Whether you are an ace at reading square notes or completely new to Gregorian chant, this workshop is for you!
Beyond Square Notes with Sven Edward Olbash 3 Thursdays: August 6, 13, 20 7–9 pm Star of the Sea Catholic Church San Francisco, CA
Using examples from the 8 Gloria Patri tones for Introit chants, this workshop introduces participants to recognizing and writing the basic neume shapes in St. Gall and Messine notation as they are found in Cardine's foundational text Gregorian Semiology. But simply memorizing the names and shapes of neumes does not help you sing chant better! We will also look at how context determines the interpretation of a particular neume, sometimes making it mean the exact opposite of what it appears to say literally. Medieval practices of conducting and singing from memory will be employed to help singers learn the 7 "ad libitum" Communion chants for use throughout the liturgical year. Multiple handouts provided with examples from the Graduale Novum.
Thank you to those who turned out for this workshop, including a few forumites hitherto unknown to me.
Over the course of our three-month series of Summer Workshops in Sacred Music, several ictuses were spotted, others (real or imagined) were penciled into our Solesmes edition scores, and those who stayed the course got to read, write, and sing the handwritten neumes of Laon and St. Gall according to the melodic restitutions in the Graduale Novum. Full, polyphonic Mass ordinaries and propers resounded through our neighborhood church for the first time in at least decades—if not longer!
The culminating event of our summer of study will be a performance of the Messe Solennelle of Louis Vierne with full Gregorian propers sung in the context of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form with incense and gorgeous vestments at Star of the Sea Church, 4420 Geary Boulevard in San Francisco. If you've never experienced the Traditional Latin Mass in a parish setting, I invite you to attend next Sunday, August 30th 2015 at 11:00 am.
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