[Magdalen] Education.

[Jay Weigel]

I was fortunate to spend almost my entire church choral singing career
under OCMs who *did* educate us, Leo Steffens at St. Andrew's, Madison, WI,
and Margie Roberts Johnson at All Saints', Morristown, TN. The interims we
had while Margie was getting her PhD in organ performance were another
story entirely. One was pretty decent; he was a musician who was also a
paramedic because being a musician didn't pay the bills. Unfortunately he
ran afoul of our little Napoleon of a priest, who fired him. The next one
was a musician who had no control of the choir, and I quit singing until
Margie came back. She actually kept me in that church longer than I
otherwise would have stayed.

On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 12:10 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
> I still harbor a bit of resentment that various O/C's, all well  musically
> well-educated, didn't teach/inform the choirs about the music being
> performed.
>
> For example, I remember the puzzlement and shock visiting Scott K's
> Ascension, Chicago in the early 1960's while I was singing in a Twin
> Cities Anglocatholic parish.  The shock was that the Minor Chant  Proper
> didn't sound anything like the Minor Chant Proper I knew.
>
> That was because the Twin Cities choir was singing the Psalm-tone
> reduction of the Proper and not the full melasmatic version from the
> Liber Usualis.  IMHO the Twin Cities director should have taught the  choir
> ABOUT plainchant.  As it is, I've gradually picked up information
> through the years on my own.  The choir director there was head  of
> a college music department (Macalaster College), and a PhD in
> choral music, no less.
>
> I'm thinking of this because of the wonderful blurbs in the weekly
> leaflets
> "The Angelus" from Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, NYC that their  new
> O/C, Simon Walley, is now writing.
>
> This week's is about William Byrd, occasioned by the SMV Choir
> singing the Mass a Quatre.  There's more information about Byrd,
> his precarious position as a Recusant Roman Catholic under Elizabeth  I
> and the technicalities of his composing style, than I've ever seen  in one
> location --- and the entire congregation is being educated, not just  the
> choir.
>
> Educated choirs/congregations are better choirs/congregations.
>
>
>
> David Strang.
>