The schola sang beautifully at Our Lady of Fatima Church on March 14. Here’s what I posted on the CMAA forum:
Y’all will have to forgive me for bragging about my tiny schola. The Pope Benedict XVI Schola RULES.
Although the group has been in existence for an entire year, the membership has been in flux, and the four or five we have now are not the four or five we started out with. Tonight the current group sang its first Mass together, and I am so proud of them.
They sang beautifully, they listened well to each other, they watched me closely–and they absolutely made my week. Or maybe my month. My heart is full of gratitude.
We began with a prelude—the introit from the Anglican Use Gradual. For Mass we sang an introit hymn from a book this particular parish uses [Christopher Tietze’s Introit Hymns for the Church Year] and then Palestrina’s Jesu Rex Admirabilis, the simple Ave Regina Caelorum chant, the two-part Perosi Ave Maria, and Father Columba Kelly’s Communio for the third Sunday of Lent, with verses I pointed.
My job is to welcome, encourage, teach, and praise them–but they deserve all the credit for singing so well.
Note that most of the music I mentioned—including the Palestrina, the Perosi, the Anglican Use Gradual, and Father Kelly’s propers—is available free online.
I am preparing a guide to the propers for the website of the East Tennessee chapter of CMAA. I’ll post about it here when it’s available.