The power of chant
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    Sunday afternoon I took some teenagers to a large youth rally, headlined by Fr. Stan Fortuna.

    Then I stealthily doubled back to the parish to pick up our youth schola and brought them into the rally Mass. This 20-voice schola of young people, 8-17 years old, sang before Mass and during Communion in a packed auditorium full of teenagers who were just in from playing on the inflatables.

    Before the schola was halfway through the first verse of the prelude, Veni, Creator, Spiritus, the most beautiful hush had fallen over the auditorium. The Communion songs went pretty well, too.

    Anyways, it was a fairly productive weekend, I think!
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    amazing!
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    Awesome. I'm glad it went well. I'm forwarding this to my homeschooling group parents. I hope more young people get to learn more authentic sacred music. Thanks
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    I told the children "You are ambassadors of chant!"
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    inflatables?
  • Maureen
    Posts: 678
    Probably those giant bouncy air-trampoline things, like you rent for carnivals.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    The hardest thing about leading a children's schola is sometimes they are so moved by the beauty of the music they forget to sing.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Kathy, this is super. God bless you, intrepid soldier of beauty!
    What's the back story here? I would think that Fr. Stan would have been welcoming. How did the preparation to include the schola go?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    The youth office in our diocese approached me, actually. It's a big diocesan youth day and they asked if we could come and sing during our Bishop's Mass.

    What was great about it was the reception of the SOUND of the chant, by the high schoolers. I've always thought that it was a myth, that kids didn't like this music. This was empirical evidence that not only can kids sing chant, but other kids can listen to it and ENJOY it. There was quite a lot of actuoso participatio of all kinds going on.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Sweet. I share your hunch about kids liking chant, and I'm glad you had a chance to witness it!!!
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    Kathy,

    Your experiential-exposure approach seems better than instructional-exposure
    which we were exploring in Forum 1396, and which I fleshed out a bit at
    http://musicasacra.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1396#Item_32

    Was the youth office person inviting your group with specific knowledge of your "style" of music?

    Given the stealth transport ...
    What did "your" teens going to the youth rally think of "your" schola?
    Were any teen schola members interested in the youth rally apart from participating as schola members?

    Was there any sense of cognitive dissonance?
    Once the ears were exposed to the chant,
    I cannot imagine the non-chant music feeling quite so "right".

    Maybe flash mobs of youth scholas is the way to go!
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    Haha! It wasn't stealthy but all out in the open. (Actually I couldn't be stealthy if I tried.) Some of the teens are in the schola, and others have younger siblings in the schola. I told the organizers what to expect. I couldn't believe they still wanted us to come, but they did.

    But, it FELT stealthy.

    Not long ago I reconnected with a Dominican Father of my acquaintance.
    He: "So what are you doing these days?"
    Me: "Mostly I teach little children Gregorian chant."
    He: "Subversive!"
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