Given my relative comfort in both the NPM -style music world, and the CMAA-style music world (and my sincere love for both) I might be a good face for a CMAA table at next year's NPM.
(Or, I might be a bad choice, since I don't think I'm very representative of CMAA membership, and I also don't have a lot of direct experience with CMMA- I'm just an enthusiastic newbie).

Anyway- Count me as a potential volunteer for next year. (Maybe if I'm lucky I'll have gotten to go to the Colloq right before hand.)

We could give away some free music, free recordings, free bow ties.
It'd be great.

I think Jeff Ostrowski would make an excellent "leader" of this booth... if he agrees to cut down to 7 cups of coffee a day....

Anyone know where and when the NPM convention will be next year?

Matthew, I don't drink coffee . . . should I start?

This is probably a stupid question but I will ask anyway. Why pay for a booth when the website is a 24/7 booth that is free to one and all?

Not a stupid question. I have no dog in this fight, but I can think of two reasons a booth is different and (in this instance) superior.

1. People at the conference are almost guaranteed to stumble over the booth and learn of our existence. Finding us on the web is much more of a needle in a haystack unless people are actively searching.

2. A booth is staffed by humans with smiling faces. Thus,CMAA becomes a collection of smart, nice people, not merely a faceless entity. This is the chief benefit of a booth--the opportunity to begin changing hearts and minds.

Maybe someone with bucks--or a collection of people--would like to donate the cost of a booth.

... besides contributing to the liturgical stew it also puts money into the NPM coffer. Extremely bad idea. Instead, posters of the next colloquium should be posted by CMAA friendly vendors. EACH and every one! Also handbills that have witty phrases about true liturgical music with the URL to our website.

What you DO speaks louder than what you SAY. NOT being there sends a very clear message that will spread like fire through the leaflets that would be distributed.

Examples of witty handbills.

"Gregorian Chant... the heart of liturgical music"
www.musicasacra.com

"Musical Roots with Branches Ever New!"
www.musicasacra.com

Sing to the Lord an AUTHENTIC song...
www.musicasacra.com

Au-then-tic : true to one's own personality, spirit, or character
www.musicasacra.com

To really light their fire do a targetted webpage for NPM goers.

The handbill would go something like this:

Find Burried Treasure ...NPM... Marks the spot.
www.musicasacra.com/NPMtreasureHunt

I think I am warming to the idea of having a booth there. If we are to bring the treasury to the people, we have to go where the people are. I don't think we need be concerned that chant will seem to be another "flavor" in the stew. The booth can be setup in a manner to state as much. The literature we already have states our aims clearly and the folks at the booth can kindly and politely talk to people. Think of it as a "mission". If Benedict XVI can promote a mission to virtually Godless Europe, we can send missionaries to the NPM.

I looked on the site and found nothing about $$$ for booth.

According to the CMAA home page, "The Church Music Association of America is an association...active in advancing Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, and other forms of sacred music...for liturgical use."

Leading workshops, publishing the journal, and having a good website clearly align with the goal, but doesn't having a booth at the NPM align with it, too? The issue of spreading resources too thin, as Jeffrey suggests, is important, but the booth at NPM just seems obvious to me.

Thinking of the CMAA as anything other than one voice among many comes across as arrogance to me for two reasons: 1) A person doesn't need the CMAA to implement Church teachings and 2) the CMAA's members "interpret" Church teachings, like everyone else who has read them; it's the best anyone can do. Pointing to a phrase or a sentence and saying, "This is what it says, plain as day," just isn't enough.

"Thinking of the CMAA as anything other than one voice among many comes across as arrogance to me...."

CMAA has been a voice for many years and has seen fads in church music come and go yet stayed the course without variance to what the Church wants. It may be arrogant of the Church to want this music, but this is the voice that has stood up for it time and again.

Why do the leaders of NPM don't invite a CMAA staff member as a speaker, if they really want to do the music that the Church desires?
I'm sure those people at the headquarter know about CMAA. Don't they invite people like David Haas and such as a guest? The music director and musicians in the parish I work went there and were talking about meeting him in person as if he is a celebrity. (They know Gregorian chant and are not interested in it at all. I work with them.) Aren't those booths for publishers who want to do business there? Do CMAA and Gregorian chant have a place there, competing with those publishers? And the booth cost $850? (plus other expenses and trips, since they are not invited as their guest) I think it would be more evangelizing and spending money more wisely if CMAA uses that money to help a priest or seminarian to come to Colloquium. For people who want to really help them to learn about sacred music, there are other ways too. I went to their chapter meeting and managed to get 10 minutes after their long talks on contemporary music to speak about Gregorian chant and its resources. I would rather see the leaders of CMAA people focus on what they are doing now, working with people who really want to do sacred music and help them to spread it out, (and I know it's already a lot of sacrifice for them, but they have been doing it very wisely), instead of wasting their energy, time and money there. CMAA has grown a lot, and all the work they did and the influence they have on musicians all over the country and even outside US cannot even be estimated. Maybe their work is not as visible as NPM, but that's how many saints did their work.

