Thursday, April 28, 2011

Welcome Bishop Felipe de Jesus Estevez

Yesterday, April 27, Pope Benedict XVI named the successor to the Diocese of St. Augustine's Bishop Galeone: auxiliary bishop of Miami Felípe de Jesús Estévez. And so you ask, what does this have to do with the music of the Florida Schola Cantorum?

Well, it's true, our primary venue isn't even in the Diocese of St. Augustine; we're down in the Diocese of Orlando. That said, our base, i.e., the place where live and rehearse, is Gainesville, which is in His Excellency Jesús Estévez's new diocese. And there's no question some of our members have been itching for a place up in Gainesville where we could sing, even if only from time to time--a proposition to which His Excellency will likely be a bit more amenable than his predecessor, given Pope Benedict's marked tendency to appoint Extraordinary Form-friendly bishops. Well, a lot of this is up in the air right now but we'll see. As the FSC has observed, you can certainly do a decent Ordinary Form Mass with chant and polyphony--we did one in Jacksonville not 1.5 months ago--however, we're a bit cozier in the EF, given that has been chant's home for hundreds of years.

With a new venue in Gainesville--hey, I'm just dreaming--then we'd be able to spread knowledge and appreciation of chant to a wider area, in this case North Florida. When you've got such good things going on with chant and sacred polyphony, all you want to do is spread the goodness around! On that note, we'll keep the goodies coming with a three-part Mass setting by Lotti this coming Low Sunday. It'll "just" be the guys this weekend.

Don't forget to whip out your copy of Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in honor of "Quasimodo Sunday"! Speaking of Quasimodo Sunday, if anyone can figure out what the first line of the introit really means, that'd be great. "As newborn babes desire the rational milk without guile, alleluia..."

Before there was 2% and skim, there was Rational milk!

1 comment:

  1. The soundtrack to Disney's "Hunchback" features a lot of Dies Iraes and Kyrie Eleisons, as well as portions of the Confiteor.

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