Notre Dame Choir
The Notre Dame Choir was founded in 1982 by Dr. David Schofield. Under the baton of current Director of Music Christopher Mueller since 1999, the ensemble offers Gregorian chant and Renaissance sacred polyphony during the 11:30 a.m. Mass on Sunday mornings.
We seek to fulfill the mandate of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which noted in Sacrosanctum concilium:
"The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that
of any other art... The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy:
therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other
kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical
celebrations..." (§112, 116)
The group is small and does mostly one-on-a-part singing. Our membership is diverse, including a geneticist, a paralegal, a student in medical school and another studying mathematics, a professional musician, and a chocolatier. We bring our faith and our love of music together each week in order to sing and, we hope, inspire the congregation to contemplation and prayer.
In addition to our regular Sunday morning Mass, we do a multitude of additional singing:
- once monthly at St. Patrick's Cathedral, for the Archdiocesan Young Adult Mass.
- twice yearly for the Sisters of Life - at their December Advent concert and their August
Mass of Profession
- three concerts yearly - Advent, Lent, and a Marian program.
- Good Friday (Tenebrae and Adoration services), and Easter Vigil during the Triduum,
as well as Easter Sunday.
And we've sung other events, such as these:
- a wedding in Maryland (Sept. '07)
- a pro-life Mass in Washington, D.C. (Jan. '09)
- an Advent Mass for Legatus in Manhattan (whence the above photo was taken, Dec. '08)
- a daily Mass for the seminarians at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, NY (Mar. '09)
- a Renaissance sacred music clinic for seminarians here at Notre Dame (Dec. '06)
- first Mass for newly-ordained Fr. Vincent Druding in Manhattan (May '09)
Please check out some audio clips (with texts) posted on YouTube:
Alma Redemptoris Mater, Lassus (Dec. 08)
Ave sanctissima, Gombert (May 08)
Pastores loquebantur, Guerrero (Dec. 08)
Admittance is by audition. We invite you to join us! Please contact our music director at (212) 866-1500, x15, or send an email to catholics@columbia.edu (with "ND Choir" in the subject line).