It was wonderful! I was the only Catholic there. At one point Fr Stephan, talking about something in 1970, asked how many were Orthodox in 1970 and four hands went up, his among them, so largely converts.
You can look at the anticipated schedule and presenters bios
on the website [
orthodoxpsalm.org]. (The website is moving toward a major total revamp.) As it was fleshed out we had:
Lecture 1 What is "Liturgical Singing" with Fr Stephan Meholick, always a wonderful teacher. At the end he said he'd gotten a lot of material from some one else. Could any one guess who? Benedict XVI! (Later he asked me "What kind of Papist are you?! meant in teasing but made me think- I've read many encyclicals but I have only read one of B16's books and it was for a Catholic Social teaching class. Homework: to read Ratzinger
Spirit of the Liturgy as so many have already recommended. The presentation was a light bulb going off as to
why even though there are some wonderful religious songs in Mass in my Latin parish I cringe singing them in the Mass and feel like they ought to be sung at another time, outside of Mass.
Practica 1 "Solfege: Variable Minor and the Relative Major" Fred Squatrito. I may have also been the only person there who isn't in a choir, nor a choir director. This was interesting as much as I was able to grasp. I couldn't catch on fast enough to keep up but clearly others did.
Practica 2 "Challenges in English Diction" Anne Schoepp. The first of many efforts to get us to stop sounding like talkin' in CA. Also working on vocal technique, open palette, making your head a cathedral...
Practica 3 "Singing Text Musically"- Nicholas Kotar, choir director of the
St. John of San Francisco Men’s Chorale [
sjmc.sfsobor.com]. He's a young man of amazing talent and background. I'm thinking he is the son of the priest at Holy Virgin Cathedral. Anyway, a man of great skill and exciting background. The future of Orthodoxy! Put us thru our paces re tone and that CA accent, etc. being manly when you sing
.
Rehearsal for Vespers- Anne Schoepp
Vespers
Rehearsal for Divine Liturgy. Alice Hughes. A different director, more on improving liturgical signing.
Sat.
Divine Liturgy. I did not sing with the choir. I couldn't see anything during Vespers other than the choir members in front of me, and the director. I'm not a choir member in my parish so opted for standing where I could participate as I normally would.
Lecture 2 "The Songs of the Whales"- Fr Stephan. I'd heard this lecture at his parish when during their annual Bazaar he did it with his choir. We provided the choir's part. In talking with Anne Schoepp she said they hope to transcribe it and make that available. It's a very interesting typical Fr Stephan way of seeing connections and connecting stories from the immensity of his Orthodox background with here and now. All the hymns were to the Theotokos.
Lecture 3 "Choral Blend & Rehearsal Skills" - Alice Hughes
also Private Mini-Lessons.
Alice began with all the women, later all the men. She had them sing a short bit. Then in groups of twos and threes she had them sing a phrase, move one person from the right of the others to the center, sing again. Maybe bring in another voice and rearrange. Putting together groups of three or four. Hard to describe but the change in sound was very evident as she moved people from the right of the person next to them to their left etc. The blending and the strength of the sound was clearly changed. When everyone was arranged they sang again. The people singing said it felt entirely different from when they had just randomly stood with one another in soprano and alto sections. Same with the men. It was a powerful tool! Then more practice with pronunciation and production.
I also had signed up for a private mini-lesson which kind of amazed me that I had the nerve to do it. This was in the Church. I'm not in the choir but I do get pulled from the kitchen to come chant the hours sometimes so I wanted some help with that. Anne had very positive feedback for what I've been doing and had some suggestions for getting more comfortable with it and improving.
Practica 5 Master Class St Lawrence parish Men's Choir with Nicholas Kotar. Nicholas rehearsed the choir and we watched. In the feedback at the end a number of choir directors said how useful it was to watch him rehearse the choir.
Rehearsal for Great Vespers- Alice and Anne. Alice took a small group of very strong singers down to the church to rehearse and the larger group worked with Anne. Shorter rehearsal for both groups in the church. I decided to sing with the tenors instead of altos and think I'd have been better off doing that both days. Live and learn.
Wrap up. There were a number of choir directors, plus Fr Stephan, who said it's so hard to ever get away and get this kind of support. How much they work in isolation.
Great Vespers with Antiphonal choirs. I'm sure this was wonderful. We left after dinner to make the drive home.
I'm sorry there weren't more people there, tho in addition to many locals, there were folks from WA and New Mexico. I don't know what the head count was but I don't think more than 50.
They fed us 3 wonderful meals a day. I think $100 for two full days plus meals is an amazing bargain. We stayed in a hotel Th and Fri for $80/nt and would gladly have shared a room with others but choir members from my church who were happy to go to Santa Rosa didn't want to go to Felton
The past two years I believe the seminar was held in Santa Rosa, about an hour north of SF.
I went wanting to be a better participant in the Liturgy and am satisfied about that as well as the encouragement about chanting when asked to do so.
