get away from it fast enough.

Somehow, I don't think this was the college in question!

Midwest???
So???
In this world one travels where one must to find any sign of civilisation.
And to avoid intellectual and spiritual poison.

Chris -
About ...'college in the midwest'.
I'll stand by 'In this world one travels where one must to find any sign of civilisation', especially institutions of higher learning which actually inculcate higher learning and cultural heritage.

And, about the Arctic Tundra, I'll take it or anywhere where it snows 'snow on snow', providing there is chamber music, early music societies, organs, Walsingham, fine choirs, symphony, opera, ballet, museums, mountains and forests, and .... Actually, I feel happiest the farther east and north I get, There is a certain existential delight, an exhilarating joy, in being in Canada and knowing that 'south of the border' means Maine and Vermont! It is a curious paradox that Houston, one of the world's ugliest cities (and proud of it!) has some of it's greatest cultural treasures.

When my daughter sang in our Catholic HS choir, I attended one of those regional choral festivals / competitions. Our choir sang a Korean song, a couple of British secular songs, but the high quality public schools sang all kinds of religious Latin pieces. Go figure!

Probably better that way. The secular school music director can say "this is what the people who wrote the words meant by them. I don't expect you to believe it, but you need to act as though you do, and convey that meaning.". Whereas a Catholic school music director would get into trouble for a comment like that - even if s/he know that half of the choir don't really believe in God, far less have a relationship with Jesus.