The description for the NPM video:

Imagine you are in a concert hall and Itzhak Perlman is performing on stage. The hair stands up on the back of your neck and you can barely take a breath. Perlman's passion flows into the room. He is aflame. He has mastered the rules and technique and yet they are far from his thinking. He has transcended the rubrics and yet upholds them. They have become a part of his musical instincts. Passion for the musical moment consumes him and he is consumed by the music.

Can we praise God like this?
Can we get there in liturgical music ministry?

Contrast with this documentary on Itzhak Perlman's playing. It's amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haxPfFi58ww

Personally I've long felt that NPM's wheels came off in 1999 Pittsburgh national. That year they became fully vested in the P&W camp as rep'd by OCP and WLP "hymnal" products for da yout'. This, while also further distancing themselves from folks like J.Michael Thompson, Janet Sullivan Whitaker and others, whose work is estimable. The mashup of VaLimar's gospel warbling (often off pitch, something foreign to Perlman) and the cumbia-flavored "Alabare" with dueling vibratos only points out that this school of thought, namely Liturgy of, by and for THE PEOPLE, is infinitely more based upon a false charism and, as mentioned, ego advancing than any traditional practicums out there chanting tracts and propers and soaring with choral polyphony.
The sad irony is that very seldom does any of this steroid induced hubris get realized in St. Normals, where you'll likely find an aging Bob Hurd wannabe or a lilting, sparrow voiced soprano trying to condense arena rock style into their lone twelve string as the "Leader of Song." Bereft. Bare-ruined choirs indeed.

Robert Feduccia's presentation this morning is worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaJ3KHSmWWc

He does the currently faddish hand-wringing about millennials' exodus from and disinterest in the Church. Makes some good general (and fairly obvious) points about the importance of parishes and liturgy in the work of evangelization. Utterly fails -- as does almost every speaker on this trendy topic -- to give specific examples and particular advice about how to succeed. Feduccia works for OCP. Tell you what, Robert, the music that OCP has published for the past twenty years and the artists and music currently being pushed on parishes via OCP's stranglehold on half of the country's liturgical music programs are not the right approach.

I get around to a variety of parishes. In parishes that use OCP's pew music products, churches don't sing the new contemporary songs. They sing the old contemporary songs, mostly written before 2000. Not saying that's the right approach either, but it shows that parishes (in my area at least) are not singing the new compositions even though they are forced to buy them because of their annual subscriptions to OCP's pew music resources. Yet OCP keeps churning out new, lousy compositions that very few are actually singing.

He does take a dig at the sacred music crowd by saying (starting at 48:30) that the Church is growing in Africa, they use drums at Mass in Africa, therefore it's wrong for people to suggest that drums are out of place for Mass in America.

Feduccia diagnoses the problem, which isn't hard to do and which had already been done, but he doesn't offer solutions beyond vague appeals that boil down to "we've got to do better, and if we could only communicate and share the treasure of Catholic faith and worship more effectively we'd be evangelizing our communities better" Well, duh. The question is, precisely how do you suggest we do that? You'd think NPM would offer more practical solutions.

GIA's NPM Showcase:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqW5xZ2uBNY&feature=youtu.be&t=11m20s

The poor quality of performance surprised me. Not a good way to sell people on your music. I've heard better volunteer parish choirs and better volunteer parish cantors. These people set the standard?

Many of the songs sound like they belong in the soundtrack of a Muppets movie.

The videos are painful. "Come all you people, come and praise your neighbor." Did I hear that right?!

"...praise your maker". It's close to some liturgical texts, but I don't think it quite matches any.

The setting of text to music could surely be improved. The refrain has a rather artificial rhythm imposed on the text in Procrustean fashion.

