The Auckland Latin Mass Chaplaincy is inviting church musicians to take part in a sacred music conference. The organisation says the October conference will celebrate the Catholic Church’s musical treasure. It says the weekend conference aims to help and give tools to anyone involved in a music ministry. According to the Catholic Catechism, when a Read more
Only the most myopic would deny that a kind of mushroom cloud has covered the Catholic Church for the past half-century. A small, but quite significant part of that spiritual nuclear winter has been the profound collapse of Sacred Music. Votaries of the “spirit of Vatican II” (in today’s au courant vernacular, “the New Paradigm”) Read more
Under the nearly 2,000-year-old dome of Rome’s Pantheon and above the relics of early Christian martyrs, the melodies of Johann Sebastian Bach and other composers are being played on the organ this month in an effort to use beauty to reconnect people with the mystery of God. The Pantheon’s International Organ Festival seeks to create Read more
The first international organ festival will be held under the nearly 2,000-year-old dome of Rome’s Pantheon and above the relics of early Christian martyrs. The melodies of Johann Sebastian Bach and other composers will be played on the organ this month in an effort to use beauty to reconnect people with the mystery of God. Read more
Liturgical musicians should be “animators of the song of the whole assembly,” not replace it, says Pope Francis. Speaking at the weekend’s international meeting of choirs in Rome on “Music in the Liturgy and in the Catechesis for the New Evangelisation,” Francis said liturgical and sacred music can be a powerful instrument of evangelisation. This Read more
“A bit of magic” was created in Katikati at the weekend through a combination of musical talent, research and an extraordinary, rare manuscript. Tauranga’s Colin and Stephanie Smith discovered the manuscript 10 or 12 years ago in a pile of music bought decades earlier as part of an auction lot from an estate in Christchurch. Read more
A man who has been described as one of Britain’s greatest living composers has accepted an invitation from the Christchurch Diocese Sacred Arts Team to visit. Sir James MacMillan will conduct singers in his St Anne’s Mass at the 5.30pm Mass in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral on 23 July. He will speak later at the Music Centre Read more
Sacred music and liturgical chant needs renewing and improving, Pope Francis said at a major international conference on sacred music on Saturday. “Sometimes a certain mediocrity, superficiality and banality have prevailed, to the detriment of the beauty and intensity of liturgical celebrations,” he said at the conference organized by the Congregation for Catholic Education and Read more
St Patrick’s Cathedral has begun its 2016 Spring Organ Recital series. Entitled ‘Saturdays @ 6’, the recitals feature four of Auckland’s top organists, performing on the cathedral’s baroque-style instrument. The first recital on Sept 10 celebrated organist and Director of Music James Tibbles’ 40th year as a professional musician. WHAT: Organ Recital Series WHEN 6pm: Read more
The New Zealand Youth Choir which sang at Wellington’s Sacred Heart Cathedral last Sunday will soon be singing at a high mass in Paris’s famous Notre-Dame Cathedral. The Mass they will sing is one specially composed for them by New Zealander Andrew Baldwin. Notre-Dame de Paris is an historic Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of Read more