The “School of Sacred Music”

I recently attended vespers performed by the School of Sacred Music in New York City . It was part of their current series “Midwinter Light” (through March 3). Like several of their other performances, the evening was cosponsored by another organization active in the arts, in this case, an art gallery/Catholic arts collective:

Arthouse 2B

“Arthouse2B is a multidisciplinary group of artists cultivating Catholic arts renewal in NYC. Our aim is to restore culture through restoring the heart of the artist.”

The music was beautifully sung in the acoustically and architecturally fitting surroundings of St George’s chapel (Episcopal). The vespers followed in general the Novus Ordo, but most of the texts were sung in Latin.  The English translation of the texts provided in the handout, however, was not the Novus Ordo texts, but a much more poetic version.  The vespers proceeded in a quasi-liturgical manner: lit candles were on the altar,  the singers were vested in cassock and surplice,  and singers and “congregation” followed rubrics of standing and sitting.  As far as I could ascertain no ordained minister of any denomination was present. 

I confess that the School of Sacred Music is in some respects still mysterious to me. They describe themselves as being “in the Catholic Tradition” and have sung in, for example, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Notre Dame Church (near Columbia University) and St. Joseph in the Village. Yet up till recently their main venue was the General Theological Seminary (Episcopal) in Chelsea. Indeed, last year they came close to leasing part of the seminary, but the deal was quashed when seven Anglican bishops objected. It seemed to them that such a “Roman Catholic” organization as the School of Sacred Music might be insufficiently attentive to LGBT inclusion.

Bishops oppose General Seminary’s long-term lease with choral music school over LGBTQ+ inclusion concerns

But now the School has resumed its performances – but in an Episcopal chapel. I would have thought their use of the Novus Ordo would have opened the doors of one of the parishes of the New York Archdiocese. But perhaps in the current environment of the Roman Catholic Church the mere use of Latin raises too many issues.