Sacred Music Sabbatical?
  • CatholicPriest
    Posts: 21
    If you could do a 1-2 month sabbatical completely focused on sacred music with the twofold purpose of personal renewal and renewal of parish music, what would you do?
  • davido
    Posts: 1,199
    If I could take a 2 month sabbatical, I would focus on anything but music and parishes.
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  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 213
    For personal renewal, I would go to my (oblate) monastery and simply work and pray with the monks. I have done this for simpler (1-2 week retreats) and it has been the most amazing renewal I have ever experienced.

    If I had to focus on both personal renewal and renewal of parish music, I have no idea where I would ever start.

    I feel like a research sabbatical and a sabbatical for rest and renewal are two VERY different things.
    Thanked by 3StimsonInRehab Chant_Supremacist CatholicPriest
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,438
    Without having thought this through very much, I wonder if spending some time at the York Oratory might fit the bill?
    https://www.yorkoratory.com/
    Thanked by 3StimsonInRehab CHGiffen CatholicPriest
  • francis
    Posts: 11,340
    Mass, adoration, confession, rosary, petition, pray, think, journal. If you can be under active spiritual direction, I would deem that to be very important.

    Parish music renewal? I’m not sure what you’re thinking in terms of this item. However, being a two month sabbatical, I would choose a Monastery that does all the hours. Of course, being a TLMr, I’d shoot to pray the traditional office.
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  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,265
    I'd do a tour of bavarian baroque monasteries (because they are glorious), and swing by Solesmes for a week or two on the way back. I'd park my butt in France just decompressing for as long as I had left and could afford.

    Then again, a stack of good books and a cabin in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE sounds positively delightful.
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  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 312
    Whatever I did would include a monastery retreat (Congregation of Solesmes perhaps; having recently spent a few days at a Benedictine monastery, I agree that it's profoundly refreshing), a multi-day workshop under Marcel Peres, lots of walking and thinking, and varied liturgical tourism including to eastern liturgies.
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  • 32ContraBombarde32ContraBombarde
    Posts: 149
    Not sure what it would look like in reality, but I think it would be centered in France, including a retreat at Fontgombault (and perhaps another at Solesmes), joining for all hours of the office, and seeking opportunities (if available) to learn one-on-one with their choirmasters, organists, and MCs. Also a series of private lessons with some of the great organists of the French School in and around Paris. The monastery retreats would serve as both musical and spiritual renewal. The organ tour and lessons would be ordered to personal musical development. Another vote for some liturgical "tourism" as well. Lots of notetaking from each part of the experience.

    At the end, a period (a couple days, not just an hour or two) of contemplative discernment about what I've learned, and how to apply it fruitfully in my own work without hyperzealously trying to turn a parish church into Fontgombault or St. Sulpice overnight (a recipe for disaster).

    Something along those lines...
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  • francis
    Posts: 11,340
    including a retreat at Fontgombault
    I did think about this, but I did not put it in my rec.
  • TLMlover
    Posts: 133
    I would only go to TLM, immerse myself in chant, forget the Novus Ordo even exists, go to confession a lot and adoration a lot. My personal renewal would be directly connected with getting away from my musical responsibilities, like davido said. The renewal of parish music is my weekly job, so I wouldn't do it on sabbatical, nor would I even think about it.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,968
    Drink. A lot. (More than usual.)
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