Sacred Music Workshop, Sugarland TX -- Recordings uploaded
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    We enjoyed a real treat last night at St. Theresa's. A concert was provided to workshop attendees courtesy of the St. Theresa Schola and Director, Dr. Gregory Hamilton. They sang the Mass for Four Voices... I tried to upload a small snippet to give you a taste of it, but my snippet wasn't small enough... perhaps later I'll try again.

    I plan to record the music from the Mass this evening, and will try to make it available later on.

    The workshop has been wonderful. Scott has gotten into much more detail on the understanding of the theory of Gregorian chant than I have ever experienced at a weekend workshop. This has been a really great course so far. We will be concentrating on learning the propers for Mass today... looking forward to it.
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    sorry about the multiple postings... I didn't realize it was posting when it wouldn't take my recording ... apologies!
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    Tried to upload the widget, but it didn't work, so go to my blog here and you can hear all the recordings I uploaded:

    http://voxfeminaesacra.blogspot.com/

    Recordings... enjoy!
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Janet, that is a great widget! Can you upload the code or email it to me? It doesn't seem public. I would love to post this.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    it worked!
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624

  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    Thanks... Just a few comments on this workshop... now that we have the music posted :)

    I and those in my schola who attended enjoyed this workshop so very much! It was, in many ways, different than other weekend workshops I've attended (and heard about). The emphasis was on the teaching of chant theory, it seemed to me. It was a sort of condensed Chant Intensive. We got into much more detail about solfege, rhythmic markings, modes, and understanding of neumes than I have seen in the past. The attendees seemed to be generally more advanced in their musical background than you sometimes see at these workshops... so the questions asked by the students ranged from simple questions about why we need ictus markings to comments on Pelagian heresies.

    It was a most congenial group, a beautiful church, welcoming pastor... several seminarians and priests were involved in the workshop and Mass. The Mass was absolutely packed... The pastor's homily was outstanding... I am attempting to transcribe it... once I get it done, I'll send it to him for approval and then, perhaps, post it. It had many quotable things in it!

    Another difference... normally it seems that women usually outnumber the men in attendance -- not even close this time. You can probably tell what a wonderfully strong section of men we had singing at the workshop... I also had a general sense that the women had less experience and understanding of chant than the men.

    The concert provided by the St. Theresa Schola was very wonderful on Friday evening. They did a selection of William Byrd pieces. There were also some harpsichord and organ pieces and a solo ( lament for Thomas Tallis) performed by a schola member with harpsichord accompaniment also... but I only posted the Mass for Four Voices...

    Scott was overheard to say: "Are we still in Texas???"
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    those are very interesting observations. I've detected an increase in the level of ability over the years. certainly it has been true in our case. Our last one in 2008 had a very high level, and this is very good. We specifically sought to attract people of a higher level.

    It does raise a problem for beginners. Where do they go? How do they find an entry way into this? We must not forget them as the skill level increases. I'm not sure that I have the answer, but perhaps we need to start specifying "beginning studies in chant" or "intermediate" or something. It is hard to know. The downside of this approach is that beginners don't gain the experience of singing with those who have had more experience. There are some issues we need to sort out here.
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    There were at least a few who were completely lost, although those around in the pews were certainly attempting to be helpful to any who weren't getting it... I actually was very glad to see this approach. Rather than driving ourselves nuts trying to get a new group able to sing an introit well in such a short time (which would have burned up a lot more of our time that we used in learning theory), we were able to cover a lot more information.

    Perhaps we should advertise a workshop differently if we are going to be having one that is more oriented toward theory, in fairness to any complete beginners... I think it still had value for those newcomers, though, even so. [I was so glad I've been beating solfege and rhythmic groupings over the heads of my schola members... even though they were all new to chant last fall, they were able to keep up quite well.]

    Now that there are more scholae (sp?) starting up all over, perhaps many more are able to get their basic training there, as opposed to being completely reliant upon out-of-town experts to train beginners? Perhaps more of us out in the trenches ought to start planning and offering more beginning chant seminars (of perhaps a couple of hours) at local parishes?
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,486
    Thank you all for your perceptive and kind comments. We were pleased by the turnout, which was close to 75. We had professionally recorded the Byrd so we should have that ready as some time soon, if anyone would be interested.(Though we really appreictae janet putting up her widget) Thanks to all who attended and contributed so much.
    I think part of the problem, was that a number of people attended Saturday but not Friday, so they missed out on the basic of chant form the first session.
    God Bless you all,
    Gregory
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