I'm in the process of uploading my recordings and have a number available:
chant.dierschow.com/Colloquium
Please don't go to the trouble of copying each file from the website - I'm still processing the files, and when I'm done I can zip up the whole lot and send them to you.
The Sacred Music Colloquium last week was amazing. It started off with a meet-and-greet (which I have to get better at utilizing...schmoozing just doesn't seem to come naturally to me) and getting settled in sub-par university dorms and starting the routine of cafeteria food. Compline started Monday night and lauds Tuesday morning, with the realisation that we were scheduled for fourteen-hour days (including meals).
Monday night I nipped into the Madonna Della Strada chapel before it was locked up for the night. Boring architecture, but beautiful acoustics; I was able to chant a rosary and sing chords at myself. I knew the week was only going to get better, and things did not disappoint. Tuesday we had our first mass in English with simple motets like "If Ye Love Me" and Messiaen-esque organ improvisations by Horst Buchholz. Wednesday morning we held a Requiem mass for deceased members of the CMAA. All the chants made me think of Duruflé, and the stillness and sacredness of it all was simply stunning. My chant group sang the solemn introit for the processional, which set the mass and brought it completely out of the world and into the sacred.
The week was simply awe-inspiring. Some two-hundred fifty church musicians gathered to learn chant and polyphony within a few days, singing it all in context in a beautiful acoustic with top-notch conductors and organists. We rehearsed a beautiful Agnus Dei by Cristobal Morales (where the entries are exactly five beats apart) on the tenth floor of Damen Hall with a view of a hundred different hues of blue between the sky and the sea. Solemn processions of priests and brothers accompanied by chant and Messiaen, postludes without clapping, and an austere solemnity was the norm. Mass was truly out of this world.
Some of the week is indescribable. The view of the sea with the thunderstorms is not capturable on film. The atmosphere in the chapel during mass cannot be adequately described in words. Something very special happened last week, and I am glad to have been there. I hope I am as lucky to partake next year.
The Colloquium was a fantastic experience, and being able to sing such wonderful music in the context of real liturgy, rather than in merely a concert setting, brought home to me how this music was written and intended first and foremost as prayer.
Indeed, a spirit of prayerfulness permeated the whole of the Colloquium. While the atmosphere wasn't retreat-like or POD, nonetheless everyone there knew what we were there for, and what the Colloquium (and sacred music) is all about: the praise and glorification of God in music.
One of the things that impressed me the most was the instructors for the Colloquium. Quite apart from the fact that they were all superlative musicians and teachers, they all took very seriously the sacredness of what we were doing. It was quite clearly more than a job or profession or even something they loved very much. I observed in them a genuine and deep devotion and love for our faith. I was genuinely touched on a couple of occasions by things that either Dr. Mahrt or Wilko Brouwers said regarding music, faith, and prayer. It was this gently pervading sense of pietas, in the truest sense of the word, that raised the whole experience to something more than just enjoying good music.
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