How the mighty have fallen.
GIA needs a re-branding, stat!
Notes on OCP’s Showcase (In case of show, please break the glass!)
*Though comprised of many otherwise respectable composer/arrangers, the choral assemblage of OCP is hardly more capable than the GIA group. *Funny to see Űber Choral Expert Elaine Rendler McQueeny never once look at conductor A. Westhoff, who otherwise has a lovely, deep tan! *Perhaps NPM has steered the “showchoirs” away from competent professionalism in a noble effort to reflect both the demographic and abilities of most contemporary choir/ensembles in St Normal’s. However, the absolute lack of coherence in the Hurd/Kingsbury FINLANDIA in the faux-Proulx second verse was quite on display as it was difficult to tell if “it” was the arrangement or the quire “at fault.” *Also per this arrangement, anybody else think of mariachi trumpet duet embolisms punctuating the first verse strophs? *The Alstott/Soper hymn was palatable, but never give a descant to any soprano with a, ahem, bold vibrato. *The Sullivan-Whitaker piece is true to her convictions, but where she stands above other OCP writers is that she was classically trained (by our own Frank LaRocca.) *Schutte “ Saints and Beloved fairly drips with honey and unicorn tears; what is a “brave communion?” *Why does Angela bother to conduct the audience, as if they’re not actually glued to the score they’re SIGHT-READING?! *”Nuestra alegria” is evidently a bilingual arena anthem beholden to no Latino style or tradition I’m aware of. But be sure to wait for the solo duet of “Yeah, yeah, yeah! (after “She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.) You’ve thunk OCP learned that lesson after Maher’s first incarnation of “Your Grace is enough.” *”Te Deum” is mashup of Ben Hur trumpet blasts in organum and bluster-filled solo verses; someone actually believes a congregation (sorry, assembly) will actually take this up. *The Jesus Song”- nice Martin D-28, and the humble refrain is serviceable, but I’d wonder if individuals in congregations would feel “exposed” if taking up the puerile melody/lyric combo. *O joy, a Landry tune from “Hey God 7”- somebody shoot me now, thank you. *
I need an intermission and a tonic. Be back for the second half.

Since I am here at NPM, I will offer a few more reflections:

* I have been to three excellent concerts — one men’s a cappella (including several polyphonic pieces), one choral/orchestra (including the Vivaldi Gloria), one organ. All played to full houses in their respective venues. I think there’s a piano concert (the classical kind) tomorrow, and I will go to it.

* The top award went to the late Fr. Kelly, OSB. He received a richly deserved ovation. The morning prayer used his chant tones.

* I attended a session today with David Haas, who, like Schutte yesterday, was very gracious toward traditional music. He was also very kind in a brief conversation I had with him.

* I had a chat with Ken Canedo about his books on the folk era and the ‘70s/early ‘80s in Church music. As I was not around for those eras but most of my choir was (and largely prefers that music), these books will be a helpful reference for me.

* I wasn’t wild about anything in the GIA presentation. There are a couple things in the OCP presentation I liked but my choir probably can’t do.

* I was aware of “The Jesus Song” before this, and it has continually rung in my head—I have sung it a few times in private. It is the opening song tonight for adoration.

If you are looking for stuff to criticize, inevitably you will find it. But I came hoping to find stuff to help me in my work, and I have done so. It has been worth it for me—and hopefully my parish too, since they paid for it.

To be clear, Tim, I'm actually looking for a glimmer of hope and responsibility, not vehicles for criticism. I have been through the same curve as you, having attended NPM's from '79 to '99. In '99 my sphere of influence had already shifted to chant (I always directed polyphony prior,) and "my" discovery of Thompson's choir of St. Peter's in the Loop opened more vistas. But as I said above, NPM's tack was going towards "Spirit and Song," which the OCP showcase didn't unveil its hyper-syncopated nature this time around. I've actually accompanied many of the old guard, including Hurd, Joncas, Conry and the SLJ's/Schutte, and held forth many a chat session. All that said, the cart carrying publisher wares is and has been ahead of the horse, the effect becoming one of stasis and pro-forma. It is a severe shame that the editorial kingpins of the industry have very little vision outside of their cash-cow domains. Good on you for mining where you can.

chords, knockoff of pachelbel canon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

Yeah, Pachelbel certainly sticks around...

There is good there, but it can be hard to find the wheat among the weeds.

But I always wonder - isn't one's time better spent cultivating what can become a verdant garden rather than foraging among the weeds?

It boggles my mind* that someone would shave "a sinner" from the Jesus Prayer for sung adaptation, thereby de-linking it from its scriptural anchor in Luke 18:13. To me it's an example of what modern liturgical music publishing incentivizes: publishing unripe pieces, that is, pieces where an editor has not completed the job of making a composer work through the consequences of his or her creative choices. In this case, an editor should have pushed much harder on Mr. Booth in this regard. Ah, editors. I miss them.

