Well, Mary Jane, I do hope the folks attending this year will plan to return next year, too (so I can meet them!). I'm feeling a bit wistful already.

I hope everyone else made it out of Chicago. At least everyone that was trying to leave. Standing in the standby line at O'Hare, I kept thinking, "If only I'd stayed for next week as well, if only...."

Well, let's see what next year brings. In the meantime, there cannot be enough kudos for all who organized, taught, ran around doing things. It was superb. At soon as I get the audio files cleaned up, I have some of the propers, etc. uploaded on www.mjballou.com. But give me a second, okay?

My recordings are up now over at www.mjballou.com. Just go to the Mass for St. Anthony under Listen and you'll find the introit, gradual, alleluia, and Mass IV. O Gloriosa Domina is also on there. I didn't put up the Communion because there was a lot of foot-shuffling where my Zoom was sitting. Likewise, as thrilling as the Christus Vincit was live - it rather paled on a second listen.

Enjoy! Particularly if you've had a Sunday like mine. Where I subbed today we had "homilettes" before the readings, textual improvisations, etc. The chant is soothing my feathers back into place.

I wanted to share a small success story and thank you for the Chant boot camp (!) with our best drill sergeant Scott from which I got courage to do the following.
Yesterday my schola sang at the Catholic Family Expo. Mass with Archbishop. We sang pretty well, considering we just started the schola. (Christus Vicit, which I learned at the workshop, was the best. There was a regular choir too.) It was a really good chance to introduce chants to people in this area. Probably many of them never heard chants before. Our chants schola had to sing with David Haas' music side by side. (I took it pretty well.) After the Mass I handed my letter to an assistant to the Archbishop, since he was busy with many people around him. My letter was about my concerns on so called Contemporary Mass. I said this term seems to be used to say that the Mass is focus on Contemporary music and cut off from traditional music. I said it seens to be step backward from what our Holy Father is trying to do, and no church documents support it, and I mentioned a couple of reasons why popuar style music is not helping our faith, etc. I asked him to ban the use of the term, Contemporary mass. (I thought this will be a good first step.)
Guess what! he called me just now, personally. ( I don't know this is a usual thing, but I never had a phone call from an Archbishop before.) I was very nervous and thought I was done now. He said that the memo was good, and he will pass it to the priest who is in charge of Liturgy and is also concerned on this. (Hooray!) We will see what will come out of this, but at least I was able to convey our thoughts on keeping our traditional music in our liturgy.
Thank you, CMAA for all your work. I thought you might like to hear some success story after the Chant workshop. I was able to do that because of the workshops, books, articles that you guys put out. I'm in the front line, in a parish with a Contemporary mass and most of people who likes contemporary music. It's a hard work, but I really feel that God is helping us.
( I really don't think there should be a Mass called contemporary mass. I do think, though, all the Masses should have at least Ordinary parts in Lain. After all, the Second Vatican council says all the faithful should be able to sing (or say) Ordinary parts in Church's official and universal language. And I was told that one of the responsibilities of music ministry people is to educate the faithful musically and liturgically.)

Thanks and God Bless,
Mia Coyne

Mary Jane and Janet, I really appreciate your recordings. It was a big help for my schola learning Christus Vincit. Many missed the practices because of their vacations, and we didn't have much time to prepare. The recordings were great help. (the acooustics in the church was terrible, but we sang so well, I think I really heard the echo for a few seconds after the final Amen.)

I agree - stop using that term! I'm tempted to call it the "folk Mass" but it will be hard not to appear to be disparaging. On our schedule I simply list the musical forces, e.g. "cantor and guitar."

Mia, yes, I was the big ugly guy with braces. (Back row; fourth from the left in the picture).

Greg - you are big and have braces. You are not ugly! Mary Jane

What is wrong with the term "Contemporary Mass"? My understanding is that it implies a Mass with contemporary music, the merits of which are debatable, but surely the terminology is not wrong. At any rate, it makes it easy to avoid such Masses for those who don't wish to attend them!

Mass with guitar group might be ok, whehther I like that or not. But Contemporary Mass is misleading. Every Mass is contemporary and eternal according to Pope Benedict. We cannot call a Mass Contmporary Mass, because it has contemporary music. Since when we can name a Mass according to music? As far as I know, music is not the main focus of the Mass. We are definitely misleading the people. There''s a big difference between saying 'Contemporary Mass' and Mass with guitar group, or whatever.
Also, there are lots of new and contemporary music that are not commercial and pop style. So, are we telling people that all the contemporary music is guitar and pop style music?
Also, if the the term 'Contemporary mass' used to exclude traditional music, that is also wrong. Every Mass should have some traditional music. Tradition is an imporatant part of our Catholic faith.
Mia

medieval (music) Mass, Renaissance( music) Mass, Classical (music) mass, Romantic (music) Mass, Contemporary(music) Mass, New Age (music) mass, Rock (music) mass, Jazz Mass,-- Hmm, feel free to add more.

Why not ? Don't like Romantic music? Are there any Psalms
in Schubert style? How about some Chopin prelude bebore the Mass. Not worse than contemporary (Pop style).
I wish we can stop all this nonsense someday, and have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with the music that is truly sacred.
There are many artistic and talented musicians in churches. But often times I see they put their artistic values above liturgy, and their pride blind them to see it.

I have to confess I played Chopin at the Mass a couple of times in the past, because I got tired of Josh Groban music. (thankfully I don't play piano at the mass anymore, learned to play organ, instead.) After I played those, people complemented how pretty those music was.(very embarassing, but was happy to hear that) Sadly, when I played Bach, I felt like playing against the wall in our parish. I still had that notion that if I'm playing something, I'd like to have someone actually listen and appreciate it. In our parish, youth group sings Josh Groban's 'You Raised me up' on mother's day Sunday or at the graduation Mass. Sorry, for telling you such a horror stories. As you can tell, I'm really fed up with all these. But it's my parish, I have to do something. Besides, Other parishes are all same around here, or maybe worse. I don't have any other parish to go.