Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast

Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast

You've got questions about sacred music? Here's your chance to learn what the Church teaches and envisions for music in the sacred liturgy. Welcome to Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast with your host Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka. We address topics of interest both to priests and liturgical musicians, as well as a general audience of Catholics interested in learning more about the Catholic Church's teachings and treasury of sacred music. Our topics range from discussion of Church documents on sacred music, to the music of certain composers or eras, Gregorian chant, the role of music in Catholic education, and techniques for directing a better choir rehearsal. We'll interview bishops, priests, music directors, composers, teachers, philosophers, and theologians. We'll talk to people who found a home in the Catholic Church because they heard the call of Christ in the Church's sacred music. We'll ask questions about how really great music programs are doing their work. We'll introduce you to Catholics who love their faith and, through sacred music, offer all their efforts for his glory and the sanctification of all who hear them. We aim for our podcast to be thoughtful, encouraging, and informative. We hope, too, that it will inspire and motivate you to work for the renewal of authentic beauty in sacred music—whether you're a working church musician or an average Catholic in the pews wondering what's going on. With the prayers of our patronesses, Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom and Saint Elisabeth of the Trinity, we hope to help draw souls to Christ through the beauty of the Church's sacred music. Square Notes is the official podcast of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music. http://catholicinstituteofsacredmusic.org/

  1. 1D AGO

    SE08 EP02 - From Puebla Cathedral to Today's Spanish-Speaking Pews: The Legacy of Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla - with Fernando Gil

    Learn about the musical practices, pedagogical processes, maestros de capilla, and composers of Mexico's cathedral in Puebla de los Angeles from Fernando Gil, who directed a schola cantorum there before coming to the United States. Gil, director of music at St. Peter's Cathedral in Kansas City, Kansas, takes us through the masses and villancicos from Padilla, helps us understand the context of missionary Mexico and the colonial styles, and discusses what can be applied to the pastoral context in Spanish-speaking congregations in the United States and Mexico today.  To sign up for the upcoming online workshops in Spanish offered by the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music, please visit: https://catholicinstituteofsacredmusic.regfox.com/talleres-virtuales-primavera-2026 To learn more about Puebla's cathedral, Padilla, and villancicos, check out these publications: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/545314/727602   https://saintpaulsunday.publicradio.org/features/0210_missamexicana/index.html   https://www.ipm.org/show/harmonia/2019-08-21/music-baroque-mexico-fernandes-padilla-murcia   https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/americas/article/abs/mexico-city-cathedral-music-16001750/FC6ADFE4D5C6BBF307B9C107BDFDE992   https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=yjmr   https://www.internationalchoralmagazine.com/post/american-music-of-the-early-17th-century-the-cancionero-de-gaspar-fern%C3%A1ndez   https://www.bowdoin.edu/news/2021/06/music-scholar-secures-funding-to-study-sacred-sounds-from-the-mexican-baroque.html   https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iuswrrest/api/core/bitstreams/59761061-f248-4619-9be2-040bf1cd8f7f/content

    44 min
  2. 6D AGO

    SE08 EP01 - Building a Beautiful Homeschool Curriculum for Art and Music - with Elizabeth Lemme

    Join us for this inspiring season opener to discuss curriculum which imprints on the child's senses, mind, and soul a longing for the source of all beauty, God himself. Musician, artist, and homeschooling mom Elizabeth Lemme shares her criteria for evaluating the worthiness of a work of art for study, and her lists of composers and painters that make up the daily fare of her children while she teaches them at her kitchen table. Visit Mrs. Lemme's Etsy shop here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/PelicanPrinteryHouse Learn more about the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music's graduate program here: https://catholicinstituteofsacredmusic.org/graduate-study/  "And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar." Plato's Republic, Book 3, tr. Jowett.

    55 min
5
out of 5
112 Ratings

About

You've got questions about sacred music? Here's your chance to learn what the Church teaches and envisions for music in the sacred liturgy. Welcome to Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast with your host Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka. We address topics of interest both to priests and liturgical musicians, as well as a general audience of Catholics interested in learning more about the Catholic Church's teachings and treasury of sacred music. Our topics range from discussion of Church documents on sacred music, to the music of certain composers or eras, Gregorian chant, the role of music in Catholic education, and techniques for directing a better choir rehearsal. We'll interview bishops, priests, music directors, composers, teachers, philosophers, and theologians. We'll talk to people who found a home in the Catholic Church because they heard the call of Christ in the Church's sacred music. We'll ask questions about how really great music programs are doing their work. We'll introduce you to Catholics who love their faith and, through sacred music, offer all their efforts for his glory and the sanctification of all who hear them. We aim for our podcast to be thoughtful, encouraging, and informative. We hope, too, that it will inspire and motivate you to work for the renewal of authentic beauty in sacred music—whether you're a working church musician or an average Catholic in the pews wondering what's going on. With the prayers of our patronesses, Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom and Saint Elisabeth of the Trinity, we hope to help draw souls to Christ through the beauty of the Church's sacred music. Square Notes is the official podcast of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music. http://catholicinstituteofsacredmusic.org/

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