Music Summer School

At the end of July Michelle Friend and Martin Wood attended the four-day 2024 Summer School of the Society of St Gregory (SSG) in Liverpool.

 

The SSG was set up in 1929 as the national society to promote and improve music and the active participation of the people in the liturgy of the RC Church in the UK, in line with church teaching.

 

We learnt a lot more about what is going on beyond OLSD with Catholic Singing and Liturgy – learnt some new songs, techniques for preparing liturgies, making things more inclusive and relevant, and other new ideas beyond just musical.  

 

We also were briefed on the forthcoming changes to the Lectionary from December 1 (Advent 2024). This will impact on the translations used in the First and Second Readings, the Psalms and the Gospel.  The good news for us regarding Psalms is that we should be able to adapt the new words to our familiar responses we all sing so well each week.  Warning for anyone planning to buy a Sunday Missal – wait until the new versions from CTS or Hodder & Stoughton are published later this year with the new words.

 

We also benefited from making new like-minded friends and just enjoying singing lots great music with lots of good singers.

 

Here is a Facebook clip with the choir at one of our litugies including Martin and Michelle singing, and conducted by the well-known Chris Walker who composed so much of the music we sing: