by admin | Nov 12, 2025 | News
The Catholic Institute of Sacred Music is thrilled to announce the summer 2026 launch of its summer-based 36-credit Master of Sacred Music degree, and two 20-credit Post-Baccalaureate Certificates in Gregorian Chant and Sacred Choral Music, pending approval from WSCUC. Applications open November 15th, 2025.
https://catholicinstituteofsacredmusic.org/graduate-study/
The MSM and Certificates are completable in three to five summers, depending on how many weeks you can be on campus during the summer. During the regular fall and spring semesters, you’ll work with a voice teacher in your area, and take a 1-hour online (live via Zoom) colloquium with other graduate students.
Our affordable tuition ($250 per credit hour) and compact format mean that you can keep your job at a parish or school while completing graduate studies.
Courses will also remain open to students wishing just to take a graduate class or two, without matriculating into a degree/certificate program.
Check out this summer’s classes here: https://catholicinstituteofsacredmusic.org/summer-courses/.
Our curriculum prepares you with the theological, philosophical, and historical knowledge—as well as the practical skills (singing, playing, conducting, teaching, composing, organizing, fundraising)—necessary to build excellent sacred music programs in parishes and schools.
Our world-class faculty of dedicated Catholic scholars and practitioners delivers a curriculum that is robust, and focused on musical excellence and fidelity to the Catholic faith and tradition. Summer classes are buttressed by an horarium that allows time for sung daily Mass and vespers, access to confessions, and time for private prayer, study, relaxation, and fellowship.
Interested in learning more?
We have two digital open houses this week. Sign up here to learn more.
Summer 2026 Courses:
– History and Principles of Sacred Music
– Advanced Seminar in Gregorian Chant: Manuscript Sources, Semiology, and Interpretation
– Advanced Seminar in Gregorian Chant: Vocal Technique and Semiological Performance Practice
– Teaching Gregorian Chant to Children
– Liturgical Theology
– Introduction to Gregorian Chant
– Organ Accompaniment of Chant
– Choral Institute
– Composition Seminar
– Organ Improvisation
– Choral Preparation: Choral Conducting, Rehearsal Techniques, and Group Vocal Pedagogy
– Advanced Seminar in Gregorian Chant: Notation and Practice in the Tenth through Fourteenth Centuries
– Advanced Seminar in Gregorian Chant: Cantare super librum
Program faculty:
– Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, Music History and Gregorian Chant
– Prof. Christopher Berry, Choral Music and Organ
– Dr. Frank La Rocca, Composition
– Dr. Charles Weaver, Gregorian Chant
– Dr. Alison Altstatt, Gregorian Chant
– Prof. Sandra Raquel Bengochea, Vocal Pedagogy
– Dr. Joseph Dyer, Gregorian and Old Roman Chant
– Dr. Rosemary Heredos, Gregorian Chant
– Fr. Joshua Neu, Liturgy and Scripture
– Dr. Edward Schaefer, Gregorian Chant
– Dr. Christopher Tietze, Organ
– Fr. Nicholas Schneider, Liturgy
– Dr. Adrian Walker, Philosophy
– Fr. Vincent Wood, Canon Law and Liturgy
Contact us for more information at info@catholicinstituteofsacredmusic.org
by admin | Aug 18, 2025 | News
It was a wonderful beginning of August here at CISM as we welcomed nearly 80 young singers to campus for a 5-day chant camp. Students sang morning prayer, had intensive rehearsals preparing 5 days of sung Masses, and sharpened their vocal technique and solfège skills in rehearsals. Snack breaks and lunchtime games punctuated the days, and afternoons were spent learning about the pipe organ, the names of neumes, key signatures, and doing some composition.
We can’t wait to welcome students back to campus for camp again next summer!
In the meantime, CISM is launching a MAJOR NEW initiative: a comprehensive cathedral-style Chorister Program, training students in the Catholic faith and the Church’s treasury of sacred music, especially Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony.
Scholarships are available for families in need. The registration deadline is Friday, August 29th. Classes start Tuesday, September 9th and meet each Tuesday at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park from 4:15-6:15 p.m.
More information and registration are available here.
by admin | Jul 26, 2025 | News
Feast of Sts. Anne and Joachim, 2025
Dear friends of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music,
Thank you for being part an amazing summer 2025 here at the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music. It’s not yet over, but I wanted to write to you with an update.
