Fall Sacred Music Workshop 2022 | Menlo Park, California
The Church Music Association of America is pleased to announce the first Fall Sacred Music Workshop for Chant and Polyphony. This four-day workshop offers participants the opportunity to study chant and polyphony with outstanding directors Dr. Horst Buchholz, Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, and David Hughes.
Participate in singing the beautiful liturgies with the CMAA on September 15, 16, and 17 at St. Patrick’s Seminary in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, California. Join in with morning and night prayer and enjoy an evening with sung Vespers and an organ recital.
Chant Courses
When you come to the Fall Sacred Music program, you will need to choose a chant choir for your participation during the week. There are few joys greater than singing in a well-prepared Gregorian chant choir. Although there is always a little tweaking after the first day, i.e. singers moving up or down a level, most people find it relatively easy to choose.
Many returning attendees to the CMAA events find themselves advancing from a fundamentals/refresher choir to the advanced. Some attendees may choose to attend a fundamentals/refresher course in order to learn teaching techniques for beginners from the conductors, even though their level of chant singing is on a higher level than most attending a fundamentals/refresher course.
Each participant should choose one of the chant courses:
Fundamentals and Refresher Chant Course for Men and Women
This course in Gregorian chant is intended for chant beginners or for those with some background in chant, but without the opportunity to sing it on a regular basis. Participants will learn how to read the four line staff, the names of the neumes, and how to navigate the intervals with solfege. Rhythm will be introduced. This group will sing the Mass ordinaries, as well as some of the less difficult Mass propers for the liturgies.
Intermediate to Advanced Chant Course for Men and Women
This course is intended for intermediate or advanced singers who sing chant regularly. The bulk of the more difficult Chanted Mass Propers for the liturgies will be sung by this choir, as well as the chanted Mass ordinaries.
Polyphony Courses
Photo from Winter Sacred Music 2017
Being part of a polyphonic choir is one of the many highlights of the CMAA events. Note that there is no sign-up or pre-registration for either of the choirs. Simply arrive at the rehearsal of your choice on Thursday. If the conductors find they have too many sopranos or too few tenors, for example, a little shifting around may occur from choir to choir on the first day.
But as a matter of good choir etiquette, conductors ask that you not bounce from choir to choir. Three days of rehearsal is not much time to develop an ensemble sound, and the deadlines of performing in liturgy loom delightfully throughout the week.
Each participant should choose one of the polyphony choirs:
Each of the two Polyphony choirs will include beginning to advanced singers. The two polyphony choirs will share the responsibilities for the polyphony repertory for the liturgies. Repertory information to be forthcoming.
Breakout Sessions
Breakout Sessions are planned for the workshop with various topics, including: Modes and their Pedagogical Utilities, The Distinction Between the Mass Ordinaries, Effective Choral Rehearsal Planning, The Hierarchy of the Sung Liturgy and What Should the Priest Sing at Mass? (Details forthcoming)
Useful Links
Fall Sacred Music Workshop 2022 Schedule
Repertory (forthcoming)
Please note that all music needed for the course will be provided in the printed music book. You are not required to have your own copy of the Graduale Romanum for the course.
Registration Form
Online Registration and Payment
CMAA Code of Conduct
Waiver of Liability Relating to Coronavirus / COVID-19
Instructions for Priests, Deacons and Seminarians
Conference Music Book (forthcoming)
The Fall Sacred Music Workshop will begin with check-in at 4:00 pm on Wednesday afternoon, September 14, and will conclude on Saturday, September 17, after the closing Mass at 12:00 pm at St. Patrick’s Seminary Chapel.
Registration Information
Mail-in and online registration can be completed now. To To register by mail and pay by check, download and complete the registration form and mail to CMAA, 322 Roy Foster Rd., McMinnville, TN 37110. The discount code for members has been sent to our member list by email. Please contact Janet Gorbitz at programs@musicasacra.com or call 505-263-6298 for questions about your member discount code if you have not received it.
Liability Waiver
All participants are required to sign a Waiver of Liability Relating to Coronavirus / COVID-19.
Register online here
Tuition includes all sessions and materials. There are options for commuter or full room and board attendees. Those staying at the retreat center will have all meals provided. Commuters will have all lunches and snacks included and the option to upgrade your registration to also include dinners. You will receive all course materials including the Parish Book of Chant upon arrival. The week’s events will culminate with Mass at St. Patrick’s Seminary Chapel at 12:00 p.m.