* https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2bf3e028-2106-4b5d-96f1-f8cd3b09c0d1

Melo

You always have a point.

To complete my point with an illustration of it in action. "This will probably seem harsh, but hear me out. I owe this not only to our public but to you. What purpose is served by hacking 'a sinner' away from one of the most ancient Scripture-based Christian prayers? 'A sinner' provides the reason for the plea for mercy. Your choice may be likened to removing the supporting tower from beneath the spire of, say, Strasbourg Cathedral; while the eye is immediately drawn to the loveliness of the spire, without the supporting tower it would blur into its more earthbound surroundings. When you remove the clear foundation in both Scripture and many centuries of ardent Christian prayer for that refrain, you may just end up with a contemporary commonplace. Our culture is already saturated with that; why does it need yours to add to it? I am hardly the only person who will notice this absence, even if many Roman Catholics won't at first blush."

I am on my phone and don’t have any easy way to pull up links. I think NPM has been streaming to FB, though.

I did want to note that WLP specifically cited and lauded two Kathy Pluth texts in their presentation, and their collection had a lot of folks I have never heard of. (And, sigh, John Angotti.) I enjoyed the gospel piece and the versets. The rest was hit or miss.

Wait, Chonak, is that good or bad? No purple? I can't believe you would even reference such a "Protestant" Hymn as "Amazing Grace" or did you learn it from the Judy Collins version as I did?

I’m new to this forum, and this is my first post, but I’ve been in attendance at NPM and following along the conversations on here to see what your thoughts are and wanted to give my two cents.

I’m a part of a new track at NPM this year called the Emerging Leaders Institute, which is primarily a bunch of under 30 people who are generally 1-3 years into positions as Directors of Music and Liturgy. This course was quite good. Many of the speakers spoke about the practical side of working in Parishes, and we also talked about Liturgy and Music. It was not the kind of thing I expected from NPM but it was very welcome. Our speaker on Liturgy in particular was not impressed by the “liturgical” music from the GIA showcase we had seen that day which was refreshing to hear (neither was I). He spoke about liturgy in a way that would probably surprise GIA/OCP and their ardent fans. It wasn’t a perfect set of courses, but I thought it was very promising.

I attended the chant intersection meeting, and there were a surprising number there. Everyone told the section leader of the desire to see more from NPM in promoting chant (whatever that would look like), and a few had attended the CMAA colloquium and spoke of a desire to see more collaboration.

As someone else mentioned, morning prayer yesterday was in the chant style, and Fr Columba was honored with an award for his work in chant.

I thought many of the speakers were not so good, and the main showcases left me very unsatisfied. But, I thought just as many speakers were very good, especially Bishop Caggiano. Elaine Rendler McQueeny even took many digs at the typical music in parishes, acknowledging how it’s not working very well. She also gave a positive plug for chant which took me by surprise.

In general it felt like the whole conference was in some kind of war with itself. On one hand, many of the speakers and people spoke of the need for beauty and transcendence in the liturgy while realizing that what was happening and had happened wasn’t working…. and on the other hand it was self promoting and the big showcases and some plenum speakers fed exactly to what I was expecting from them. So that was depressing. And confusing.

The one example I can think of in particular was the first speaker (I forget her name) and she said she hates the phrase the unbloody sacrifice of the cross. Then Bishop Caggiano used those exact words in his speech this morning. So it seems as though NPM is making some effort to buck the status quo with its speakers and the things they’re doing, but the power is with the publishers, and they aren’t changing any time soon.

For what its worth, I’ve found the conference useful for my own needs and have much to think about, both professionally and more importantly on a personal level.

Welcome to the forum and thanks for your thoughtful words. It is nice to hear of someone young taking on the challenge of Music Director, riverofthenorth.

Prayers for the safety of all travelers.

@Chonak, one of them has already done that. Instead of 'saved a wretch like me', they changed the wording to 'saved and set me free'

'saved and set me free'

I have also seen "saved and strengthened me" before. Don't recall who published that, but I could guess.