Well said, Mia, and I concur. NPM is akin to a university of colleges, a marketplace of ideas. CMAA? Moreso a conservatory, a union of principles and ideals.

Looking at the convention facility they chose this year, I imagine it was on the expensive side. The Terms and Conditions Statement for the place says that you can't even set up your own exhibits or equipment without using a union-approved contractor.

If they had high costs to defray, charging exhibitors $850 was just a necessity.

With attendance down to 1500 and the basic conference fee at $275, the finances of such a big event are probably challenging. No wonder they charged extra fees for various special add-ons (master classes, evening retreat sessions, an organ crawl).

But if there is enough specific interest, enough specific people, and enough specific money- it would be great.

I return to BUCKAROO BANZAI, when Dr. Emilio Lizardo exclaims, "Buckaroo, dunna you ree-ah-lice whaddayou saying?!?"

Adam, you're sounding like a sales manager with your strategy. If CMAA is bequeathed with fortune that still yielded 12 baskets of leftovers from a start of 2 fish and 5 loaves, it would still feed the faithful. To quote Bob Hurd's song, "If you belong to me...."
We would not trade our surplus to vendors outside the temple for sacrificial doves so that we could legitimize our presence before the "High Priests." Would we?

I spoke with a friend this morning who just returned from Detroit.
I asked about the Masses.
The first thing he said was that singing the texts made him realize what a big fuss over nothing the hand-wringers and just-say-wait crowd are making, and that some had been led to believe the change-over would be traumatic and that it just isn't so.
I asked if he concurred in Fr Ruff's assessment of the new Mass settings.

He said he was sick to death of triple meters and jigs.

But he also said that an Ordinary by Proulx, probably one of the last things he wrote, and in a chant-style, he actually was looking forward to using.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

I think we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Andrew and Adam, you misjudge my assignation of CMAA; it posits an ideal, and only points us towards perfection.

right now you're not in the marketplace, the public square, and certainly not in the temple.

I don't know of any other way to respond other than "Chant, not unlike redemption, is not a commodity for sale."

my hat's off to the charleses!

chant is not a product of the venue... it is the prayer of the people.

it doesn't compete because there IS NO COMPETITION... therefore it should not be lowered to the marketplace.

(Matthew, not only did people look at BFW but they bought copies!)

(Charles, Father Anthony's rooms at the convention center could have accommodated 500 people so they weren't cubicles.)

(I met Dr. William Mahrt as he was checking in and I was checking out.)

I would be happy to stand at a CMAA booth for a few hours next year in Louisville and would contribute to the cost. I am trying to remember the correct titles for the trades/unions that govern the setting up of convention halls and transport goods from trucks to the floor of the halls. Whatever their name, they have quite a bit of power in some states but I don't know their power in Kentucky.

Far from being muzzled, I was asked to be one of the keynote speakers, and I am doing a breakout on BFW, a showcase or two, a worship service, and at least two other breakouts.

Dear friend Paul,
You know my verbiage is meant to be as inspirational as it appears reckless and revolutionary. And you know I've done more than my share of nat'l. and regional NPM's. I'm not saying the good fight is not allowed to be waged at NPM's. I am saying that a public, national dialogue has yet to be heard, ala Milwaukee or Snowbird, both of which seem dusty and antiquated to my ears/eyes. A plenum such as Pittsburgh '99 on the "future" with a panel that included my aforementioned champions, yourself, Frs. Ruff, Joncas, Manalo, and a couple of bishops of various stripes (Wuerl v. Vigneron would be a strong draw!) would compel me to spend $ in this economy to witness and regard. Other than that,
NPM has all the attraction, to me, of the LAREC. YMMV.
Pax. and welcome home to CA.

Can someone explain to me, as if I was four-year-old child, why commentary here and elsewhere seems to focus on some extraneous minor semantics and avoids wholly the propostional thrust of the post's author(s)? This is a tactic honed to perfection by some former posters here whose sole purpose seems to me to gum up the gears of discourse so that a thread can have its agenda hijacked.
Do we want to advance progress or not?

So it is about power after all?

Mia, NPM has a composition contest this year involving setting the new Mass text. Convention attendees were to vote and determine which setting was their favorite. IMVHO, this "popular vote" would give those in power an idea as to which would be marketable.

OK...

Here's my outlook. We (CMAA) or any other liturgical guild of sorts, is not "at war" with the likes of NPM orgs. I never joined any of the usual guilds because most of them do not align themseves with Catholic theology or liturgical ideals that the Church upholds. There is far too much put forward in the name of the Church, the magesterium, etc., and it is not. So my tact has been to be absent. CMAA is by no means perfect, but it is the kind of guild I have always hoped to find and in which to participate. If you join the liturgy fair, and that is what most of those types of things tend to be, then you dumb down your position to that of the level of just another opinion. That is a false ecumenism. We need to draw people into our thinking without becoming swept up in the frenzy. That is why I propose media exposure and not lend credibility to the other orgs. If CMAA becomes a vendor, it does exactly that... It lends credibility. And while you may sway a few minds in your direction (maybe) it is not worth the trade off of lending credibility.