Early Registration (deadline: August 15, 2022) for CMAA members (Commuters) is $465, (lunches only) including nonrefundable deposit of $75. Non-member Commuter (lunches only) price is $515. Early registration for members with lodging and all meals will be $720 (dbl) or $765 (sgl); for non-members it is$770 (dbl) or $815 (sgl). Early registration for Seminarians and Full-time students Commuters (lunches only) is $340. For seminarians/students with housing and all meals, the rate is: $595 (dbl) or $640 (sgl). Payment must be made in full by August 15th to receive this rate. See more options at our ONLINE REGISTRATION.
Regular Registration (deadline: September 1, 2022) for CMAA members (Commuters) is $515, (lunches only) including nonrefundable deposit of $75. Regular registration for members with housing and all meals will be $770 (dbl) or $815 (sgl). Non-member Commuter (lunches only) price is $565. Regular registration for non-members with housing and all meals will be: $820 (dbl) or $865 (sgl). Regular registration for Seminarians and Full-time students Commuters (lunches only) is $365. Seminarian/student registration with housing and all meals will be $620 (dbl) or $665 (sgl). Payment must be made in full by September 1st to receive this rate. See more options at our ONLINE REGISTRATION.
Space is limited for this course, but late registrations will be accepted if space is available after 9/1/22. The late registration fee is $50 for members or nonmembers, $25 for Seminarians and Students.
Please note that all participants are expected to adhere to our CMAA Code of Conduct.
Vallombrosa Retreat Center | Menlo Park, CA
Retreat Center accommodations are available at the Vallombrosa Retreat Center, 250 Oak Grove Ave, Menlo Park, CA 94025, Tel: (650) 325-5614. The retreat center is walking distance from the seminary.
Cancellations
Requests received in writing at the CMAA Office (by mail or email) by September 1st will receive a refund less the nonrefundable $75 deposit. Refunds will be processed after the Fall Workshop has concluded. We expect this course to fill quickly, so don’t delay.
Faculty
Dr. Horst Buchholz, Vice President of the Church Music Association of America, will be directing one of the polyphony choirs at the Fall Sacred Music Workshop. Buchholz’ choir will sing a variety of polyphonic repertory during the workshop. He will also present a breakout session on Effective Choral Rehearsal Planning. He will also serve as organist for our liturgies.
Horst Buchholz is Director of Sacred Music at the Archdiocese of Detroit and the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, MI. He previously served as Director of Sacred Music at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis and the Archdiocese of St. Louis, as well as Artistic Director of ProArte Saint Louis.
Prior 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.
William Mahrt will be providing a breakout session for attendees during the week.
Dr. 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.
Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka
Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka joins the 2022 Fall Workshop Faculty to direct one of the two Polyphony Choirs and a Chant Choir. In addition, she will present a breakout session on Modes and their Pedagogical Utilities. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka is an associate professor and the director of sacred music at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie) in New York, where she also teaches sacred music courses in the St. Cecilia Academy for Pastoral Musicians.
She has co-edited Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought, and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, published by the Church Music Association of America (CMAA). Her publications also include articles in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Sacred Music, Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal, the proceedings of the Gregorian Institute of Canada, the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, the Adoremus Bulletin, and Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century (Bloomsbury/T&T Clark).
She was the sometime president and is currently a board member of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, serves on the board of the CMAA, is the managing editor of the CMAA’s journal Sacred Music, and serves on the Archdiocese of New York Music Commission. As academic liaison of the CMAA, she has organized and presented papers at several academic conferences on Charles Tournemire, the work of Msgr. Richard Schuler, and the role of Gregorian chant in pastoral ministry and religious education; she was a co-organizer of the Sacra Liturgia USA 2015 conference in New York, and presented papers at the Sacra Liturgia conferences in New York, London, and Milan.
Donelson-Nowicka was recently named as a Consultant to the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship.
Donelson-Nowicka received her DMA in piano performance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studied piano with Paul Barnes, Mark Clinton, and Ann Chang in addition to her organ studies with Quentin Faulkner. She received her undergraduate degree in vocal music education and North Dakota State University, where she studied piano with Dr. Robert Groves and conducting with Dr. JoAnn Miller.
Having studied Gregorian chant at the Catholic University of America and the Abbey of St. Peter in Solesmes, for six years Donelson-Nowicka served as a co-organizer of the Musica Sacra Florida Gregorian Chant Conference, and has given chant workshops in dioceses, parishes, and monasteries across the U.S. and Europe. She is a regular member of the faculty at the Church Music Association of America’s annual Sacred Music Colloquium.
