What’s your music plan for the summer?
  • CatholicZ09
    Posts: 264
    I always find it interesting to hear what people do (or don’t do) over the summer months.

    My home parish used to recite, not sing, the Gloria during the summer to “make things shorter.” Mind you, our church is air-conditioned. Luckily, that hasn’t been a practice since maybe 2007.

    Choir usually goes on recess after Corpus Christi Sunday and commences once again mid-September. That seems to be the standard across the diocese. All summer Masses are cantor/organist.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,960
    Our parish does everything normally, because we do not (yet!) have a professional program. At my longtime parish in another diocese, the DM took a weekend or two away for vacation and events like the Colloquium, so there would be something like a sub on the bench and two of the section leaders leading the chant… and then they'd do something like make July 4 an optional call, but no one left town the one summer I sang in the choir, so we did the propers as normal, plus the Mozart Ave Verum since we didn't need to rehearse it. I don't mind doing as much as we can so long as the propers get sung by at least one, if not two people.

    We do monthly Vespers. Hopefully, they will be weekly starting when school resumes in 2023 if not sooner, but we won't do them weekly in June or July, maybe August… (school resumes in August).
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,025
    Music every weekend but choir rehearsals every other week instead of weekly.

    And our Boomer pastor is retiring, being replaced by a young Reform of the Reform type.

    I'm hopeful that some of my resolve to persist, despite friction with the outgoing pastor, with increasing the use of Gregorian chant, vernacular chant, and retiring some old 70s and 80s "standards" will begin to pay off under the new guy.

    Thanked by 3tomjaw CHGiffen LauraKaz
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,723
    Our choir furloughs after Corpus Christi until school starts again. We will drop to just organist/cantor. (Usually double duty by me) I will still continue chanting propers, and we will continue the Gloria at least at our 11am, although we will drop the sung credo down to every other week.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Finish editing and publishing The Traditional Hymnal (refer to specific thread on subject)
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,296
    Choir continues through the end of June. Choir is off for July, but back in August. This is earlier than I'm used to from other positions, but I'm just going with the flow.

    I'll have a (paid) husband-wife duo do duets for the month of June. It's nice to still have the harmonies and descants, even when the full choir isn't there!
  • liampmcdonough
    Posts: 283
    We will continue to sing throughout the Summer. I plan to get the choir through another quality piece of Marian-theme polyphony as well as a 4 part setting of the Magnificat, which are some notable holes in our repertoire. I am reviewing Brumel's Sicut Lilium , the Elgar Ave Maria, and the Dubois Ave Maria in E as possibilities. We will learn also a couple settings suitable for the dedication of a church/altar, since the parish just closed it's capital campaign and we will be expanding our little parish's footprint and installing a new altar quite soon. I would like to have some "back pocket" repertoire for this. I very much enjoy the Bruckner Locus Iste and the Harris Behold, the Tabernacle of God .
    There is also a contrafactum of Rheinberger's Abendlied that I found which uses the text Introibo Ad Altare Dei which looks very tempting. Once these are squared away I want to add another communion/general use piece; I am thinking either Victoria's Jesu Dulcis Memoria or Casciolini's Panis Angelicus. Once we pass Assumption I plan to introduce some of the harder pieces planned for our Lessons and Carols service, the Kodaly Veni Emanuel , possibly Rheinberger's Ex Sion or Hovland's The Glory of the Fatherand then it's off the races again as the liturgical year speeds up!
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen ServiamScores M. Jackson Osborn
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    My musical plan? - to flounder.
    Thanked by 2MatthewRoth ServiamScores
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,046
    Gee, Brain, what do you want to do this summer?
    The same thing we do every summer, Pinky - try to take over the world!


    Seriously, we're a 52/yr Schola. Hopefully we'll get bigger and better, but that's the only plan, insofar as it can be planned.
    Thanked by 3MatthewRoth ServiamScores CHGiffen
  • rollingrj
    Posts: 345
    My home parish--cantor as scheduled.
    Choir in another parish--sing until the end of June, then on July 24 (final Mass for the retiring priest, who then is going to do missionary work in the Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska) and August 7 (first Mass for the new pastor).
  • PaxTecum
    Posts: 303
    I am planning to get started with volunteer scholae over the summer (men/women/children) with the idea to have them ready to sing some pieces in the fall / Christmas time. I am new at this parish & there are no volunteer singers at all yet.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    My predecessor would switch the choir to Saturday Vigil during the summer and later the choir was off entirely. For a while I did Sundays with only an hour-long morning warmup, resuming weekday rehearsals just before Assumption, but now we continue Thursdays year round. There are some nice pericopes during these months!

    June 5 Pentecost (year C opt. “If…”) Mozart: Veni Sancte Spiritus, K.47
    June 12 Trinity the spirit of truth Mozart: Benedictus sit +
    June 19 Corpus Christi: Byrd: Ave verum**
    June 26 OT 13 to Jerusalem Févin: Omnes gentes plaudite
    July 3 OT 14 milk of comfort Vaughn-Williams O taste and see+
    July 10 OT 15 Samaritan A Scarlatti: Ad te Domine levavi+
    July 17 OT 16 Martha & Mary Corteccia: Optimam partem+
    July 24 OT 17 Pater noster Stravinsky: Pater noster+
    ?[Tue. July 26 St Anne Mouton: Celeste beneficium]
    July 31 OT 18 like the grass Brahms: Ach armer Welt**
    Aug. 7 OT 19 unexpected hour Tavener: The Lamb+
    Aug. 14 OT 20 father against son Josquin: Ave Maria**
    [Monday Aug. 15 Assumption no obligation]
    Aug. 21 OT 21 the narrow gate Handel: Their sound is gone out (Messiah)
    Aug. 28 OT 22 place at table Schütz Saget dem Gästen
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores liampmcdonough
  • Anna_BendiksenAnna_Bendiksen
    Posts: 228
    To keep composing, playing, and singing.

    When I've got summer preserving to do---today it was watermelon rinds, cantaloupe, and rose petals, not all in the same pot---I sing hymns. I like to sing old-time Methodist hymns---very often these are really quite Catholic.

    "There to my heart was the Blood applied---
    Glory to His Name!"

    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Paul_Kankiewicz
    Posts: 5
    We'll be switching from the Missa de angelis to a somewhat simpler chanted Mass ordinary (with just the Gloria in English) after Pentecost. I'm hoping that after so much of the de angelis over the past year that people will find the new one easier and be more likely to sing it. It can get a little quiet out in those pews, especially at the Mass for which we don't currently have an organist.

    Also, we've been doing sung propers for over a year now (mostly Fr. Weber's with some of Adam Bartlett's stuff mixed in) and the plan is to expand the bulletin and include a section on the music, so this will hopefully be an opportunity for the congregation to better understand what the propers are.
  • TCJ
    Posts: 966
    We will spend the "off season" working on stuff we never find time to do in the busier times of the year.
    Thanked by 2Chris Garton-Zavesky Anna_Bendiksen
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