We welcomed hundreds of guests here at the beginning of the month for the inaugural Fons et Culmen Sacred Liturgy Summit. Anchored by the celebration of solemn pontifical Masses and Vespers, celebrated by Cardinals Sarah and O’Malley, Archbishop Cordileone, Bishops Fernandes and Barber, and Abbots Benedict Nivakoff and Marc Crilly, participants encountered God’s presence in sacred liturgies celebrated with utmost care, reverence, and beauty. CISM provided music for each of the liturgies with its all-professional choir, drawn from students and colleagues across the U.S. and directed by Prof. Berry and Dr. Donelson-Nowicka. We heard fantastic talks from over a dozen leading prelates, theologians, and artists, and we developed friendships and collegiality over meals and working sessions. Stay tuned for the book-format publication of the Summit’s addresses!
Earlier in the summer, CISM provided music for the Artists Retreat of the Benedict XVI Institute, held here on the campus of St. Patrick’s Seminary. Our musicians sang and played music by Fauré, Charpentier, Hassler, Peeters, and Josquin, of course as well as all of the Gregorian chant propers, and some lovely English chant adaptations for Vespers by Dr. Richard Skirpan.
Our summer graduate session moved into full-swing following the Summit with 9 classes in 3 weeks. Students in the Choral Institute sang the Gregorian propers for Mass, two motets per day, a Mass by du Mont, the Byrd Mass for Four Voices, the Rheinberger Mass in E-flat (JWV57), as well as Gregorian Vespers and English Morning Prayer under the direction of Prof. Christopher Berry and Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka. Composition Seminar students, under the tutelage of Dr. Frank La Rocca studied species counterpoint, and shared their own compositions with each other throughout the week, with all students hearing their compositions rendered by the Choral Institute students at the end of the week. Dr. Christoph Tietze‘s Organ Improvisation class improvised processional music for Mass and vespers, antiphon and hymn incipits, as well as an improvised accompaniment to the Mass in the First Royal Tone of Henri du Mont. We welcomed the Knights and Dames of Malta, along with many other guests for the final Mass of the week.
In the second week of classes, Introduction to Gregorian Chant students, taught by Dr. Donelson-Nowicka, developed their abilities to sing, teach, and direct music for Mass, focusing on Mass XI (Orbis factor) and the Gregorian propers of the Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart, while also learning to sing Lauds in English-language adaptations of chant. In Organ Literature, taught by Prof. Christopher Berry, students covered the monuments of the organ repertoire with a special focus on the development of organ building techniques which buttressed developments in repertory, as well as understanding this music in the context of the Catholic liturgical services. In Vocal Pedagogy, taught by Prof. Sandra Bengochea, students received in-depth instruction on the anatomy and physiology of the vocal tract, and discussed teaching techniques which build healthy technique, as well as those approaches which are detrimental to the voice. On Wednesday evening of the second week of classes, some of our students were invited to sing for a solemn Mass on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel at the Carmelite Monastery of Cristo Rey in San Francisco. Afterward we enjoyed a meal at nearby Star of the Sea parish before heading back to the seminary to get some sleep for another great day of classes.
The final week’s classes included Teaching Gregorian Chant to Children, in which students learned to teach the first level of the Ward method with Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, concluding the week with a 5th teaching demonstration by students before they headed home to finish their final projects. Two fantastic seminars in chant also filled the hallways with singing. Dr. Charles Weaver‘s seminar on the modes and hexachordal solfège had students practicing the Guidonian hand all week, both in chant and polyphonic practice, as well as looking at some of the complexities of understanding modality in the Gregorian repertoire. Dr. Joseph Dyer‘s seminar on Old Roman Chant drew together historical and manuscript studies, as well as secondary literature, in understanding theories of transmission of repertoire and the relationship of the “Old Roman” repertoire to the Gregorian. Students enjoyed preparing a sung Mass for the feast of St. James, featuring music from the Codex Calixtinus, and are now at home wrapping up final projects, papers, and exams in the next weeks.