Before coming to Dunwoodie, Dr. Donelson-Nowicka served on the faculty at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, and at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, where she taught music theory, music history, piano, and directed the university chorale. As a choral conductor, Donelson-Nowicka has directed collegiate, semi-professional, amateur, monastic, and children’s choirs. She currently directs the Schola Cantorum of St. Joseph’s Seminary and the Metropolitan Catholic Chorale. She also regularly teaches Gregorian chant to the contemplative sisters at the Monastery of St. Edith Stein in Borough Park, Brooklyn (Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará [SSVM]), and has also given extended workshops to the Benedictine monks of Silverstream Priory in Ireland (County Meath) and the Benedictine nuns of Priorij Nazareth Tegelen in the Netherlands.
Additionally, she teaches chant to children using the Ward Method at the Colm Cille Club (Pelham, NY) and Immaculate Conception Children’s Schola Cantorum (Sleepy Hollow), and she recently joined the faculty as a music teacher at the Cardinal Kung Academy in Stamford, Connecticut. Dr. Donelson-Nowicka is currently working on a project to adapt the Gregorian chants of the Mass proper for the Spanish language. She also hosts a weekly podcast entitled “Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast.”
David Hughes
David J. Hughes joins the Fall Sacred Music Workshop faculty this year as director of a Chant Choir. He will also serve as organist for our liturgies during the workshop.
Hughes is currently Organist & Choirmaster at St. Patrick’s Parish and Oratory in Waterbury, Connecticut. He served for thirteen years as Organist and Choirmaster at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he developed a program of seven choirs, including the professional St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum, the volunteer St. Mary’s Choir, and the St. Mary’s Student Schola, a comprehensive program of musical education for children.
He directs Viri Galilæi, an ensemble of men from the tristate New York area who gather weekly to sing Vespers and medieval polyphony from facsimiles of original manuscripts.
Hughes is Director of Music at St. John Fisher Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut, and serves as a consultant to several parishes in Connecticut looking to expand their musical programs. He is Director of Music for the Roman Forum’s annual two-week Summer Symposium at Lake Garda in Italy, where he directs a choir for daily Masses, a large volunteer choir for nightly Vespers, and coordinates performances and recitals with local groups. He was named Chant Instructor for St. Benedict’s Abbey in Still River, Massachusetts, which he visits every few weeks for musical consultation with the monks.
He travels frequently to give workshops, clinics, and recitals in North America, South America, and Europe; this past season had workshops and recitals in Canada, Italy, and Ecuador. He is currently completing, with librettist Richard Munkelt, an opera based on the life of Gaius Gracchus. 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.
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. Fr. Pasley will present a breakout session on the Hierarchy of Sung Liturgies and What Should the Priest Sing at Mass?
He is a priest of the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey. Fr. Pasley will teach a breakout session for clergy and seminarians on pre-1955 Holy Week and another session on singing the three preface tones for the Extraordinary Form.
Because of his association with Msgr. Richard Schuler, he was introduced to the Sacred Music Colloquium 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 Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. 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, and an M.A. in Education from Seton Hall University. 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-rite Parish of Mater Ecclesiae, Berlin, N.J. (materlatin.org). Mater Ecclesiae was 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.
Maggie Gallagher
Maggie Gallagher, Executive Director for the Benedict XVI Institute will join us on Friday, September 16 and give a talk about her work with the Institute, the recent highly successful Sacra Liturgia Conference and the Archdiocese of San Francisco during our dinner that evening.
Maggie Gallagher’s experience includes successfully founding two nonprofit organizations, The National Organization for Marriage and the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. She was also a founding editor of two magazines: the online The National Pulse (which grew quickly under her leadership to 450,000 Facebook likes), and the Manhattan Institute’s quarterly journal of urban policy, The City Journal.
She was a nationally syndicated columnist for 17 years, an editor and a columnist at National Review, and the author or co-author of four books, most recently Debating Same-Sex Marriage (Oxford University Press, 2012).
Fr. Samuel Weber
Fr. Samuel Weber will talk to participants on Thursday, September 15, during our dinner at Vallombrosa Retreat Center.
In addition to teaching at St. Patrick Seminary, Father Weber has served as the founding director of the Institute of Sacred Music in the Archdiocese of St. Louis and Magister choir of the Cathedral-Basilica of Saint Louis.
He has served as a faculty member at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, Wake Forest Divinity School, and St. Meinrad’s College. He received the Licentiate in Sacred theology with a specialization in sacred liturgy and monastic spirituality from the Pontifical Athenaeum Sant’Anselmo in Rome. He studied Gregorian Chant with Dom Eugene Cardine as well as music history and composition at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.
His collection of English Chants, The Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities, published by Ignatius Press, has been a valuable tool for church musicians for several years.
