I would think in terms of minimum requirements for serving in the capacity of cantor, not minum age. Age should be irrelevant in assessing whether a person can function with confidence and a minimum of expertise. It is quite conceivable that a given grade school person, certainly a high school one, could fulfill the cantoral role well.

What might constitute 'minimum requirements'?
I would look for a good solid voice, very good diction, ability to sing a text musically and bring its meaning to life for the congregation, good intonation, projection, and a good musical sense, dedication and willingness properly to be prepared, etc. Failure to display any of the above would result in non-acceptance or dismissal. Age is irrelevant.
(The Sarum Use stipulated that Alleluya was to be intoned by a boy chorister [four on great feasts] wearing a cope - so youth would not be a novelty.)

Look for competence, not age.

I suppose you'll need to find out if having minors in your choir will require the adults to have Virtus (or some equivalent) training/certification.

I would be surprised if there was such a restriction. The choir schools have cantors in very young years.

My concern would be the practical issues around practise: Where I am based, if you have a person who is a minor involved with anything, then you should have two adults present at all times, one of who must have been police-vetted by the parish/diocese. Or if you cannot have two adults, at very least two same-gender minors.

Training up the group to start with is easy enough in a group context. But the specific practice for each week would usually need to be individual, since there's only one cantor. And that would mean scheduling to suit musician, cantor and chaperone.

I disagree with chonak, and all diocesan "liturgists" who are classifying the Responsorial Psalm as a fourth "Reading". I have been involved in singing at Mass since my parochial school days before Vatican II. In the time since the Council closed, the sung responses between the Readings has gone back and forth between Reading and NOT a Reading. IMO, it is more like the Gradual (and all other Propers, mostly ignored by modern liturgists) and is a musical response/meditation between the Scripture Readings. Certainly, the Psalms are in the Bible, and therefor "Scripture", but they were intended to be sung. There are so many other parts of the Mass that are directly from the Scriptures, I see no need of this special classification for the Psalm between the Readings.

I do realize that learned people on this forum disagree with me on this, and that my opinion is in conflict with most diocesan offices. That matters not to me. This is my opinion, and I will stick with it.

And part of my "reasoning" is that, if the RP is officially a "Reading", then it MUST be read (performed) from the ambo. Again, if this is music, it needs to come from whichever part of the church provides the music. If the Cantor/Psalmist is accompanied by the organ in the choir loft, then that is where the singer should be. This is really a quite simple concept!

AFH

Just to clarify: the General Instruction on the Lectionary (2nd Edition) dates from 1981, and footnotes to a now-superseded edition of the GIRM. Thus, the 3rd edition of the GIRM, which is later and specific, would normally control to permit "another suitable place". The RP is fully within the lections (the choice of the RP is specific to the other elections) rather than a song between lections, but allowance is made for it to be offered differently; however, one might argue that the Gradual is not within the lections as such (not being within the Lectionary), so perhaps that's one reason for flexibility.

...what we mean by a cantor.

Ha!
This is the $64.000 question of our age.

Let us consider some things and talents that an historical cantor would have and accept that this is what constitutes a real live actual genuine bona fide authentic cantor -
>Can sing psalms to all the eight Gregorian tones (and probably point them at sight)
>Is well versed in Gregorian chant.
>Can confidently sing the incipits to any and all chants for others to take up.
>Can sing authoritatively the solo sections of all the Gregorian repertory.
>Set the tone and mood for chants to be sung by all.
>Lead others by his or her vocal projection alone.
>Can sing the lectionary with grace and authority
>The above hold regardless of the language which is being chanted.
>One who, in short, follows proudly in the footsteps of the highly skilled cantors of the early centuries of the Church.

And - some things that a cantor is not -
>A 'song leader'
>One who raises (or flails) hands or arms
>One who pirouettes
>One who sings into a microphone
>One who announces stuff throughout the liturgy
>One who does well to more or less sing stuff like R&A and thinks that this is being a cantor.
>One who knows little, if anything, about chant.

And - another kind of cantor, a Kantor, really -
>This, in the Lutheran tradition, is the rough equivalent of the Anglican choirmaster and orgainist, highly competent and highly esteemed.

I think we are straining at gnats. Much that has been said assumes cantors are plentiful, they are well-trained, and have genuine talent. Many do not, but are all that is available in that place at that time. We make do.

