Book Signing Lecture and Reception

From time to time, I've seen author signings at bookstores where the author is sitting all by himself with a stack of books, as shoppers walk right by him as if he is doesn't exist. It always makes me sad. You know what I mean.

Well, I hope that does happen to me on September 24, 2009, when I'll be at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., 6-7:30pm. The schedule has me giving a talk and then signing copies of Sing Like a Catholic.

My general theme is by now probably well-known to readers of this site: the desperate need for a unifying and universal music voice in liturgy for all Catholics to call their own. With plenty of time for discussion, it could be fun, and of course I'm enormously honored by the invitation.

When the book first appeared, I received emails from a few old hands who said: I can't believe that you actually put out a book stating the incredible obvious! But here is the thing that people in the know seem to forget: the current generation of Catholic musicians is in serious need of education on the basics of Catholic music.

Progress has been seriously interrupted in the last several decades and now that matters are getting on the right track again, we need to re-learn what was once known all over again. If my book has value at all, it is not because it says anything new or that it says anything for the first time; it is that it says old things within the current context of our transitional moment in Catholic music.

Judging from the outstanding response to the Chant Pilgrimage that starts the following day, the Washington, D.C., area seems to be a hotbed of progress in the area of liturgical music. So sitting alone at a table perhaps won't be my fate after all!