Freshers' Fair!

We were there!


So were a lot of choirs...




The choral diversity of Oxford is a wonderful thing. The OUGCS certainly adds to it: along with some enthusiastic responses we had a fair number of complete bafflement. If we have introduced the concept of Gregorian Chant to a few freshers then our time was not spent entirely in vain! More to the point, however, we had a decent haul of people wanting auditions, and good luck to them!

Revamped blog

We have just put in ten 'pages' giving information about the Schola, our history, repertoire, how to join and so on. We hope readers will find this easier to navigate and interesting to read.

This is designed to give all the information which may be helpful to those thinking about what choir to join in the new academic year. If you want to sing Chant and/or Renaissance Polyphony, we want to hear from you!

oxfordgregorianchant@gmail.com

The Schola Abelis at the GCN Chant Course

Six members of the Schola attended the Gregorian Chant Network's Weekend Chant Course directed by Colin Mawby, which took place last weekend (Friday to Sunday) at the Oratory School near Reading. Five of us provided a schola for the opening Mass.

The course was extremely successful, and we all learnt a huge amount from Colin Mawby's experience of singing and directing chant, which goes back to the 1940s, and his great sensitivity to it. He demonstrated in a quite remarkable way how small changes to tempo and emphasis can make a piece of chant sound quite different, and how groups of singers can respond to interpretative suggestions.

Colin Mawby is well known as a composer, and was Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral in the 1960s. For more on the course, see the Gregorian Chant Network.

OGCS granted the right to use the Unversity name

The Oxford Gregorian Chant Society can now style itself the

Oxford University Gregorian Chant Society

by kind permission of the Vice Chancellor of the University.

It is a bit of a mouthful but reflects the place of the Schol as a student society of the University, with a degree of longevity and stability.

Chant Course with Nick Gale

Booking is now open for a three-day chant course (9th to 11th April 2010) with Nick Gale, the Director of Music at St George's Cathedral in Southwark. Active members of the Schola Abelis can attend the course for free by special arrangement, but the course is open to all. For more details see here.

Welcome

This is the website of the Oxford Gregorian Chant Society, the Schola Abelis. The Society exists to sing Gregorian Chant and Renaissance Polyphony to the highest possible standards in the setting for which this music was composed: the traditional liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church.

This term we are singing in a Catholic Hall and in three Catholic parish churches around Oxford, and an historic Catholic house, Milton Manor, whose private chapel dates from before Catholic churches could be built openly. The Masses are organised in association with the Latin Mass Society.

The OGCS consists of an all-male schola for the singing of the chant and a mixed choir for the polyphony. Membership is by audition but all are encouraged to have a go. Few people coming to Oxford have significant previous experience of singing Gregorian Chant, in particular, so we don't expect you to have!

As well as singing at seven Masses in the course of the term we have a day with Mr Philip Duffy, an associate of the Schola Gregoriana who was Director of Music at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral for thirty years. He has done a number of workshops at Oxford in recent years.

Our student singers are paid a stipend of £15 per Mass (with associated practices). Membership is also open to non-students and to people of all faiths.

Contact us to join: oxfordgregorianchant@googlemail.com

President: Richard Craddock, Somerville
Secretary: Paul Kolb, Queen's
Treasurer: Andrew Crawford, Blackfriars
Senior Member: Dr Joseph Shaw, St Benet's Hall

Residential Chant Coure

A brand new and very exciting development is heralded by the announcement by St Catherine's Trust of a residential Gregorian Chant course to be directed by Nick Gale, who is the Director of Music at St George's Cathedral in Southwark. It will run Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, 26th-29th March, at Ardingly College, near Haywards Heath in Sussex.

All the active singers of the Schola Abelis will be able to attend this course for free, thanks to the schola's benefactors. For the general public the price is £50.

Please contact me to secure your place on this unique course. There is simply no similar opportunity in the UK to spend time on chant over three days:

oxfordgregorianchant@googlemail.com

For more details, see Oxford Events, which also announces the annual 'Chant Training Day' organised by the local Latin Mass Society, and directed by Mr Phillip Duffy, former Director of Music at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (ie the Catholic one). This is a one-day event, which will take place at SS Gregory and Augustine on Saturday 25th May.

Again, the Schola Abelis has an arrangement with the organisers and active singers will not have to pay to attend. Please note it in your diaries!

Map of Scholas

Establised by Musica Sacra of the USA. This isn't the first time I've tried to add our schola; let's hope it works this time!

Zoom in and out with your mouse wheel (or the little buttons bottom right); move the map by 'dragging'.

Freshers' Fair 2008

Here is our stall, manned by our President, Richard, among the stalls of Oxford innumerable choirs. The lady in the straw hat behind him is at the Gilbert and Sullivan Society stall.

Our Logo

Our logo is based on the rebus of our spiritual patron, Bl. Thomas Abel (c.1497 to 1540), which he carved on the wall of the Beachamp Tower at the Tower of London while awaiting execution by King Henry VIII. Visitors to the Tower can see it today.

It is a pun on his name: A - bell. It also recalls the pilgrims' souvenirs from the shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury - see this example in the British Museum which says 'CAMPANA ThOME' on it. (St Thomas' shrine was destroyed by order of Henry VIII in 1538.)

Thomas Abel had been a student at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was Chaplain and Music teacher to Queen Catharine of Aragon. He supported her during the King's attempts to divorce her, and he wrote a pamphlet on the subject: Invicta Veritas, an answer to the determination of the most famous Universities, that by no manner of law it may be lawful for King Henry to be divorced from the Queen's grace, his lawful and very wife.

Oxford University, in fact, had refused to support the King's case; only the Faculty of Theology had been prevailed upon to give a favourable response.

Bl. Thomas Abel suffered with two other priests, Bl. Edward Powell and Bl. Richard Featherstone (links to the Catholic Encyclopedia), together representing Queen Catharine's legal team, on 30th July 1540. They were dragged on hurdles from the Tower to Smithfield, each sharing a hurdle with a Protestant condemned for heresy - an interesting ecumenical gesture - and hanged, drawn and quartered. The Protestants, Barnes, Garret, and Jerome, were burned at the stake.

The three priests were beatified by Pope Leo XIII, on 29th December 1886. Presumably because Bl Edward Powell was born in Wales, in the Extraordinary Form they have a joint feast day on 30th July in the Dioceses of Wales.

The logo was drawn for us by the Catholic artist Daniel Mitsui.

Bl Thomas Abel

The Oxford Gregorian Chant Society is under the spiritual patronage of Blessed Thomas Abel. He was a student of Magdalen College, a priest, and a musician, and the chaplain and music teacher to Queen Katharine of Aragon. Like other opponents of Henry's divorce of Katharine, he was imprisoned; with two of them, Bl. Edmund Powell and Bl. Richard Feathersone, he was executed (hanged, drawn, and quartered) on 30th July 1540. Three Zwinglian Protestants were burnt for heresy on the same occasion. Since Powell was a Welshman, the three are honoured on 30th July with a feastday in the Dioceses of Wales in the Extraordinary Form calendar.

While imprisoned in the Tower of London, in the Beauchamp Tower, Abel carved a rebus, or visual pun, on the wall: a play on his name, 'A-bell'.

Immediately below this carving is another, by Prior Lawrence Cook of the Carmelite Priory at Doncaster, another beatus who was executed in 1538, for his lack of enthusiasm for the Dissolution of the Monasteries.


Many other Catholic prisoners wrote their names on the walls around the Beauchamp tower cell; the most famous was a later prisoner, and a saint, St Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel. You can in this picture see his name and part of the Latin motto he composed: 'The more we suffer for Christ in this life, the more glory we shall have in the next life.' After many years in prison he died there in 1595.

Welcome to the Oxford Gregorian Chant Society

President: Michael Ryan, Brasenose

Secretary: Alexander Morrison, Oriel

The Society exists to promote Gregorian Chant and Sacred Polyphony in the context of Catholic liturgy: the Office and the Traditional Mass.

To this end we have founded an all-male Gregorian Chant Schola; we hope to establish a mixed polyphonic choir in the future.

Membership is free: sign up to our mailing list to hear about our events.Members of the schola are eligible for a stipend upon certain conditions.

See our Facebook group, 'Gregorian Chant Schola'

Email us: oxfordgregorianchant@gmail.com