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Sacred Music
The Old St. Patrick choir leads the parish in sacred music each Sunday at the 10:30 AM mass, under the direction of our choir director, Mr Ernesto Alvarez and with the accompaniament of our organist Mrs Jun Bernier. The choir practices Thursday nights and trains for speical sacred pieces to be sung on feasts such as Christmas, Holy Week, Easter, and Corpus Christi. In addition, the choir usually performs 1-2 concerts open to the public during the year.
Our choir explores a range of sacred works from across the centuries of the church's history, from renaissance polyphony and gregorian chant to modern composers of choral pieces. For anyone interested in joining the choir or cantoring at our Masses, please contact our Choir Director Mr. Ernesto Alvarez!
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Gregorian chant
"Gregorian chant is uniquely the Church’s own music. Chant is a living connection with our forebears in the faith, the traditional music of the Roman rite, a sign of communion with the universal Church, a bond of unity across cultures, a means for diverse communities to participate together in song, and a summons to contemplative participation in the Liturgy." - USCCB Sing to the Lord (2007).
From the time of the early Roman Church to the present day, no music has remained as consistent in the history of the Church as Gregorian Chant. Named after Pope St. Gregory the Great, who is credited with the first organization and codification of liturgical chant, this simple music is entirely and uniquely Catholic. It is the golden standard of Catholic music: it is "specially suited to the Roman liturgy" and given "first place in liturgical services" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, Vatican II). Unlike other traditional forms of music, such as hymn singing, it is truly "the mass sung," with all of its texts taken from scripture passages and prayers particular to each Sunday and feast day. Our choir delights in using Gregorian Chant for the ordinaries (Kyrie, Sanctus, Angus Dei) as well as occiasonal Communion Antiphons in both Latin and English, and other Sacred Music pieces.