Prof. Dr. Joerg Abbing
Dr. Joerg Abbing was born in Duisburg, Germany, and studied organ and church music, musicology, and art history at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Duesseldorf and the University of Saarbruecken. He graduated with degrees in church music, the organ performance diploma, and earned his PhD with a dissertation on the organ works of Maurice Duruflé. He continued his studies in organ and improvisation in Paris with André Isoir and Naji Hakim.
Since 1995, he has served as Kantor and Organist at the former abbey church of St. Arnual (“Stiftskirche”) in Saarbruecken. In 1997 he became lecturer in organ and piano at the Diocesan Institute for Church Music in Speyer. He has also served as a lecturer for musicology and organ improvisation at the Saarbruecken University of Music, until he was appointed Professor of Music at that institution in 2011. Joerg Abbing has given many concerts and masterclasses in Germany and abroad. He has published in several journals and is author of the first biographies of Maurice Duruflé (2002) and Jean Guillou (2006).
His artistic activities also include include numerous CD, TV and radio productions.
In June of 2014 Prof. Abbing was appointed Dean of Music and Pedagogy at the Saarbruecken University of Music.
Bro. Mark Bachmann
After earning a Bachelor’s degree in liberal arts, Brother Mark Bachmann entered Fontgombault, a Benedictine monastery in France, where he was ordained a priest in 1991.
Sent as one of the 13 founders of Clear Creek monastery in 1999, he has served as choirmaster at the monastery since 2009.
Brother Bachmann will present a breakout session about the formation of the Clear Creek schola as a model of oral tradition (from Solesmes to Clear Creek).
Dr. Mary Jane Ballou
Dr. Mary Jane Ballou will be presenting two breakout sessions during the week. Her breakout presentations will focus on two of the “nuts and bolts” issues that face choirs and scholas: the aging female voice and the “choir management for cowards.”
Dr. Ballou is currently the director of Cantorae St. Augustine, a women’s schola that re-introduced chant and Renaissance polyphony into the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida after a nearly forty-year hiatus. She studied piano and organ at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Marta Bracchi-Le Roux and Joy Crocker and early music with Laurette Goldberg. Dr. Ballou received her Doctorate in Sacred Music from the Graduate Theological Foundation, where she specialized in the music for the Latin Rite funeral rituals before and after the Second Vatican Council. Her article, “Setting the Stage: Liturgical Reform in the Mid-20th Century” was published in Foundation Theology 2013. She is also a regular contributor to Sacred Music journal on the practical aspects of schola training and management.
Mary Jane Ballou has studied Gregorian chant and semiology with Fr. Lawrence Heimann, C.PP.S., St. Joseph College, and Dom Daniel Saulnier, O.S.B. at the Abbey of St. Peter at Solesmes, France. Dr. Ballou’s choral conducting experience includes Lutheran, Anglican, Russian Orthodox, and Byzantine and Latin Rite choirs, as well as independent chamber ensembles. She specializes in a cappella sacred music and has consulted with pastors and choir directors wishing to implement chant and traditional polyphony in their parishes. Cantorae St. Augustine has assisted at both Ordinary and Extraordinary Form Masses and has presented Vespers in both Latin and English at the Shrine of La Leche in St. Augustine for over six years. Dr. Ballou has served on the faculties of the Summer Colloquium and the Chant Intensive of the Church Music Association of America and the Musica Sacra Florida annual Gregorian Chant conferences. Her training and experience combine the classical Solesmes method with insights from contemporary semiological studies. The goal is a fluent chant style that will engage modern worshippers with the Church’s liturgy through the ages. She is an experienced teacher of beginning and continuing singers of chant and is known for her engaging yet thorough style.
In 2012 and 2014, Dr. Ballou was a participant and recitalist in the Ninth and Tenth International Organ and Early Music Festivals in Oaxaca, Mexico. As the founder of the early music ensemble Alondra in St. Augustine, Florida, Dr. Ballou has researched and presented programs on the musical heritage of the first Spanish settlement in what became the United States of America. She is an accomplished performer on harp and organ, and produces a weekly classical music radio program that focuses on both very early and very contemporary music. Lastly, Dr. Ballou can be found on the treble bench at shape-note singings in the South, where the straight tone and just intonation of early metrical hymnody survive and thrive.
Wilko Brouwers
Wilko Brouwers of the Netherlands will conduct one of the polyphonic choirs at XXVI CMAA Summer Colloquium in St. Louis, and the Men’s Schola chant choir as well as present a conducting breakout session entitled “First Aid for Conductors”. He has taught both chant and polyphony at the CMAA Colloquia since 2004. He has also taught courses at other CMAA events, including Summer Chant Intensive 2015 and is one of the directors for the CMAA’s Winter Sacred Music event in January 2016.
