Introduction to the St. Ann Choir History Substack
Introduction to a series on the history of the St. Ann Choir
This substack is the site for a series of posts based on a paper titled, "The Remarkable Sixty-Year Survival of Professor Mahrt's St. Ann Choir.” The talk was delivered at The Musical Shape of the Liturgy” conference November 7 to 9, 2023 to honor Professor William P. Mahrt's contribution to sacred music. The presentation was created to illustrate how he practices the principles he professes.
Scroll down for more
I originally published fourteen posts adapted from the slide presentation on my personal Roseanne T. Sullivan Substack. Then it occurred to me that my St. Ann Choir history posts were a distraction from the focus of my personal Substack and would be better on a Substack of their own, so I moved the ones already written here, and plan to add more.
NOTE: Check out this page of links and scanned articles. Most of the linked articles are by me. Articles by Carrie Sturrock at the San Francisco Chronicle, by Cynthia Haven at Stanford Magazine and Stanford News, and by others are linked at the end. Scans of the articles are included when they are not online.
This articles page and the linked articles have lots of photos of the choir in past years and very good explanations of the program the choir followed to keep traditional sacred music alive.
I prepared this presentation because the St. Ann choir's perseverance in singing traditional sacred music in Latin—after Vatican II when most Catholics thought Latin, chant, and polyphony were banned—deserved to be better known,
This series is expanded from the paper, and like the paper, it is about the choir’s unique contribution towards preserving traditional sacred music by singing it in liturgy, even over the long decades when chant and polyphony were virtually banned due to a misunderstanding or ignorance of the official documents of Vatican II. My goal is to preserve the historic information, photos, and copies of documents that I’ve compiled in a single public place where others will be able to access it.
This series describes the origins of the choir in 1963, how the choir was able to continue following its original program, and how Bill Mahrt joined the choir as a graduate student and returned as a Stanford Professor to lead the choir through the following decades. A quote from noted French philosopher Rene Girard, who with his wife Martha was a long-time attendee of the Mass at which the choir sings, will round out the talk.
At the bottom of this post, you can see instructions on how to view the original slide show with the script for the presentation online. Anyone with the link can view it.
Next post
You can view all the slides here.
To View the Slide Presentation
1. Click this link in your browser or paste this link in your browser: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RAqubCoo9qlZVydcpabKPmPpUQQ_vLwQ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=111559824929849500931&rtpof=true&sd=true
The format of the first slide is wonky when you view it online. But it appeared as you see it below when I presented.
2. To see the script, click the “Slideshow” button then select “Presenter view” off the pull-down menu.
