I'm afraid I have not been prompt in posting properly about the funeral of our friend and colleague Calvert Shenk after his rather sudden death on Saturday, 9 July. For the time being, at least, I shan't attempt anything other than the barest of outlines concerning his funeral. The difficult task of beginning to describe all of the ways in which Cal set the high standard he did as a church musician and as a Christian gentlemen will, I'm sure, be undertaken soon by those who knew him. In the meantime, may the dry nature of this summation be forgiven for so poorly reflecting the warmth and esteem in which he was held.

The funeral was at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, 13 July at Assumption Grotto Church in Detroit, where Cal had worked for his last year. After a lying in state in the vestibule of the church, where many family and friends kneeled to pay their last respects and pray for the repose of his soul, Vierne's Carillon de Westminster was played as a prelude to the Mass. The Gregorian introit Requiem aeternam was sung at the procession, and the Kyrie was chanted. The Responsorial Psalm was chanted in Latin, with the response "Desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus" ("My soul longs for you, O God"). A simple Alleluia was sung. After the homily, the choir sang Cal's Ora pro nobis, followed by the proper chant Domine Iesu Christe at the Offertory. The Sanctus and the Agnus were, of course, chanted to the prescribed tones of the Requiem Mass. At Communion, after the Lux aeterna, the choir sang settings of O Sacrum Convivium and Ave Verum, both by Cal. The Subvenite was chanted at the final commendation, followed by the playing of Cal's Fugue and Toccata on Iste Confessor for the recessional.

The Mass was celebrated by Fr. Eduard Perrone, the Pastor of Assumption Grotto. Fr. John Bustamante and Fr. Eusebius Schwald concelebrated. Bishop John Quinn and Fr. Steven Boguslawski, O.P., Rector of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, were among the many clergy attending in choir. Mary Beth Pardington and Ray Long directed the Choir of Assumption Grotto Church, with Stephanie Nofar on organ (including the accompanying of the chant propers) with Charles Olegar, who played the Iste Confessor.

The funeral homily was preached by Fr. Perrone. The occasionally pointed homily exhorted the congregation to pray for the repose of Cal's soul, and was infused throughout with an understanding of God's grace as witnessed in Cal's life. The full text is posted at the Assumption Grotto website.

After the funeral, a lunch was hosted in the parish hall. Internment followed at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

The articles which Cal wrote whilst at Assumption Grotto -- in the words of one of our regular contributors, "models of clarity, brevity, and, most of all, thinking with the Church" -- are posted here. Some personal reflections by Fr. Bustamante, a recently ordained priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, currently Parochial Vicar at Assumption Grotto, and a student of Cal's whilst at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, may be found here.

The Detroit Free Press ran an obituary on 15 July. A somewhat more complete obituary follows:

