St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California is proud to announce the foundation of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music.
Founded in 2022, the mission of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music is to draw souls to Jesus Christ through the beauty of sacred music and the liturgy.
The Institute offers a substantial program of accredited, graduate-level coursework designed to help church musicians and clergy better to know and love the Church’s treasury of sacred music and her teachings on sacred music. Our goal is to equip students with the theological, philosophical, and historical knowledge, as well as the practical skills (singing, playing, conducting, composing, organizing, fundraising) necessary to build excellent sacred music programs in parishes and schools. We aim to help others revitalize the faith of Catholics and instill vitality in parish and school life through a vibrant sacred music program.
We are committed to a faithful and generous service of the Church. We cultivate fidelity, resiliency, a healthy sense of creativity, and selflessness within our student body and faculty as characteristics of our service as we labor together in the vineyard of the Lord to bring in a rich harvest.
The spring 2023 semester will feature public workshops and a lecture and concert series. The summer follows with an extensive program of graduate-level coursework, this year with FREE tuition. In the fall term, the Institute will host an academic conference honoring the work of Dr. William Mahrt (Stanford), entitled “The Musical Shape of the Liturgy”; a call for participation is forthcoming.
Drawing together an outstanding faculty from the Bay Area and around the country, the Institute is directed by Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, who recently joined the faculty of St. Patrick’s Seminary as the William P. Mahrt Chair in Sacred Music, having recently concluded a distinguished term of service at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York.