ChantHacks Beginner Weekend Workshop

Bring Mark to your parish, school, or community to help you sing Gregorian Chant WELL, SOONER rather than later!

The ChantHacks Beginner’s Workshop starts your participants with the “old” Solesmes Method’s meat-and-potatoes of Gregorian Chant: the Rhythm and the Rules of Style, using the basic Chant repertoire that they’ll be singing for the rest of their lives. This serves as a foundation. What they learn and practice when doing the simple chants will be the same rules and technique needed for singing the more complex chants of the Mass and Office.

The reason WHY it’s important to sing according to an established method like the Solesmes Method is so that people from many parishes, musician and non-musician alike, can come together and sing the Chant with unity and therefore pray better in song.

ChantHacks draws on Mark’s over 40 years as a choir director and his many years as a vocal consultant for Clear Creek Abbey (a daughter-house of Fontgombault and publisher of the English edition of Laus in Ecclesia). He has recently been engaged by Clear Creek Abbey to fine-tune their execution of the Solesmes Method, with emphasis on sight-singing and expression, through quarterly week-long workshops. What he does in the ChantHacks workshops is similar to what he does with the monks at Clear Creek Abbey.

Contact Mark at mark@vocalart.org to learn more about Chant, the Solesmes Method, and ChantHacks! We look forward to hearing from you, and would love to join your community in pursuit of singing Gregorian Chant WELL, SOONER rather than later!

Typical Weekend Workshop Schedule:

1. Friday Evening Presentation:
“Gregorian Chant as Textual Commentary”

  • Open to the whole parish

2. Saturday Morning Presentation/Workshop:

  • Open to the whole parish

3. 1st Saturday Afternoon Session:

  • For the choir

4. 2nd Saturday Afternoon Session:

  • For the choir

Booking

  • Please email mark@vocalart.org or allanna@vocalart.org with your parish/school/community information and desired workshop date (plus any other information you wish to include, e.g. about your choir, the choir’s normal repertoire, etc.).
  • We will respond and arrange a preliminary 30-minute video consultation to determine how your particular choir/community could most benefit from the workshop.

Cost