This year the central work of his choir will be the Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli. Brouwers’ polyphonic choir will also sing motets by composers Purcell and Sweelinck.
Wilko Brouwers has conducted the Monteverdi Kamerkoor Utrecht since 1989 and the Strijps Kamerkoor Eindhoven since 2004. He was also the director of the Gregorian Schola of St. Benedictus Abbey in Achel, Belgium, a post he held for the last eight years until its closing in 2014. His original compositions have been published and recorded.
As a music educator, Wilko Brouwers teaches choral conducting at the Utrecht Art Center in the Netherlands. Internationally, he has taught workshops on Gregorian chant in Auburn, Alabama, Still River, Massachusetts, and Pamplona, Spain. Brouwers is the author of Stepping Tones, a method of sight reading for elementary schools and children’s choirs based on the Ward Method. His Words with Wings: Gregorian Chant for Children in Twenty Lessons has been published by the Church Music Association of America, with both student and teacher’s workbooks and demonstration CDs. Brouwers also writes on chant, music education, vocal training, and choral repertoire for a number of Dutch and European music journals.
Dr. Horst Buchholz
Dr. Horst Buchholz, Vice President of the Church Music Association of America, will be directing one of the polyphony choirs at the XXVI Summer Colloquium. He has served on the faculty at several Summer Colloquia and we are pleased to welcome him again. The principal work for his choir will be the Mozart Mass in C Major K. 220 Sparrow Mass. He will also be conducting motets by Tallis and Lotti. Buchholz will be the organist for Friday’s liturgy at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in St. Louis, Missouri.
Horst Buchholz is Director of Sacred Music at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis and the Archdiocese of St. Louis, as well as Artistic Director of St. Louis Cathedral Concerts. Prior to coming to St. Louis, Dr. Buchholz had served as Organist and Choirmaster at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Colorado and Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland.
Buchholz studied organ and sacred music in his native Germany at the Berlin College of Church Music and graduated with degrees and diplomas in Church Music and Music Pedagogy from the University of Arts in Berlin. His organ teachers have included Heinz Lohmann, Peter Wackwitz, and Rudolf Heinemann. Among his conducting teachers were Martin Behrmann, Uwe Gronostay, and Erich Bergel. After receiving his teaching certificate in Music Theory and Composition from the University of Arts in Berlin in 1989, Dr. Buchholz continued his post-graduate studies in the United States, where he received his Doctor of Music degree in conducting from the Indiana University School of Music.
As a chorus member and assistant with the Berlin Philharmonic Chorus, he worked with and performed under such eminent maestros as Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, and Herbert von Karajan. Dr. Buchholz’s other accolades and accomplishments include his service as Music Director of the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra, organist and guest conductor appearances with the Colorado Symphony, and Opera Colorado, as well as with orchestras and operas in Mexico, Japan, Korea, and several European countries. He has performed in major cathedrals and concert halls around the world. In 2009, The Denver Philharmonic named him Conductor Laureate.
As a music educator, Dr. Buchholz has served as a member of the organ faculty at Cleveland State University; Associate Professor of Music and Director of Schola Cantorum at St. John Vianney Seminary (Denver); Assistant Professor of Conducting, Director of Orchestral Studies, and faculty member of organ and church music at Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver.
Dr. Buchholz is married to the soprano Dr. MeeAe Cecilia Nam, who is currently on the faculty of Eastern Michigan University, and will also be on the faculty at this year’s Colloquium.
Mary Ann Carr Wilson
Mary Ann Carr Wilson will be directing the Women’s Refresher chant choir at Colloquium XXVI, as well as participating in a panel discussion on children’s voices.
Soprano Mary Ann Carr Wilson holds a B.M. and an M.M. in Vocal Performance from San Diego State University. She enjoys a regional career and has appeared as soloist with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, and the San Diego Master Chorale. Mary Ann also performs a wide variety of chamber music, including Irish traditional music.
Having trained under experts in Gregorian chant and Renaissance music as well as performed in several early music ensembles, Mary Ann now directs youth and adult choirs at St. Anne Catholic Church in San Diego. The two choirs sing Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony at weekly Sung and Solemn Masses in the Extraordinary Form (Traditional Latin form of the Mass), and by special engagement. Carr Wilson has been teaching children to sing Gregorian Chant for several years in a summer program called “Chant Camp”. She will participate in a panel discussion about Children’s Voices this year. In addition, she will offer private vocal coaching sessions during the week.
