The Recovering Choir Director

Now that I’ve had time to digest the experience, here’s an incomplete list of sacred and secular noteworthies from The Land Down Under, in no particular order other than perhaps chronological:

• Getting used to the winter sun rising in the Northeast
• Meeting paternal and maternal relatives who settled in the Melbourne area, including a nephew who would attend World Youth Day with his youth choir
• Attempting to teach the Pater Noster to my nephew’s youth choir in only 15 minutes, without sheet music, telling them that it would be asked of them at the Papal Mass (and hoping that it would be the case)
• Tasting Australian beef and remarking to everyone within earshot that it actually tasted like beef (unlike American beef which oftentimes tastes like cardboard)
• Meeting Juventutem 2005 choristers, pilgrims and clergy from Australia, France, Germany, Switzerland and Kenya
• Being hosted in Melbourne under the same roof as Scott Turkington by Hugh Henry (MusicaSacra forum contributor, chant scholar, editor of Fidelity Magazine, Ron Paulian, and conductor of the Melbourne Latin Mass choir)
• Singing Josquin’s Missa Pange Lingua for the first time, at a Votive Mass of the Holy Eucharist (context is everything!)
• Hearing the Preface sung in the tonus sollemnior…by a bishop!
• Singing alternative lyrics written in celebration of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum to Thomas Morley’s “Now Is the Month of Maying”
• Finding out that my nephew and his family actually attended one of the Masses at St. Aloysius organized by Juventutem
• Sharing stories and comparing “travel notes” with Mother Kathryn Joseph, SMMC on the bus ride to Sydney
• Looking at the New South Wales and Victoria countryside from the bus at dusk and feeling like it was almost like another planet
• Meeting a Juventutem pilgrim who is a parishioner at St. Michael’s Church in Auburn, Alabama, home of the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum, and discovering he would be my roommate for the week (small world)
• Meeting fellow New Yorker Dawn Eden, listening to her talk, and having her sign my copy of Thrill of the Chaste, which was gifted to me by Allison, a member of the Juventutem choir (thank you both!)
• Hearing that a member of our choir in Melbourne was interviewed on Australian national television and gave a wonderful defense of Church teaching on chastity
• Meeting fellow blogger and chorister “Terra” who blogs at Australia Incognita
• Viewing both Cardinal Pell’s opening Mass and Pope Benedict’s arrival from the Observatory Hotel
• Hearing an eclectic setting of the chant Tu es Petrus during the papal arrival
• Listening to Christopher West speak to a packed house of 3,000 at the Sydney Convention Center
• Starting the Ave Maria attributed to Victoria a full perfect fourth lower than intended due to the difference between Australian and American accents, and somehow slogging through it with the rest of the choir
• Singing with an EWTN camera placed three feet away from the choir
• Singing Palestrina’s Missa Brevis for the first time
• Singing Anerio’s Christus factus est for the first time
• Losing my Roland R-09 field recorder on the 18th, preparing to return to New York without it, only to have it show up again the next day (thanks to Sts. Cecilia and Anthony of Padua for intercessions answered)
• Running the Juventutem flag around Randwick Racecourse
• Participating in Eucharistic Adoration during the Saturday night vigil
• Waking up to chanted Lauds (Psalm tone 8…G)
• Hearing the Gregorian introit chant Spiritus Domini at the Papal Mass and singing along
• Hearing Palestrina’s alternatim setting of Veni Sancte Spiritus and singing the chanted verses
• Listening to every word spoken by the Holy Father
• Singing the Pater Noster with the Pope
• Hearing the Gregorian communion chant Factus est repente at the Papal Mass and singing along
• Being instituted as a Cantor by Fr. Glen Tattersall
• Finally meeting most of the American Juventutem pilgrims on the way back to Melbourne
• Asking for, and receiving two birthday meals at Hungry Jack’s (thanks, Kathryn!)
• Leaving Australia with a better sense of clarity and mission, and hoping to return at some point.