     Calvert Davies Shenk, 64, formerly of Battle Creek, died peacefully at home in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, on Saturday, July 9, 2005.
     He was born November 21, 1940, in Kansas, the son of Clifford and Bernice Davies Shenk.
     Mr. Shenk graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 1962, with a Bachelor of Music degree and the following year with a Masters of Music in Organ Performance and Church Music.
     In October of 1968, he married Ila Conners of Battle Creek. She survives.
     Mr. Shenk worked full-time at various music positions as organist and choir director including St. Henry Parish in Chicago; Armed Forces School of Music in Norfolk, Virginia; St. Philip Parish in Battle Creek, Michigan; St. Catherine Parish in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Cathedral of St. Paul and as chant instructor at the Franciscan Monastery in Birmingham, Alabama; assistant professor of music at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan; currently joined the music department at Assumption Grotto Church in Detroit, assisting as organist, chant master, and composer.
     He has worked additionally as Adjunct Instructor at Kellogg Community College, Music Critic for the Battle Creek Enquirer, as Choral Director at St. Philip Catholic Central High School, and as associate director, accompanist, and composer-in-residence for the Battle Creek Boychoir, all in Battle Creek.
     Mr. Shenk is internationally known as concert organist, composer, clinician, and adjudicator.
     As an organ recitalist, Mr. Shenk has performed throughout the Midwest, East, and Southeast, including the American Guild of Organists’ National Convention in Detroit and the inaugural recital on the Appleton organ in Equestrian Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
     Internationally, he presented an organ recital at Église Notre-Dame in Douai, France. He led the St. Catherine Church Choir on a tour of Italy in March of 1987, which included performances in Florence, Assisi, and Rome. At St. Peter’s Basilica, the choir sang for the High Mass on the First Sunday of Lent at the Sala Clementina during a private papal audience.
     Mr. Shenk is a Fellow in the American Guild of Organists and has served as Dean of the Southwest Michigan Chapter, as Michigan State Chairman, as Professional Concerns Chairman of the Milwaukee Chapter, and as Educational Concerns Chairman of the Birmingham, Alabama Chapter. He maintains membership with the Hymn Society of America, the Church Music Association of America, the Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians, and the Latin Liturgy Association, among others.
     His particular interests have been Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony, organ performance and improvisation, liturgical ceremony, and the theology of the liturgy.
     In addition to several recordings, Mr. Shenk is published by McAfee Music and GIA Publications, and has written several articles for the American Organist magazine. He was co-author of the Adoremus Hymnal by Ignatius Press and several works for CanticaNova Publications.
     He is survived by his wife; brother-in-law, Kurt Conners; a niece, Janine Dalman; nephew, Matthew Briggs; close friends including Michael and Elaine Opper of Garden City, Michigan; James and Joyce Ryan of Battle Creek; Peter, Daniel, and Michael Ryan, and all their families; and his numerous colleagues and friends.
     Visitation will be held on Tuesday, July 12, from 3 to 9 p.m., with a rosary recited at 7 p.m., at the John N. Santeiu & Son Funeral Home, 1139 Inkster Road, Garden City. The Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, July 13, at the Assumption Grotto Church, 13770 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit. Burial will be in Holy Sepulchre Catholic Cemetery, Southfield, Michigan.
     Memorial contributions may be made to Assumption Grotto Church and Angela Hospice.

This week's issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, dated July 29, mentions an issue of interest to composers, editors of hymnals and other music collections, and musicians: what are the potential legal liabilities attached to reproducing, arranging, &c. an e.g. presumed out-of-print work published after 1923 whose owner is not known or cannot be contacted for permission? One example of such a work, although its status is not now alterable by U.S. law due to international agreements of reciprocity, would have been the reproduction of Franz Biebl's "Ave Maria [Angelus Domini]," for years exclusive to a small German publisher that did not appear to exist into the 1980's.

The lengthy article by Scott Carlson, entitled "Whose Work Is It, Anyway?" is, appropriately enough, available by subscription only. Following are a few excerpts of interest.

This week, at the urging of prominent legal scholars, academic-library organizations, technology companies such as Google and Microsoft, and many other interested parties, the U.S. Copyright Office is holding a series of hearings to determine whether copyright law should change to allow for more liberal use of orphan works. ...

The music-licensing organizations Broadcast Music Inc. and Ascap have proposed that any orphan-works exemptions should not include music. ...

Peter Andrew Jaszi, a law professor at American University, heard about [such problems] at copyright conferences and meetings several years ago, before abandoned works were commonly known as "orphans." He encouraged his students at the law school's Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic to propose a solution.

The clinic's response, filed with the copyright office this year, has come to be seen by many libraries and publishers as a model solution. Its basic points: An orphan work is any for which an owner cannot be found, regardless of how recently it was published or whether it was published at all. People should be able to use an apparently orphan work after "reasonable effort" to search for its owner, but the law should not spell out what that effort entails. If an owner turns up after a supposedly orphan work has been used, the owner should be able to collect a small amount -- from $100 to $500 -- but not obtain statutory damages, attorneys' fees, or injunctions.

The Glushko-Samuelson proposal does not advocate establishing a registry of orphan works, but some copyright experts do. ... A search of the government-supported registry would be enough to determine whether or not a work was an orphan.

Proposals by other organizations diverge wildly, but most of them disagree on two main points: how an orphan work should be defined, and what a user should pay if an owner comes along after a work has been used.

Of the two, the issue of payment is simpler. ...

When hearings convene this week in Washington and on August 2 in Berkeley, Calif., the copyright office might hear far more wrangling over what types of works could be used as orphans -- or whether the issue is as pressing as some say it is.

Further information:

A May 9 letter to the Copyright Office [PDF, 131 KB].

The Copyright Office's updated outline of the roundtable process.

More information on music copyrights is available here.

"Modes of liturgical dress, forms of prayer, different devotions, hymns that had been a part of the Church's cultural treasury for centuries, were not just dumped, but actively suppressed. To be a practicing Catholic in many parishes, one had to buy into the pop culture of the 1960s and 1970s.

"Against this, Ratzinger has been critical of what he calls 'claptrap and pastoral infantilism' -- 'the degradation of liturgy to the level of a parish tea party and the intelligibility of the popular newspaper.' "

Read more of this insightful interview with theologian Tracey Rowland.

I'm not sure that I entirely understand the significance of this, and perhaps someone can assist in this regard, but the published "Instrumentum Laboris" for the Bishops Synod scheduled for October 2-23, 2005, offers some remarkable commentary on music and chant:

The faithful need to know the standard Gregorian chants, which have been composed to meet the needs of people of all times and places, in virtue of their simplicity, refinement and agility in form and rhythm. As a result, the songs and hymns presently in use need to be reconsidered. To enter into sacred or religious usage, instrumental or vocal music is to have a sense of prayer, dignity and beauty. This requires an integrity of form, expressing true artistry, corresponding to the various rites and capable of adaptation to the legitimate demands of inculturation. This is to be done without detracting from the idea of universality. Gregorian chant fulfills these needs and can therefore serve as a model, according to Pope John Paul II. Musicians and poets should be encouraged to compose new hymns, according to liturgical standards, which contain authentic catechetical teaching on the paschal mystery, Sunday and the Eucharist....

...it is important to avoid musical forms which, because of their profane use, are not conducive to prayer. Some responses note a certain eagerness in composing new songs, to the point of almost yielding to a consumer mentality, showing little concern for the quality of the music and text, and easily overlooking the artistic patrimony which has been theologically and musically effective in the Church’s liturgy....

Certain responses ask for the use of Latin, particularly at international celebrations, to express the unity and catholicity of the rite of the Mother Church of Rome. In this case, it is desirable that Christians everywhere know how to pray and chant some basic texts of the Latin liturgy, such as the Gloria, Credo and the Our Father.

Thanks CantemusDomino

It saddens us tremendously to report that Cal Shenk, composer, organist, choirmaster, and longtime CMAA member, died on Saturday morning, 9 July, at 9:00 a.m., after a short battle with cancer. His funeral arrangements have been confirmed, and are as follows:

Tuesday, 12 July
7:00 p.m. Wake
Santeio Funeral Home
1139 Inkster Rd., Garden City, MI
(734-427-3800)

Wednesday, 13 July
10:00 a.m. Lying in state
11:00 a.m. Funeral Mass
Assumption Grotto Church
13770 Gratiot Ave., Detroit, MI
(313-372-0762)

Burial in Holy Sepulcher Cemetery

Cal will be sorely missed by his many friends in the CMAA. Of your charity, please pray for the repose of his soul, and for the consolation of his dear wife, Ila.

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat ei.

[This press release also available in PDF]

A colloquium on sacred music at the Catholic University of America, June 21-26, 2005, sponsored by a highly energized Church Music Association of America, demonstrated that the movement working for a revival of Gregorian chant and choral polyphony, within the framework of the Roman Rite Catholic liturgy, is skilled, exuberant, and growing.

The week-long workshop, co-sponsored by the Ward Centre in the B.T. Rome School of Music at the Catholic University of America, featured daily liturgies, two scholas specializing in chant, two choirs working on polyphonic music, as well as recitals, lectures by top experts in liturgy, and discussions of the practical aspects of parish music. The proceedings sought to demonstrate the viability of this music in our times, whether in cathedrals or in parishes of every shape and size.

This was the 15^th annual sacred music colloquium but it attracted more attendees than those of recent years. Among the registrants were cathedral musicians, organists, composers, choir directors, and parish singers from around the country, all of whom came to learn, sing, and take part in the revival of sacred music.