On a first-come, first-served basis, individuals may schedule one-on-one vocal lessons with Carr Wilson during registration for the special Colloquium rate of only $30/session. The thirty-minute sessions are limited, so make plans to schedule your session on June 20th, during Colloquium XXVI registration. Prepayment will be required for vocal sessions, which can be made during conference registration. Our Administrative assistant will manage her teaching schedule and accept payments.
Charles Cole
Charles Cole will direct the Women’s Schola chant course this summer at the XXVI Colloquium in St. Louis, as well as the Motet polyphony choir. An accomplished organist and choral director, he comes to us from the London Oratory (often referred to as “the Brompton Oratory” because of its location in London).
Charles Cole began his musical training as a chorister at Westminster Cathedral. He went on to win a major music scholarship to Ampleforth and organ scholarships at Exeter College, Oxford and Westminster Cathedral. He is Assistant Director of Music at the London Oratory where he directs the London Oratory Junior Choir which, in addition to its liturgical duties, provides the Children’s Chorus for the Royal Ballet’s productions at Covent Garden.
He was appointed Director of the Schola Cantorum at the London Oratory School in 2012. The Schola, for boys aged 8-18, sings polyphony and plainchant at Mass every Saturday at the London Oratory Church. The choir also sings concerts and tours abroad, and is well known for the soundtracks to the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films. The boys were recently invited to sing with the Choristers of Westminster Cathedral in a joint performance of the B minor Mass.
He directed the children’s chorus in a 400th anniversary performance of the Monteverdi Vespers with the Monteverdi Choir conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. He was involved in two of the Papal Liturgies on the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to London, conducting London Brass in James MacMillan’s Tu es Petrus, commissioned for the Mass at Westminster Cathedral, and playing the organ for the Prayer Vigil at Hyde Park for a congregation of 80,000. Recently he has given organ recitals in St Petersburg (2012), Notre Dame, Paris (2013—the 850th anniversary year of the cathedral’s foundation), the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City (2013) and Jerusalem (2013).
Since 2011 he has been a Gregorian Chant Director for the Church Music Association of America’s annual Colloquia. He was recently invited by James MacMillan to speak about Gregorian Chant at Musica Sacra Scotland’s inaugural conference. In August of 2014, as part of the Palestine Choral Festival, he led a number of choral workshops for children’s and adult choirs in Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem.
Most Reverend James D. Conley, D.D., S.T.L.
Since his ordination to the priesthood in 1985, Bishop James D. Conley has served the Catholic Church in a wide variety of ways—as pastor, college campus chaplain, director of Respect Life ministries, theology instructor, Vatican official and bishop. In all of these tasks, he has seen his life as a priest as a call to service and complete surrender to “God’s providential hand.”
For his episcopal motto, Bishop Conley, a convert to the Catholic faith, chose the same motto as the great 19th-century English convert, John Henry Cardinal Newman, “cor ad cor loquitur,” which means “heart speaks to heart”.
Academics and Vocation
After college, Bishop Conley worked on a farm in north central Kansas and traveled to Europe. In 1980, he entered seminary for the Diocese of Wichita. He received philosophical formation at St. Pius X Seminary in Erlanger, Ky., and his theological formation at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., where in 1985 he earned a master’s degree in divinity. In 1989, his bishop sent him to Rome, where he earned a licentiate in moral theology from the Accademia Alfonsiana, part of the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical Lateran University.
Episcopacy
On April 10, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI announced the appointment of Rev. Msgr. James D. Conley as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Denver. Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., ordained him as the new auxiliary bishop on May 30, 2008, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart, at Denver’s Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. As auxiliary bishop, he assisted Archbishop Chaput in the pastoral care of the archdiocese.
On Sept. 14, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Bishop Conley as the bishop of the Lincoln Diocese in Nebraska. Bishop Conley was installed as the ninth Bishop of Lincoln on Nov. 20, 2012 in the Cathedral of the Risen Christ in Lincoln.
Bishop Conley will present a plenary talk to participants on Friday, June 24th entitled: “Foretaste of Heavenly Liturgy.”
Colleen Crafton
Colleen Crafton is the Director of the Ward Centre of Richmond, VA. As an organist, pianist, and choral director, Mrs. Crafton has served church programs in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC, and New York. Most recently she served as the Interim Director of Music and Liturgy at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, VA. As a trombonist, she has performed with The Syracuse Symphony, The Rochester Philharmonic, The Baltimore Opera Orchestra, and The United States Army Field Band. She has been a featured concerto soloist with the Eastman Wind Ensemble and The Army Field Band. She has taught music at Ithaca College, Colgate University, Hamilton College, as well as public and private schools in Maryland, New York, and Virginia. Mrs. Crafton holds music degrees from The Catholic University of America (BM) and The Eastman School of Music (MM), with post-graduate accreditation in the Ward Method Level I, Ward Method Level II, and Gregorian Chant Practicum I at The Catholic University of America.
