GIG at Kalamazoo 2012
In May of 2012 the GIC will return to Kalamazoo; but in a different format. In order to avoid overlapping with sessions given by Musicology at Kalamazoo we have joined forces. They graciously agreed to host our session entitled Regional Musical Practices. That session will include papers from three scholars who will be familiar to those who attended our Halifax Colloquium:
"The Sarum Mass for the Ascension", William Renwick;
"Beneventan Chant and the Feast of the Ascension in the Middle Ages", Bibiana Gattozzi;
and "Dominican Mass Chants for the Ascension", Br. Innocent Smith, o.p..
The session will also include a performance, lead by our own Jean-Pierre Noiseux, which will attempt to bring these papers to life.
Report on the
Sixth Annual Colloquium of the Gregorian Institute of Canada
August 4-7, 2011
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
CHANT: OLD AND NEW
Salzinnes Antiphonal, 1554, folio 2r, The Annunciation
Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
(Photo: Judith E. Dietz)
The sixth annual colloquium of the Gregorian Institute of Canada met this summer at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. With the theme of the colloquium drawing its inspiration from the Salzinnes Antiphonal, a 16th-century Cistercian chant book originally from the Namur region in Belgium and now owned by Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, the four-day weekend was packed with workshops and papers.
Even before attendees started arriving on the Thursday morning, members of the University of King’s College Chapel Choir members, music director Paul Halley, members of the executive of the Gregorian Institute, and our four student helpers (Maria, Meredith, Katrina and Ryan) were all filmed by a small crew from CBC television, capturing the last-minute rehearsing, stuffing of conference bags, poster-making, photocopying and mad dashes up and down the hall. Making the national CBC news augured well for the rest of the conference.
The colloquium had many highlights for me, beginning with the opening evening with an inspiring session led by singer and pedagogue extraordinaire, Susan Hellauer, from the internationally renowned early music ensemble, Anonymous 4, and the singing of Compline in the sculpture court of the Dalhousie Arts Centre.
To highlight the Salzinnes Antiphonal, Friday featured a stand-alone session on the manuscript itself, with a joint paper by Judith E. Dietz from the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Sherry Guild from the Canadian Conservation Institute, presenting some of the exciting results of several years of study of the Antiphonal as an historical artefact. The manuscript—produced by hand in the age of print—has a special connection with Halifax. As Dietz demonstrated, the manuscript was likely brought to Halifax in the nineteenth century by Bishop William Walsh as one of many religious objects he purchased for his ‘mission’ in the New World. In the 1970s the book was found in the attic of the Archbishop’s residence and donated to the then Catholic Saint Mary’s University. It was virtually ignored until a decade ago when Dietz began working on the manuscript to secure a provenance culminating in a successful application to have the manuscript studied scientifically (pigments identified etc.) and restored by the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa.
To further highlight the Antiphonal, on Friday evening some of its music was performed beautifully by five-time Grammy-winning composer, conductor and performer, Paul Halley and members of his University of King’s College (Halifax) Chapel Choir. The program featured music from the Antiphonal for St. Hubert, St. Roch, and for Mary, complemented by other ‘late’ chant by 12th-century composer, Hildegard of Bingen, and her fellow Benedictine, the 11th-century Hermannus Contractus. We also enjoyed several works of polyphony, 16th-century motets by the Franco-Flemish composer, Orlande de Lassus (also known as Orlando di Lasso). The three featured motets were all included in Lassus’s very first collection of music to be published, in a volume printed by Tylman Susato in Antwerp—just 90 kilometers away from the Abbey of Salzinnes—in 1555, the very year that the Salzinnes Antiphonal was completed in manuscript. Much to everyone’s delight, the city of Halifax showed great enthusiasm for chant, with 250-300 people attending the concert.
To help contextualize the Antiphonal, papers and sessions addressed various issues related to the manuscript through the conference theme—Chant: Old and New. Papers addressed topics such as the tracing of old repertories in newer collections (Hoefener, Maiello, and Gattozzi); ‘late’ chant repertories (Swanson, Bennett, Saucier, Helsen, and Parcianello); the reception of medieval chant in the early-modern and modern era (Smith, and Bain); old assumptions and new methodologies (Yampolsky, Morrissey, Helsen, Lacoste, and Macrae); and European chant books found in North America (Dietz, Guild, and Sewright). The scholarly sessions were complemented by a series of three further workshops by Susan Hellauer, including one on the music of late chant composer Hildegard of Bingen; by a session on the Messe Bordeloise, from a Quebecois chant book from the late eighteenth century (Noiseux); and on chant in contemporary liturgical practice (Hall and Malton). Participants—scholars and practitioners together (including a dedicated local chant group), and chapel choir members—also rehearsed over the course of the colloquium with William Renwick on the music for a medieval Sarum Mass, culminating in a liturgical service led by Father Gary Thorne at the Chapel of the University of King’s College on Sunday morning.
The Saturday of the colloquium brought two further highlights for me: Margot Fassler, award-winning author and editor of four books and countless articles, who was recently appointed the Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame, gave an energetic and rousing plenary address on her Alleluia Project in the early afternoon, and at 6:45 p.m. we all boarded a bus on a glorious, sunny evening, sang a stirring version of medieval hymn and Acadian national anthem, Ave maris stella (transcribed in this case from the Salzinnes Antiphonal), and headed out to the south shore, for our banquet dinner overlooking a tiny and beautiful harbour in Hubbards, Nova Scotia. As my husband said on Facebook: “You've never really heard plainchant till you’ve heard it on a school bus headed to a lobster supper.”
Jennifer Bain, Dalhousie University
Colloque attendees lobster dinner (Photo: William Renwick)
COLLOQUE PROGRAM (PDF)
