St. Paul's unites vigorous academic pursuit with musical curriculum. The study of music has always been an integral part of classical liberal arts education. Here it rightly flourishes. The traditional liberal arts curriculum includes important tools for musical success: musical theory and Latin.
The school is for grades 3-8. This age group offers a key window of opportunity in the development and training of choristers. Boys at that age are the only ones who can master the role of treble in a choir. The unique treble voice of boys is fostered here as a tremendous musical advantage. Boys audition for admittance to the school, with the program seeking to elevate and educate.
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| The choir school founder, Theodore Marier |
The school was founded by Dr. Theodore Marier (1912-2001), one of the most important musical figures of the postconciliar scene. Like other true grate ones of that age, such as Monsignor Richard J. Schuler of the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale, Dr. Marier lived in relative obscurity. He was an incredibly gifted musician, choir director, composer, and writer of music. The founding of the school was a response to the call of Pope St. Pius X to reinvigorate the sacred rites with the rediscovery of Gregorian Chant.
The boys specialize in liturgical music. They sing a variety of music suited to the sacred liturgy that includes plainchant and sacred polyphony. They sing an impressive 55 different Mass settings. They rehearse every day and sing at daily Mass and Sunday High Mass at St. Paul's Parish in Harvard Square. In addition, they sing at other events, such as occasional weddings.
St. Paul's is strategically located, just across the street from Harvard University. The church is perfectly placed in Cambridge, very near to Boston. Dr. Marier was the organist here many years ago and the pastor had been amenable to the idea of a choir school. Therefore St. Paul's became the natural home to the choir school. The church has perfect acoustics with a barrel vault ceiling in the Romanesque tradition. It was built during the First World War and was completed in 1923, loosely modeled after the fourteenth century Basilica of San Zeno in Verona.
Hopefully this model of the European cathedral school tradition will catch on in other places, namely busy cathedral churches. To learn more about the school and its remarkable founder, click here and read an interesting article here. To clarify, while this is the only all-boys Catholic choir school in the United States, a similar co-ed Catholic school exists in Salt Lake City known as The Madeleine Choir School, founded in 1996.
Lastly, Plato gives us a definition of music that is sublimely Christian. "It is," he says, "art so ordering sound as to reach the soul, inspiring a love of virtue." And Dom Mocquereau, OSB tells us that, "Music is not intended to be a mere pastime but an indispensable foundation of civilization and morality, a source of peace and order for the soul, and of health and beauty for the body." This brings to mind a story of St. Gregory himself teaching Chant to Roman boys from his sick bed. God bless this wonderful school and its students who are being formed so well to be our next generation of virtuous leaders.