Mrs. Crafton currently assists her musical husband, Don, with his business, SightReadingFactory.com, and enjoys spending time with both him and their five children.
David Hughes
David J. Hughes returns to the Colloquium faculty this year as director of the Beginning Polyphonic Choir, which will focus on basic choral techniques. This choir will sing one motet on the final day of the Colloquium, but will also learn techniques for polyphonic singing with other selected pieces used for instruction. David will also lead the new music seminar again this year. The new music seminar offers composers the opportunity to hone their craft with colleagues in three breakouts during the week. There will also be a New Music Reading Session open to all participants, where the best compositions from the new music seminar will be sung by conference participants. In addition to these duties, David will also participate in a panel discussion on Children’s Voices.
David is Organist & Choirmaster at St. Mary Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he oversees a program of seven choirs, including the professional St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum, which specializes in late medieval and early Renaissance polyphony in the context of a weekly Solemn Mass in the traditional rite, and the volunteer St. Mary’s Choir, whose core repertoire is English music of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is founder and director of the St. Mary’s Student Schola, a comprehensive program of musical education for children. The Student Schola sings regularly for Masses and Vespers in Connecticut and elsewhere, including a foray to World Youth Day in Madrid to sing Gregorian propers and polyphonic motets at stadium Masses. He directs Viri Galilaei, an ensemble of men from the tristate New York area who gather weekly to sing Vespers, to explore the singing of medieval polyphony from original manuscripts, and to discuss matters of theology, philosophy, and politics.
In demand as an instructor of Gregorian chant, he frequently travels for workshops, clinics, and recitals. He has written several film scores and a number of Masses and motets. David’s composition teachers have included Ruth Schonthal and John Halle, and he has studied organ with Paul Jacobs and Daniel Sullivan. A native of Stamford, Connecticut, he is a graduate of Yale College.
Dr. Ann Labounsky
We are very pleased to have Dr. Ann Labounsky on the faculty of CMAA’s Colloquium XXVI. As professor of music and chairman of the Organ and Sacred Music degree programs at Duquesne University, she oversees undergraduate and graduate programs in sacred music.
Dr. Labounsky will also present two breakouts on Beginning Organist Training (for piano players to learn organ basics). This year, Ann will also be the organist for the Extraordinary Form Vespers Service at the Shrine of St. Joseph on Thursday, June 23rd.
Dr. Labounsky is widely known, both in the United States and in Europe, as a virtuoso performer and improviser at the organ and particularly as a leading American disciple of Jean Langlais. From 1962 to 1964 she lived and studied in Paris as a Fulbright scholar. There, as an organ student of André Marchal and Jean Langlais, she immersed herself in the French organ tradition, studying many of Langlais’s organ compositions with the composer, and playing them for him on the organ at Sainte-Clotilde. In 1964, as Langlais’s student at the Schola Cantorum, she was awarded Diplôme de Virtuosité with Mention Maximum in both performance and improvisation, the first American organist to be so honored.
Labounsky has been a frequent concert performer on two continents, including a number of recitals on the organ at Sainte-Clotilde. Her performances have been broadcast over the French National Radio, as well as public radio stations in the United States. Her undergraduate and graduate degrees in organ were earned at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan. She also holds the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology from the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of a biography of Langlais, Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music, (Amadeus Press, 2000). In celebration of the centennial of Jean Langlais in 2007, the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Guild of Organists produced a DVD entitled Life and Music of Jean Langlais for which she was the narrator and performer at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, California.
Labounsky holds the position of Organ Artist in Residence at First Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh. For more information about Dr. Labounsky, visit her website.
Graduate and undergraduate music students may receive credit for their attendance at CMAA Colloquia and Chant Intensive courses.
Dr. William Mahrt
William Mahrt is Associate Professor and Director of Early Music Singers at the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Stanford University, President of the Church Music Association of America, and editor of Sacred Music, the oldest continuously published journal of music in North America.
Dr. Mahrt grew up in Washington state; after attending Gonzaga University and the University of Washington, he completed a doctorate at Stanford University in 1969. He taught at Case Western Reserve University and the Eastman School of Music, and then returned to Stanford in 1972, where he continues to teach early music. Since 1964 he has directed the choir of St. Ann’s Chapel in Palo Alto, which sings mass and vespers in Gregorian chant on all the Sundays of the year, with masses in the polyphonic music of Renaissance masters for the holy days.
