Thursday, August 02, 2018

Photos from the Recent BC Sacred Music Symposium

Our thanks to Mr Ryan Bjorgaard for sharing with us these photos and description of the liturgies celebrated during the Sacred Music Symposium recently held in British Columbia.

From July 20-22, Ss Joachim and Ann Parish in Aldergrove, British Columbia hosted the 1st BC Sacred Music Symposium; 106 participants gathered for a weekend of fellowship, practical workshops, lectures, presentations on different aspects of sacred liturgy, liturgical celebrations in both forms of the Roman Rite, all employing music from the great treasury of the Church’s sacred repertoire. The keynote speaker this year was Bishop Joseph Perry, Auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Being the first year we put this event on, the organizing team had no idea what kind of reception to expect, but we were amazed by the interest and enthusiasm of the participants, speakers, and volunteers.

Anyone who is interested can visit the website (bcsacredmusicsymposium.com) for more information, to see the full photo set, and for eventually for updates on the 2019 Symposium.

Friday Evening, July 20 - Opening Liturgy, Sung Vespers (EF) for the feast of St. Jerome Emiliani. 

The music was prepared by the Ss Joachim & Ann Parish Schola, under the direction of Mr Alex McCune, who also taught the beginner’s chant workshop. The repertoire included Giovanni Asola’s four part setting of the Iste Confessor, and Ravenello’s three part setting of the Magnificat.


Saturday July 21 - Vigil Mass of the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (OF).

The Mass was celebrated ad orientem, as are all the Masses at Ss Joachim & Ann, with His Grace Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver as the principle celebrant. The schola chanted the full propers of the Mass from the Graduale Romanum, the readings were chanted in English by one of the seminarians of the Archdiocese of Vancouver, and the Ordinary of the Mass was William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices sung by by the local choral group Belle Voci, under the direction of Ms Paula DeWit.




Sunday July 22 - Closing Mass, Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Faldstool

The mass was celebrated by Bishop Joseph Perry of Chicago; the music was sung by the symposium participants, who sang the full Gregorian propers and ordinary, and several polyphonic pieces, including Victoria’s Ecce Sacerdos Magnus, Tallis’ O Salutaris, and Jeff Ostrowski’s setting of the Agnus Dei based on Allegri’s Miserere.








More recent articles:


The Third Sunday of Lent 2025
At that time: Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb: and when he had cast out the devil, the dumb spoke: and the multitudes were in admiration at it: But some of them said: He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. And others tempting, asked of him a sign from heaven. But he seeing their thoughts, said to them: Every ...

Pictures of Montecassino Abbey
Following up on yesterday’s post of pictures of the crypt of Montecassino Abbey, here are some of the main church and some of the things around it, starting with the most important part of it, the burial site of St Benedict and his sister St Scholastica, behind the high altar.As I am sure our readers know, Montecassino Abbey was heavily bombed duri...

The Prodigal Son in the Liturgy of Lent
In his commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew, St Jerome writes as follows about the parable of the two sons who are ordered by their father to go and work in the vineyard (21, 28-32). “These are the two sons who are described in Luke’s parable, the frugal (or ‘virtuous’) and the immoderate (or ‘wanton’).” He then connects these two sons with the f...

Another Chant for the Byzantine Liturgy of the Presanctified
Now the powers of heaven invisibly worship with us, for behold, the King of Glory entereth! Behold, the mystical sacrifice, being perfected, is carried forth in triumph. With faith and love, let us come forth, that we may become partakers of eternal life, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia! (Recording by the Lviv Archeparchial Clergy Choir.) Нині сили ...

The Crypt of Montecassino Abbey
For the feast of St Benedict, here are some pictures of the crypt of the abbey of Montecassino, the site where he ended his days. The crypt was built in the early 16th century, and originally decorated with frescoes, but by the end of the 19th century, these had deteriorated so badly from the humidity that they were deemed unsalvageable. The decisi...

An Interview with Fr Uwe Michael Lang on Liturgy
I am sure that our readers will enjoy this interview with the liturgical scholar Fr Uwe Michael Lang of the London Oratory, which was recently published on the YouTube channel of the Totus Tuus Apostolate. It covers a wide range of subjects: Pope Benedict’s teaching on the liturgy, the liturgical abuses in the post-Conciliar period and our own time...

Dives and Lazarus in the Liturgy of Lent
Before the early eighth century, the church of Rome kept the Thursdays of Lent (with the obvious exception of Holy Thursday) and the Saturdays after Ash Wednesday and Passion Sunday as “aliturgical” days. (The term aliturgical refers, of course, only to the Eucharistic liturgy, not to the Divine Office.) This is attested in the oldest liturgical bo...

The Feast of St Joseph 2025
Truly it is worthy and just... eternal God: Who didst exalt Thy most blessed Confessor Joseph with such great merits of his virtues, that by the wondrous gift of Thy grace, he merited to be made the Spouse of the most holy Virgin Mary, and be thought the father of Thy only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Wherefore, venerating the day of his b...

Why Should We Build Beautiful Confessionals?
Confession is a sacrament in which we confess dark deeds, shameful sins, cowardly compromises, repeated rifts. It is something we often wish more to be done with than to do; we know we must go, that it is “good for us” as a visit to the dentist’s or the doctor’s is good for us. It might seem as if the place where we fess up, red-handed, and receive...

Both the Chaos of Jackson Pollock and the Sterility of Photorealism are Incompatible with Christianity
Unveiling the middle ground where faith, philosophy, and beauty all meet in the person of Christ, image of the invisible God.Authentic Christian art strikes a balance between abstraction and realism, rejecting the extremes of Abstract Expressionism—where meaning dissolves into unrecognizable chaos—and Photorealism, which reduces reality to soulless...

For more articles, see the NLM archives: