LCM@WVU :: Schola Cantorum (Early Music at WVU)

"Sed nomine tua da gloria"
Schola cantorum
& Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU

If you would like to order a fantastic little book, which includes all the elements of compline (in the Latin Gregorian chant), according to the 1960 breviary, click on the picture. P.s., it is really inexpensive. P.p.s., Schola members, your copies have arrived.

Coming Up...Advent Compline Returns

We'll be singing the compline office in Latin, using the traditional chants, on the second Sunday of Advent (December 6) and on Gaudete (December 13), at 8:00 PM, at the Lutheran Campus Chapel. This is a free event and it is open to the public. Please join us and bring a friend or two along. Compline is intended to be participatory. No one is required to sing along, but, if you are comfortable doing so, you may add your voice as little or as much as you like. Remember, it is perfectly acceptable to participate by merely attending to what is being sung.

Compline is the last prayer office of the day. It last about twenty minutes. It is contemplative in nature. Given the hectic pace of life in general, compline offers a spiritual alternative. Compline answers vapid frivolity with meaningful solemnity, rushed noise with peaceful silence, and mundane profanity with sublime transcendence. For some, it is simply a chance to enjoy an ancient musical form. For still others, it is an opportunity to sample something from our past.

Prior to compline, a public educational offering, "Putting the School Back in Schola," will provide some basic instruction in Gregorian chant. Learn neumatic notation and some of the techniques associated with this venerable musical form. This begins at 7:00 PM.

All this takes place at the Lutheran Campus Chapel which is located at 1497 University Avenue, Morgantown, WV. We are on the corner of University, Willey, and Hough...directly across the street from the Wise Library.

Being Noticed

This one caught us by surprise. Check out Gary Penkala's article, "A Curious Little Choir," on the CanticaNOVA Publications blog: (http://www.canticanova.com/articles/misc/art7bo1.htm). The article was forwarded to us by Dr. Jonathan Neiderhiser. CanticaNOVA Publications specializes in "new traditional music" for the Catholic church. Samples of musical scores are available at http://www.canticanova.com.

Do you FaceBook? If you do, sign-up for the Schola cantorum fbGroup.

About the Schola cantorum

Early music has a place on the modern college campus! The Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU launched the Schola cantorum in Fall '05 to provide musical support for the weekly mass and selected other liturgies at the Chapel of Christ the King (a.k.a., the Lutheran Campus Chapel at WVU). It also provides a place for those with an interest in (or even passion for) early music to get together and make music. As such, the Schola cantorum is committed to the reintroduction of early sacred music in its liturgical context.

Founding director, Jonathan Neiderhiser, was a D.M.A. candidate in conducting in WVU's College of Creative Arts. He has since completed his studies and is teaching in the Dakotas. He was the Vogelsong Kapellmeister at the Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU, a position underwritten through a generous grant awarded in memory of The Rev. Fr. Edward Vogelsong by his family. Fr. Vogelsong was one of the "Five Vicars" who served the Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU prior to the calling of the first full-time campus pastor.

Schola members sing most Sunday masses at the Chapel of Christ the King. Those joining especially for one of the highlight services are not required nor expected to sing the Sunday masses, though they are welcome to do so if they so desire. Thus far, our highlight services have included the following.

In Spring '06, the Schola sang a full Latin mass, using the mass ordinary Orbis factor and the propers of Judica.
December 6, 2006, the Schola led the "St. Nicholas Vespers: A Latin Evening Prayer for Advent," an ecumenical worship service organized by interested Lutherans, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics. Nearly 140 people attended the service in the Lutheran Campus Chapel.
As a Holy Week offering for the whole community, the Schola cantorum, prayed Compline for Passiontide, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, April 2-4, 2007. These Latin liturgies provided our community a Gregorian chant experience, facilitated by a 45-minute session on the basics of Gregorian offered prior to each service.
Advent 2007 featured the return of compline on the three Fridays of Advent (December 7, 14, 21). 36, 36, and 21 attended. Prior to the complines, an optional introduction to Gregorian chant was offered for interested members of the public.
Beginning with Lent 2008, the Schola sang the first setting of the Service Book and Hymnal (1958), last hymnal in ELCA Lutheranism to use 4-part vocal music as the basis of the liturgy, every Sunday night. To pull this off, we started a second "section" of the Schola. Over a dozen interested choristers, nearly all of them born ten years after the SBH was replaced, sang the liturgy throughout the rest of the semester.
The Schola Cantorum led three Complines for Passiontide on Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, and Holy Wednesday in 2008.
The SBH returned for Reformation Sunday and All Souls' Day 2008.
Advent compline was offered in December of 2008.
Passiontide compline was offered in April of 2009.

Are you an interested vocalist or instrumentalist? Contact Chaplain Riegel (Schola@LutheranMountaineer.org or 304-296-5388) or, for those in the WVU FaceBook Network, join the Schola cantorum FaceBook Group.

Do you just want to know about upcoming special presentations with the Schola? Again, the FaceBook Group is for you. Members of the FaceBook Group will get e-mail notices.

For additional early music resources visit the Schola cantorum WebForum. If you have resources that you would like to share with the Schola, feel free to post them.

[ Return to the Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU HomePage ]