His research interests include theory and performance of Medieval and Renaissance music, troubadours, Machaut, Dufay, Lasso, Dante, English Cathedrals, Gregorian chant, and Renaissance polyphony. He has published articles on the relation of music and liturgy, and music and poetry. He frequently leads workshops in the singing of Gregorian chant and the sacred music of the Renaissance.
At this year’s Colloquium, Dr. Mahrt will conduct a course of chant improvisation, focused primarily on study (this course will include singing two chant propers during the week), as well as delivering one of the plenary addresses. He will also teach two breakout sessions on chant modes.
Matthew J. Meloche
Matthew J. Meloche, Director of Sacred Music, Cathedral of SS Simon and Jude, Phoenix, AZ will be offering one breakout session for the priest, deacon and seminarian training during Colloquium XXVI. Additional training for clergy can be made available during the week upon request. Meloche will also present two breakout sessions on “Introducing Sacred Music to a Parish Community”.
Canadian-born organist Matthew J. Meloche has been working for the restoration of sacred music in the Catholic Church since he was first hired as a Music Director of a large Windsor, Ontario parish at age 15. For the past 15 years he has worked at parishes from 700 to 4500 families, doing everything from the Extraordinary Form to bringing Gregorian chant to Life Teen Masses. . Matthew has taught dozens of priests and deacons to sing their parts of the Mass over the years. He has led retreats and missions, delivered academic lectures and practical workshops, and performed organ concerts throughout the United States and Canada.
He studied philosophy at the University of Windsor until deciding to move to the United States to do church music as a full-time profession. While in Canada he served as Associate Organist at St. Rose of Lima (east Windsor, Ontario), Director of Music at Most Precious Blood (central Windsor), Director and Principal Organist of the highly acclaimed music program at the Windsor Tridentine Mass Community (www.windsorlatinmass.org), and Principal Organist at the newly formed Immaculate Heart parish (central Windsor). After relocating to Columbus, Ohio he was Director of Music at Holy Spirit (east Columbus) and St. Joan of Arc in Powell (north west Columbus). Since moving to Phoenix (to forever escape snow), Matthew has worked as Director of Sacred Music at St. Clare of Assisi Parish in Surprise (West Phoenix), and since 2013 as Director of Sacred Music at the Cathedral of SS. Simon and Jude.
Jeffrey Morse
Jeffrey Morse will serve on the Colloquium XXVI faculty as the director of the Men’s Refresher Chant choir. He will also again lead participants in a morning solfege warmup each morning.
Morse is a conductor, singer, and teacher of Gregorian Chant. A student of Dr. Mary Berry (Cambridge, UK) in Gregorian Chant and Gregorian Semiology. He also attended Sonoma State University and the Université François Rabelais de Tours (France). He was a student of Dr. Alise Brown at the University of N. Colorado in Ward Method, a method of teaching music, both modern and Gregorian notation and theory to school children. A native of Northern California, he however spent much of his formative years in England where he was exposed to the English choral tradition and especially the tradition of child choristers.
In 2002, he established in a small parish in California a flourishing child chorister program under the pedagogical direction of the Royal School of Church Music, proving that even ordinary parishes can musically benefit from this most ancient of Church traditions-the child chorister. In this program, the children were not only trained in Chant but also in singing the treble parts of the polyphony with the choir every Sunday and major feast. The fruits of this were not only beneficial for the singing of services at the parish, adding to the beauty and solemnity of the liturgies, but promises future fruits as well as already some of the original child-choristers have gone on to undergraduate and graduate studies in sacred music.
Mr. Morse is widely looked upon as a leader in the teaching of Gregorian Chant in the U.S and has given many workshops for adults and children in this matchless music of the Church. He is a regular Chant conductor and teacher at the annual Colloquium of the Church Music Association of America. Enthusiastic and missionary about this music, he has been called “disciplined in his approach, but fun and amusing, displaying a complete knowledge and understanding of his subject and its practice and use in the Church of the 21st century”.
Dr. MeeAe Cecilia Nam
Dr. MeeAe Cecilia Nam will offer two breakout sessions on vocal pedagogy for children at the upcoming Colloquium for 2016. She will also participate in the panel discussion on children’s voices during the week. In addition, Private vocal coaching with Dr. Nam will again be made available at the CMAA Colloquium this year. If you have wanted to study with a truly gifted vocal teacher, this is your opportunity, as those who studied with her during the last two summers can attest.
For several years, Dr. Nam has been on the faculty of the CMAA Colloquium, sharing her expertise in vocal pedagogy, vocal performance and directing techniques. She has also served as a plenary speaker and as a director of polyphonic choirs. Once again she will offer to assist participants on a personal basis with individual vocal coaching.
On a first-come, first-served basis, individuals may schedule one-on-one vocal lessons with Dr. Nam during registration for the special Colloquium rate of only $30/session. The thirty-minute sessions are limited, so make plans to schedule your session on June 20th, during Colloquium XXVI registration. Prepayment will be required for vocal sessions, which can be made during conference registration. Our administrative assistant will manage Dr. Nam’s teaching schedule and accept payments.
Soprano MeeAe Cecilia Nam has extensive performance experience as soloist in recitals, oratorio, sacred music, chamber and orchestral concerts, and operas in the United States, Germany, Austria and South Korea. She has gained a fine reputation for her musical interpretations with her numerous concerts in recent years.
Dr. Nam gained a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Before joining the faculty of Music at Eastern Michigan University in 2009 she taught voice at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, where she served as chair of the vocal studies program for 5 years. She also founded and directed the annual “Vocal Arts Competition for Young Colorado Musicians.”
Since 2000 with her husband, Dr. Horst Buchholz, organist and conductor, she has given numerous recitals for organ and voice in Germany and Austria. She has collaborated with world-class musicians including Krista Bennion Feeney, Joseph Robinson, James Buswell and sung under the direction of Horst Buchholz, Joseph Dorfman, Adam Flatt, Michael Christie and Martin Isepp among others.
Her excellent understanding of works by Mozart has led her to perform many of his sacred works including Exsultate jubilate, Grand Mass in C minor, and the Requiem performed with the members of the Mozarteum Orchestra in the 250th anniversary year of Mozart’s birth in Salzburg, Austria. She has given many performances of works such as Bach’s Cantatas, Easter Oratorio, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Masses, Schubert’s Masses, Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass, Mahler’s Gloria, R. V. Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem and Orff’s Carmina BuranaDue to her great interest in contemporary music she has premiered, in her region, many living composers’ works including Joseph Dorfman’s one act opera Shulamith for soprano and percussion, Voice of River Han by David Mullikin (won distinguished composer by MTNA), James Mobberly’s Words of Love, Georgy Kurtag’s Kafka Fragmente for soprano and violin, Tan Dun’s Silkroad for soprano and percussion.
Dr. Nam is a frequent guest recitalist and lecturer for the Music Teacher’s Association of America and recently gave presentations at the conferences of the College Music Society and the American Liszt Society. She served as a faculty member and performer at the Vianden International Summer Festival and school in Luxembourg in 2011.
As lecturer and vocal clinician Dr. Nam frequently travels throughout the United States, Europe and South Korea giving vocal workshops and master classes at Universities.
Her students have been and are active in national and international competitions and music festivals. Recently Dr. Nam appeared as advisor and guest artist clinician in the first annual “Seoul International Opera Festival,” where three of her students performed lead roles in Mozart’s “Magic Flute.”
She is currently undertaking a project of a CD publication of “Forgotten Songs of Thódore Gouvy”. She has been giving a lecture recital of Gouvy’s songs at various places including “Hans Eisler Musik Hochshule in Berklin, Germany, Eastern Michigan University, Kent State University and University of Tennessee, Knoxville and also during The American Liszt Society Conference in Portland, Oregon, in May 2012.
“Soprano Mee-Ae Nam has a voice of surprising power for so petite a frame, accurate in intonation, well-supported in delivery and with sly bits of interpretation thrown in.” Glenn Giffin, The Denver Post
“A clear, well-supported voice that moves easily in its registers. …..extra care in projecting words.” Glenn Giffin, The Denver Post
“…Leicht und makellos in den Höhen, dramatisch im Ausdruck füllte sie mühelos den akustisch eher schwierigen Kirchenraum. In der Mozartarie… ließ sie großartig perlende Koloraturen höhen..” Max Götz, Paasauer Neue Presse, Waldkirchen, Germany
Rev. Robert Pasley
Father Robert C. Pasley, KCHS, is the Chaplain of the Church Music Association of America and has been a member of the CMAA since his ordination. He is a priest of the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey.
Because of his association with Msgr. Richard Schuler, he was introduced to the Sacred Music Colloquia and has attended most of the Colloquia held since their foundation in 1990. During the tenure of Msgr. Schuler, he was privileged to be the celebrant at orchestral masses at St Agnes parish, St Paul, Minn. He also serves on the faculty at the Colloquium and has served as Vice President and a member of the board of directors of Sacred Music Magazine.