We are now in the final stages of preparation for the launch of CISM’s Chorister Program. The program launches with an August 4–8 Chant Camp in which we’ll welcome 80 young singers to campus for a week of sung Masses, catechesis, vocal training, and fun! We will soon be posting the registration page for the academic-year chorister program, which starts Tuesday, September 9th.
Major Announcements of the Summer
The Catholic Institute of Sacred Music was thrilled to announce, earlier this summer, the appointment of Christopher Berry as Assistant Professor of Sacred Music at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University. Berry will also serve as Organist and Director of Sacred Music at the Church of the Nativity in Menlo Park, California, and as the Director of CISM’s newly-founded Chorister Program for young singers in grades 3+. Please join us in welcoming Professor Berry and his family to California!
We have also recently welcomed to our staff Sr. Mary Vianney Owens, who will serve as Program Associate and Assistant to the Director. Welcome, Sister!
We are also thrilled to announce the new Master of Sacred Music (MSM) degree program and Post-baccalaureate Certificates in Gregorian Chant and Sacred Choral Music, starting summer 2026, pending accreditation approval from WSCUC. We will have much more information forthcoming about these programs soon. Please stay tuned!
Additionally, we have marked many of the dates for the huge list of 2025–2026 offerings, both online and in-person, on our calendar, and we’ll be publishing more details on workshops, public lectures, and concerts in August. Check out our calendar here.
I hope to see you sometime soon at one of the many offerings of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music.
Finally, please know that we count on your prayers and support! Please pray that our work continue to grow and flourish, supporting musicians all over the world in their work of singing to the praise and glory of God almighty, and redounding to the sanctification and edification of souls.
All for the praise of His glory!
Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, Director
by admin | Jul 13, 2025 | News
We give thanks to God, all our speakers, liturgical celebrants, and musicians, all our staff and volunteers, and all our attendees for making the first Fons et Culmen Sacred Liturgy Summit a true moment of grace, complete with beautiful, prayerful liturgies celebrated with the utmost concern for rendering fitting worship to God. There were moments for private prayer, the opportunity to go to confession, fantastic talks (stay tuned for their book-format publication!), and many opportunities to dine together and build friendships and support for the work in the Lord’s vineyard. Check out some of the highlights below, or on the Summit’s Facebook page.
by admin | Jun 7, 2025 | News
Calling all young singers!
The Catholic Institute of Sacred Music will launch a choral program for young singers ages 8-17, beginning August 4-8 with a Chant Camp at St. Patrick’s Seminary.
(More information is forthcoming about the academic-year program, which will begin Tuesday, September 9th at St. Patrick’s Seminary.)
A week of fun, engaging, and positive rehearsals, games, catechesis, time for prayer, and meals together—Chant Camp is a day camp for students who want to grow in their faith, learn to sing, and enjoy fellowship with other Catholics.
An add-on afternoon sessions introduces students to the pipe organ, music theory, and music composition.
The camp is for students of all levels, from new chanters to those who have some experience chanting or singing in a Catholic choir.
Each day will include:
- Mass, sung by camp participants
- Rehearsals that develop singing ability and techniqueInstruction in how to read printed music, including chant notation
- Games and time relaxing or playing outside
- Snacks and lunch
- Catechesis
- Time for personal prayer and the opportunity to go to confession
- Parents are welcome to join the students for Mass each day at 11:15 a.m. (final Mass at noon on Friday).
Scholarships are available for families with financial need. Please inquire with Sr. Mary Vianney at mary.vianney@stpsu.edu.
Instructors: Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka & Prof. Christopher Berry
Pricing
- Earlybird (for registration by June 25) Full Week Price, $350 for 1st student, $150 for each student from the same family after the 1st student.
- Regular (for registration from June 26–July 7) Full Week Price, $500 for 1st student, $250 for each student from the same family after the 1st student.
- Late (for registration from July 7–July 14) Full Week Price, $600 for 1st student, $300 for each student from the same family after the 1st student.
- $100 per week per student for the after-lunch add-on (extended day until 3:30 p.m.; M-Th only).
The Catholic Institute of Sacred Music is thrilled to announce the summer 2026 launch of its summer-based 36-credit Master of Sacred Music degree, and two 20-credit Post-Baccalaureate Certificates in Gregorian Chant and Sacred Choral Music, pending approval from WSCUC. Applications open November 15th, 2025.
Calling all young singers!