Upcoming Lecture and Solemn Mass: “Musical Life of English Catholics under Elizabeth”

This event explores the riches of English Catholic musical and religious culture under the Tudors. The lecture by Dr. Samuel Schmitt will describe the musical life of recusant Catholics in the time of Elizabeth, with live examples provided by Grant and Priscilla Herreid and Charles Weaver. The mass which follows, in the traditional Dominican rite, features the Missa Regali of Robert Fayrfax, essentially in its original liturgical context, in the English Gothic Revival setting of the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer. The contrast in musical styles will serve to highlight what was lost and what was gained in sacred music in the tumultuous passing from the age of Fayrfax to that of Byrd.

Samuel A. Schmitt has dedicated the better part of twenty years to making beautiful music for the Church as an organist, conductor, composer, teacher, and choral singer. He studied the Solesmes method of chant with Dr. Theodore Marier at the Catholic University of America, and earned both a master’s degree in liturgical music with a concentration in organ performance, and a doctorate in musicology for his research into the music and liturgical practice of persecuted Catholics in Elizabethan England. Dr. Schmitt has served as music director and organist at churches in several states and was an assistant organist at the Cathedral of St. Matthew and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, both in Washington, DC. He currently serves as assistant organist at St. Theresa’s Church in Trumbull, CT, while promoting the artistic legacy of his grandfather as executive director of the Carl Schmitt Foundation.