Born on November 20, 1955 in Woodbury, N.J., Father Pasley received a B.A. in Philosophy from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Philadelphia, an M.A. in Dogmatic Theology from Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg, Maryland, and an M.A. in Education from Seton Hall University, South Orange, N.J.. He was ordained by the Most Reverend George H. Guilfoyle in 1982. After ordination, Father Pasley was stationed as an assistant priest in parishes throughout the diocese. In 1992, he was assigned to teach high school. He taught for eight years and during that time became Vice Principal for Academics at Camden Catholic High School.
On October 13, 2000, he was appointed Rector, by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, of the newly established Tridentine Parish of Mater Ecclesiae, Berlin, N.J. (materlatin.org). Mater Ecclesiae is the first diocesan-run Extraordinary Form parish in the United States. Mater Ecclesiae has a full music program of chant, polyphonic masses, and music based on the principles given by the Church for sacred music. Along with Dr. Timothy McDonnell, Fr. Pasley established the annual Mass of Thanksgiving on the Feast of the Assumption. This Mass, a grand event for the Delaware Valley, features some of the greatest orchestral masses ever composed for the sacred liturgy. Some mass settings that have been used for the Assumption Mass are Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, the Missa Septem Dolorum of Carl H. Biber, Schubert’s Mass in Bb Major, and Mozart’s Missa Brevis in C Major.
Finally, Father Pasley is a Knight Commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus.
Jonathan Ryan
We are fortunate indeed to have Jonathan Ryan, Concert Organist, on the CMAA’s Colloquium XXVI faculty this year in Saint Louis, Missouri. Ryan has been on the faculty of the Colloquium for several years, sharing his extensive experience with Roman Catholic liturgy with Colloquium attendees as a director of various choirs, as a breakout presenter and as an organist. Jonathan will be the organist for two liturgies during the week, June 22 and June 25th. He will also direct the Chant Fundamentals course for men and women.
Jonathan will also present a Masterclass as an organ breakout session during the week on the large Aeolian-Skinner organ at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal). We can accept two masterclass organists and one alternate for this session. If you wish to participate, please contact us at programs@musicasacra.com to sign up for this session in advance. We will be accepting participants on a first-come, first-served basis.
Jonathan Ryan enjoys a multifaceted career as a concert artist, church musician, and pedagogue. Among the few organists distinguished with six First Prize awards at major international and national competitions, he has emerged as one of North America’s premier young concert artists, and is represented by Karen McFarlane Artists.
His solo performances have taken him to celebrated venues across the USA and Europe, including the Nicolaikirche in Leipzig, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the Cathédrale St-André in Bordeaux, the Fraumünster in Zürich, the inaugural series of the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, CA, and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists and Organ Historical Society.
His début recording, A Cathedral’s Voice (Raven 941), was released in 2012 to critical acclaim, including a five-star review in the London-based Choir & Organ.
As a church musician, he has held positions at St. James Cathedral and St. John Cantius Church in Chicago, IL, St. Anne Church in Rochester, NY, and currently serves on the staff of the English cathedral-modeled music program of Christ Church in Greenwich, CT, where he directs the church’s semi-professional adult choir, and works with the Choir of Men & Boys and the Girls Choir. Jonathan holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music (BM) and the Eastman School of Music (MM), as well as the Fellow (FAGO) and Choirmaster (ChM) professional certifications from the American Guild of Organists. To find out more about Jonathan, his upcoming performances, and media, visit his website at www.jonathan-ryan.com.
Dr. Edward Schaefer
Edward Schaefer will present four breakout sessions on semiology during the 2016 Colloquium. Dr. Schaefer is professor of music and associate dean of the College of the Arts at the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, FL. He is also the director the Florida Schola Cantorum, a group of dedicated singers of chant and polyphony and a deacon for the Diocese of Orlando.
Dr. Schaefer’s area of study focuses primarily on semiology, the study of ancient musical notation, and its impact on contemporary performance of chant. In addition, he is an advocate for the improvement of education through technology. Combining these two interests, he has taught online courses since 2001. Currently, he is teaching a professional development seminar to music professionals across the country on the subject of semiology. He is currently working with the Digital Worlds Institute at UF and L’Ëcole de Chant Grégorien du Choeur Grégorien de Paris to develop interactive software for the learning of the basic vocabulary and grammar of the notations of St.-Gall and Loan.
Dr. Schaefer is the translator of Daniel Saulnier’s Les Modes Grégoriens and Le Chant Grégorien, both published by Solesmes. He is also the author of Catholic Music Through the Ages, published by Hillenbrand, and auther/editor of Missa Cantata: A Notated Sacramentary, Cantáta Evangélia: A Notated Book of Gospels, and numerous articles on various aspects of sacred music.
