An organist, composer and writer added to NLM contributors

Sacred music is one of the pillars of a genuine springtime for the liturgy, either in the Tridentine rite (perfecting the use of Gregorian, polyphony, and ensuring the presence of the Sunday Missa Cantata) and most certainly in the reform of the reform.

Evidently as well, sacred music is amongst the most popular topics on the NLM, generating some of the greatest numbers of comments, if not also the biggest debates.

To that end, I wanted to introduce a new contributor to the NLM whom is going to begin working on pieces for this site. That person is Mr. Michael Lawrence.

Mr. Lawrence attended the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University there he studied organ and trumpet under numerous teachers of international repute. During his time there he served as a part time sacristan at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore. It was here that he became a student of the liturgy and learned to appreciate the use of Latin in the sacred liturgy. He has worked as music director in several parishes, and in each of them he reinstituted the regular use of Gregorian chant.

Mr. Lawrence not only is an accomplished musician, he has also composed liturgical pieces such as a motet, O Sacrum Convivium which will soon be published by Cantica Nova.

He is a contributor to journal Sacred Music, where he is soon due to have another article published on the use of the organ in the Roman Rite.

He is currently active as a musician in Philadelphia and is also a parishioner at Mater Ecclesiae Roman Catholic in Berlin, NJ -- a very successful Tridentine rite parish.

Please welcome Michael Lawrence.

I know some of the pieces he is planning to work on, and I think you will be quite delighted.