We have instituted acolytes and instituted lectors - there is no reason that we shouldn't have instituted cantors who know chant and liturgical song and perform their role with a very high level of expertise.

Those offices as minor orders certainly disappeared after the Vatican II reforms and are now called "ministries." You may "institute" them somehow, but they are not ordained. Eastern churches still have ordained readers, cantors, and subdeacons, all male.

I have decent cantors who sing from the loft, not the front. I have seen those "arm flailers" and agree they are a disgrace. As for the state of music education in "Catholic" schools - some being questionably Catholic - it likely varies from good to bad. Professional cantors are available, if you can convince the parish to pay for them. Most will not do so.

I have a cantor who is 13 yo (started last year). Unlike many singers her age, she projects *very* well - I have actually had to work very hard with her to get her not to over-sing (she thought she had to in order to project over the organ - I assured her this was not the case). Admittedly there have been some "off" moments and times where I've wondered if this is the right thing to be doing, but as her voice is starting to mature there's more control and warmth to her tone, whereas before it was rather harsh. She's also become one of my most well-prepared cantors.

Some had tried to pressure me to get rid of her when she was starting out and had a lot of those rough edges - too loud, too brash, too off-key, etc. One person even stormed out of the parish in a fit of rage and fury over her. I recalled then that this was about the age I started myself, both as a cantor and a (then) pianist at Sunday Mass (I had been in the children's choir for a few years before). I can only imagine how "harsh" and "off" I was at that age, but if that parish music director didn't trust and encourage me to keep going and working at my craft, I probably would not be doing what I'm doing today. In a sense then, I feel I have a duty to "pay it forward" when someone(s) like this come around.

As I stated, the classification of the RP as either a Reading or between the Readings has vacillated ever since the first books were printed shortly after the close of Vatican II. Many contemporary Catholic musicians were not involved through all these "adjustments". I believe that the conflation, ironically, came from the separation of the Lectionary and Sacramentary from the all-encompassing Missal. It being the state of affairs that only a few Masses would have enough music to cover these extended Psalms, that they needed to be included in the Lectionary - such that they could be read by someone, if there were no musicians available. Remember, EVERYTHING was in the Missal, in the order it happened, no matter which minister and/or people were to say it. THIS is where the Responsorial Psalm because a Reading - simply because it had to be read, and preferably NOT by the "Presider". (Most people ignore the instruction that the "Alleluia" should be omitted if NOT sung, and insist on reciting it no matter what!) IMO, this is not part of the hermeneutic of continuity, and the "Hymns of the Church", both Psalms and Canticles, should remain as something separate from the "Readings".

I agree with both Chonak and Steve (if that's possible).

While Steve puts forward some cogent thought, I tend torwards Chonak's emphasis.
Insofar as the psalm (however, wherever, and by whomever it is sung) is found in the lectionary itself it seems rather conclusive that it is conceived to be an element of the sacred readings (all of which should be sung, at the very least on solemnities) and, like them, should be (must be?) read-sung by a Catholic. It is noteworthy that the alleluya responsory also appears in the lectionary. So, is it, too, therefore to be considered a 'reading'? Not likely. Both of these responsories, the psalm and the alleluya with its verse, serve, by an exquisite parallelism, to heighten the liturgical drama by introducing a more complex literary form which includes the voice of the entire congregation as the gathering momentum climaxes at the gospel's proclamation and the ritual which accompanies it. They are in the lectionary precisely because they are inherent to the dramatic and powerful unfolding of the scriptural message of the day. (The ritual surrounding the gospel is magnified greatly in the Ordinariate's 'gospel procession' in which crucifer, torches, thuribler, boat boy, deacon, and book bearer proceed solemnly from the sanctuary out into the nave where the gospel is sung in the people's midst.)

The psalm, which by post-VII convention is most usually sung responsorially, is the direct descendant of the EF-Tridentine gradual responsory in the LU, which, itself, is the mere remnant of a lengthier responsorial psalm. I, personally, see it as both reading and meditation, but would stress that its being called 'responsorial' is due to the manner in which it is normally sung rather than because of it being a mere 'in between meditation', or, as some would quite wrongly suggest, a 'response' to the first reading. (It is worth stressing yet again that, normally, the Lesson, the Psalm, and the Gospel are of an unfolding piece - the Epistle, usually, being not necessarily of the same 'piece'.)

