O bleib' bei uns, du kühner Sänger!

Posting tonight from Auburn, Alabama, home of the Saint Cecilia Schola Cantorum at Saint Michael's. This is a church that definitely knows beetle grubs from chocolate chip cookies!

The cliinician, Wilko Brouwers, was excellent. He is conductor of the Monteverdi Kammerkoor Utrecht and has a host of other credentials as well.

He was challenging in the chant repertoire because he is not a thrall of Dom Mocquereau. Well, to the folks who had been to this workshop before, that was somewhere between heresy and blasphemy, at least at first. I was fairly shocked myself, but over the course of the workshop I thought about it a bit more and realized that Solesmes doesn't necessarily have all the info just because they own most of the MSS. I mean, they're not the Chant Police.

And, to be fair, whenever I hear a recording of the "experts" singing this repertoire, it's always disappointing from the vocal standpoint. One pictures the singers with half-aprons and carrying a drinks tray with one hand and the Liber Usualis in the other. And the rules seem very limiting at times, for instance with regard to the treatment of the podatus. There are definitely times when the stylized "liquescence" on this neume gets in the way of the music; so I am going to loosen up my rules a little as well.

Ah, now I get to go back to real life . . . alas. But hey! Ash Wednesday is coming up in a couple of days, and that means lots of solemn music for the duration!

Yurodivi is not entirely displeased.

PS. Still working on the "what the heck happened?" posts. Sorry. Not like that many people are checking in here, and that's probably OK!