The choirs concentrated on singing the prescribed chants of the Masses of the day, along with polyphonic Mass settings. The choirs also prepared and sang music from the 16^th century by di Lasso, Hassler, and Gabrieli, and more modern settings by Dupre and composers who attended the colloquium. Its liturgies were held in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The colloquium closed with a Sunday High Mass at the Franciscan monastery.

The liturgies throughout the week employed the wide range of possibilities in the Roman Rite. Some included Latin in the Mass ordinary alongside English propers. Others were entirely in Latin or entirely in English. The celebrants were careful to adhere to the norms as presented in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, and follow its directives recommending the chants as prepared by the monks of Solesmes and found in the Roman Gradual.

One of the liturgies of the day was a Requiem Mass for John Paul II, and its repertoire was unlike most funeral Masses heard in parishes today. It not only included the Introit and Communio from the Graduale Romanun but also the Dies Irae sequence, which many people wrongly assume was suppressed after Vatican II. But as colloquium organizers pointed out, the Dies Irae is nowhere forbidden and remains a theologically sound statement of Catholic teaching. The chant and text has inspired composers for centuries.

The faculty included Wilko Brouwers of the Monteverdi Choir in Holland, Gibert Brandt of the Achdiocesan choir school in Cologne, Horst Buchholz of the Denver Cathedral, Kurt Poterack of Christendom College, Scott Turkington of the Stamford Schola Gregoriana, Fr. Robert Skeris of Catholic University, Amy Zuberbeuler of Houston, and William Mahrt of the Stanford University, who was also elected incoming president of the CMAA. Other changes on the board include the addition of Buchholz as vice president, and new board members Turkington and Jeffrey Tucker of the St. Cecilia Schola of Auburn, Alabama.

CMAA President emeritus Skeris commented on the notable vigor and optimism among the participants. Approximately half had never attended any colloquium on chant but spoke of being elated at the discovery He estimated the average age of the participants to be in the late 30s—people born just about the time that the style of music in parishes changed abruptly. These singers and musicians attended in the hope of rediscovering music that Vatican II declares to have “pride of place” due to its “inestimable value.”

There are many perceived barriers to the understanding and singing of Gregorian Chant, the faculty pointed out. It is based on a system of notation different from that used in modern composition. Chant classes provided conference participants with a thorough understanding of the system, as well as the practical and interpretive skills necessary to bring chant to life in modern parish liturgies.

A highlight of this year's colloquium was a presentation of the Ward Method, a form of music pedagogy offered at the Ward Center at Catholic University and at various centers throughout the world. The sessions were led by Amy Zuberbeuler of the Ward Center in Houston, Brouwers of the Netherlands branch, and Brandt who teaches the method at the Cathedral School in Cologne, Germany.

The method, based on the teachings Justine Ward, was commonly taught in Catholic Schools during the first half of the twentieth century. Its aim is music education for all children based on principles of the unity of beauty and truth, a sound understanding of rhythm, tonality, and quality musical repertoire.

Members of the two choirs also benefited from the annual music reading session, in which they sang through new works of the many composers among the CMAA membership. Works ranged from full Mass settings to shorter motets based on the scriptural and liturgical texts. They sought to adhere to the principles of sanctity and goodness of form that characterize truly sacred music.

Participants spoke of the camaraderie that comes with being among like-minded musicians for such an extended period. Musicians of this quality rarely have professional contact with so many people who take their faith so seriously, and Catholic musicians rarely have the chance for such engagement with people so dedicated to sacred styles and close adherence to ritual norms.

The CMAA was founded at the close of the second Vatican Council in 1964, and as a merger of American Society of St. Cecilia (first founded in 1874) and the St. Gregory Society (1913). The group saw the urgent need to advance sacred music in keeping with the norms established by competent ecclesiastical authority. To that end, it publishes the quarterly journal Sacred Music and organizes colloquiums and workshops for church musicians.

The 16^th annual conference is already scheduled for June 19-25, 2006. Membership dues are $30 per year. The organization is open for all church musicians interested in a revival of sacred music. More about the CMAA on its website: www.musicasacra.com. Contact: sacredmusic@gmail.com

CHURCH MUSIC ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

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