Indeed, were The Psalm to be sung antiphonally it would, rather obviously, not be the 'responsorial psalm', but the 'antiphonal psalm'. Further, the psalm as sung at Walsingham would be characterised as the 'in directum psalm', not the 'responsorial psalm' (of course we just call it 'the psalm'.

The psalm may, of course, be sung in directum (as at Walsingham), or antiphonally (as I know to be done in a few places), or, as is normal, responsorially. The responsorial method seems for several reasons most fitting for most congregations. For one, the responsorial form echos that of the old historic gradual responsory. For another, it involves the people in the reading in a way that increases their understanding of the day's text; and, importantly, it increases the liturgical drama as the readings unfold, and anticipates (and parallels) the Alleluya responsory which heralds the climax of the liturgy of the word. True antiphonal singing by a congregation, while feasible and not to be shunned, is not likely a good option for any but some talented and eager congregations blessed with choirmasters blessed with charisma. Ditto in directum.

_____________________________________________

Some further ideas about the psalm -

Not only is it a part of the OF lectionary, it is the heir to the old gradual responsory found in the LU and GR. This makes it both a reading and a proper. This means that, for OF Liturgy in English the psalm responsory should be included in any complete sets of newly composed propers, just as should the alleluya responsory from the GR. This means that those who might compose choral settings of the propers in English should include the OF lectionary's psalm as an option together with a translated gradual responsory.

So, a complete set of choral propers in English for the OF would consist of the following English versions of the GR propers -
Introit
Gradual, and, as an option, the lectionary psalm (yes, for all three years)
Alleluia
Offertory
Communion

It would be a gift of great worth to the Church were someone (Miss Cooze, Greg Hamilton, Francis, are you listening?) to compose such COMPLETE sets of choral propers at least for all solemnities.

We really don't need any more of these little books of 'entrance and communion antiphons' that seem to be in vogue now. Many of them aren't even the GR antiphons but those from the missal. They are the latest addition to the train of half-baked and misleading measures that do nothing to restore the proper propers - ALL of them.

Please allow me to bring my tangent back to the subject of age requirements, even along with other requirements.

1. That the older, historic (?) form of a Responsorial Psalm is what we have could be considered part of the archaeologism that Pope Pius XII warned against. Do we really know how it was performed? Are from place in a building it was performed? Are the changes in the GIRM, even since Vatican II, and evolution or a devolution?

2. That all the "Readings" (including the RP or not) must happen at the Ambo is a modern invention. Catholic church buildings had a pulpit, almost always outside the Sanctuary, where the sermon was delivered. It was never used for the Readings in Latin - the liturgical part of the Mass. The priest re-reading them in English was a pastoral consideration, even if the congregation did stand etc. for the Gospel. Anglican church buildings had lecterns, usually in the choir, not the high altar, separate from their pulpits.
Conflating the protestant lectern with the Catholic pulpit to make an ambo is more modernism.

3. While the EF Mass Readings were done by the celebrant at the Low Mass from the Missal on first the Epistle side, and then the Gospel side, that was not so at the Solemn High Mass. In that case, the Subdeacon chanted the Epistle on the floor of the Sanctuary facing liturgical east, and the Deacon processed outside the Sanctuary to a spot in the Nave, and chanted the Gospel facing liturgical north. All of the Readings being done in the Sanctuary, from the Ambo, is totally modern, and an accommodation for members of the laity to come forward as volunteers to read, and thusly the priest or deacon for the Gospel. There is no hermeneutic of continuity in any of this.

4. To the point, many parishes (including cathedrals) force the singer to leave the choir loft and the rest of the musical forces (and the organ), and quietly (invisibly) make their way down front just to fulfill this questionable practice. This puts extra requirements on ALL the musicians. The organist must accompany the cantor/psalmist from as much as a football field away, and then lead the congregation as the c/p steps back from the microphone. In many places, the raising of one or both arms, to cue the congregation who evidently cannot hear the end of a musical phrase or the organ getting louder, is an ABSOLUTE requirement - and is totally bogus! Said c/p must therefor be vested appropriately AND have a secular style stage presence, as well as judging distances from the microphone. NONE of this is necessary if said c/p is allowed to sing/chant/lead, alongside the organ and/or choir, in the loft, or wherever in the building the organ and choir are located.

So, IMO, there may be some places that the Psalm performed from the Ambo works, but others that it not only doesn't, but is a definite visual distraction to the congregation, while putting extra requirements on the singers, of any age!