Reverend Jason J. Schumer
Father Jason Schumer is a priest of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis and is currently a full-time student, pursuing a doctorate in Liturgical Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. His area of research and study involves liturgical history and development. His forthcoming doctoral thesis bears the working title: “‘Organice Quodammodo Crescant’: Theories of Liturgical Development from the Last One Hundred Years with some Historical Context.”
As a seminarian at the Pontifical North American College, Father Schumer completed an STB at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 2009. Following his ordination to the priesthood in 2010, Father Schumer completed his license in Liturgical Theology at Holy Cross in Rome in 2011. Returning to the Archdiocese of Saint Louis for pastoral ministry, he served one year as parochial vicar at Saint Ambrose Parish in Saint Louis before being appointed Archdiocesan Master of Ceremonies in 2012, residing at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis and overseeing the Archdiocese’s Pontifical Liturgies. All the while, Father Schumer served as an adjunct professor of Liturgical and Sacramental Theology at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary. From 2013-2015, Father Schumer served as Director of Worship at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, where he also worked as Assistant Professor of Liturgical Theology, providing instruction in the seminary’s liturgical courses. During his short time as Director of Worship, Father Schumer oversaw the extensive renovation of the seminary’s main chapel, a project which involved the purchase and design of a new pipe organ. Finally, in 2015, Father Schumer was sent back to Rome to complete doctoral work in Liturgical Theology. It is anticipated that he will defend and publish his doctoral thesis on the liturgy’s historical development in 2017.
Father Schumer will present a plenary talk to the Colloquium participants on Thursday, June 23, 2016 entitled: “How the Liturgy Grows: Is ‘Organic Development’ Fantasy or Reality?”
Scott Turkington
Scott Turkington, Organist and Choirmaster of Holy Family Church and Holy Family Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota, joins the Colloquium faculty again for 2016. He will direct the chant Office choir (men and women) for the Colloquium. In addition, he will teach two breakouts on Conducting Renaissance Polyphonic Music and participate in a panel discussion about Children’s Voices.
Prior to joining the staff at Holy Family in 2013, Turkington served as principal organist and choirmaster of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Charleston, SC. Until 2010, he served as organist and choirmaster for the Roman Catholic Basilica of Saint John the Evangelist in Stamford, Connecticut, where he conducted a choir in a program of weekly polyphonic Mass settings and Gregorian chant. Before accepting the position at St. John’s in 1998, he was Assistant Organist and Conductor at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. While at the National Shrine, he played for over 500 services each year, and appeared on live national television dozens of times.
He has been Music Director at the Church of the Covenant in Boston; Music Teacher and Organist at St. Paul’s Choir School in Harvard Square, under Theodore Marier. A native of Minneapolis, he studied music at the University of Minnesota, the Boston Conservatory of Music and The Catholic University of America. His former teachers include Heinrich Fleischer, Phillip Steinhaus, and George Faxon.
In frequent demand as an organ recitalist, he has played innumerable recitals in the Northeast, having made his New York debut at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He has performed for a national convention of the Organ Historical Society, and is a featured performer on the Organ Historical Society’s compact disc, Organs of Baltimore. In 1994, his choir performed for Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
He is editor of A Gregorian Chant Masterclass by Theodore Marier, published by the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. This book and its companion CD feature the Stamford Schola Gregoriana and the nuns of Regina Laudis, both conducted by Turkington.
Dr. Paul Weber
We welcome Dr. Paul Weber who will again be on the faculty for the CMAA Summer Colloquium this year. He will serve as organist for our liturgy on Tuesday, as well as moderating the panel discussion on Children’s programs at this year’s Colloquium. He will also present a Masterclass as an organ breakout session during the week on the large Aeolian-Skinner organ at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal). We can accept two masterclass organists and one alternate for this session. If you wish to participate, please contact us at programs@musicasacra.com to sign up for this session in advance. We will be accepting participants on a first-come, first-served basis.
Paul Weber is a composer, conductor and organist in New Orleans, where he is Interim Organist and Choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in the historic Garden District. As a concert organist, Dr. Weber has been heard throughout the United States and in Europe. He has won prizes at national and international organ performance competitions, including the Arthur Poister competition (U.S.) and Erfurt Domprediger competition (Germany). Recent performances include concerts at the Piccolo-Spoleto Festival, national conventions of the Organ Historical Society and Church Music Assocation of America, and at the cathedrals in Pittsburgh, St. Paul and Louisville.
A prolific composer, especially for voices, Dr. Weber’s choral works are published by Choralife. Previously, he has held positions in churches in Louisville and Pittsburgh, and founded the Sacred Music program at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Dr. Weber is a graduate of Lawrence University and Yale University. His organ teachers include Frank Rippl, Wolfgang Rübsam, Martin Jean and Thomas Murray.
