Music for Jam III

Byrd: Mass for 4 voices
Byrd: Ave Verum Corpus
Assorted Christmas carols

Another poem by Inés...

this one is the theme of Jam Session III, the St. Stephen's Jam! If you can't guess the tune you must be very uncultured in the way of carols or slightly dense... :)

Here we go to Texas, o,
For session number three,
To sing with all our dear friends
Some more polyphony;
Send a note! Pass the word!
"Guys, we're gonna sing some Byrd!"
And God bless us and send us
A merry, merry jam,
And God send us a merry, merry jam.

God bless our Father Stanich dear
Upon his festal day;
We'll drink his health with pleasure,
And cheer him "Hip, hooray!"
Loud and louder we'll cheer
Our Croatian Father dear
And God bless us...

Although the city's shaken by
A recent hurricane,
With merriment and music
We'll shake it up again,
All in Christ to restore
We will sing and sing some more
And God bless us...

And to the Holy Innocents
On Sunday we will pray,
That they may keep us stainless
And innocent as they;
In their praise we will cry
"Glory be to God on high,"
And God bless us...

A Poem by Ines: Group Therapy

Well, my dears, I present THE THERAPY GROUP THEME SONG. No, it does not have music yet. Dom, Bibi, anybody?....

Come sit in our circle and tell us your name,
We'll greet you with cheerful delight,
And tell us your troubles, whatever they be,
For surely we'll set them all right!
What is it you suffer? Addiction to gum?
Or does ADOS trouble you?
Or are you the type that's been drinking for twen-
Ty-one years -- and is just twenty-two?
Come sit in our circle and tell us your name
And your problem, whatever it be;
Be certain of this..."WEEEE CAN HEEEEEEEELP YOU WITH THAAAAAAT..."
At Jam Session Group Therapy!

Some pictures!

Sorry, I don't know whom the credits are due to on these, since I saved quite a few from Facebook! You'll have to tell which are whose in the comments. Well, except the table one is a copy of one by Fr. Young.

Another Poem!

Ah, these Jams are so inspirational, aren't they? This one began in the car on the way back from Mexico, Sunday evening, but I had to stop when it grew too dark to write; so I only finished it today, when I remembered.

Sunset Thoughts

The sun is sinking in the west;
The evening is ablaze
As we head home along the road,
This third of four fun days;

Days full of song and laughter gay,
Of hymn and harmony,
Of jokes and plays and merriment
With friends we love to see;

The Masses and the merry meals
With friends and Fathers dear,
The glory of the harmony
Of youthful voices clear!

All, all too soon, we all must part,
And bid a sad goodbye,
But we will not forget these days,
And thus we will not sigh;

But for the Jams to come we'll wait -
Oh, we'll be happy then,
With song and wine - which, said the wise,
Do gladden hearts of men!

Greetings all!

I hope that all the travelers made it home safely (and without notice from pesty policemen).

I had a wonderful time on this second Jam Session. Moreover, I can speak from a little more experience now in my home parish.

I want to thank Father Stanich for having made this an important and successful event. Music (sacred and common) is still another part to the restoration of all things in Christ. Catholic Culture is so rich with its music, philosophy, theology or simple customs of the people, we ought to thank God for such a wonderful gift and be quick to share it with our fellow moderns who are so in need of real culture in their lives. Three cheers for Father Stanich's contribution in this regard!

In Christ the King.

Music for the Next Jam

Dear Singers,
Greetings from Texas. I hope that all of you had a blessed Easter.
I now have chosen the music for the Jam Session in St. Louis for the weekend of August 24th. I would like to do:
Tomas Luis de Victoria's Mass: Magna Mysterium,
J. Handel's polyphonic piece: Ascendit Deus
Kodaly's polyphonic piece: Ave Maria
Josquin Des Prez' polyphonic piece: Ave Maria...Virgo Serena (for this one it will be a limited number of singers)
I will send the music to all of you in a couple weeks, since I will be on retreat this coming week. If you have any questions, you can contact me.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Stephen Stanich

L'Antimodérniste

Dear jam-sessioners, and dear Father,
In one of our many emails Bibiana made a really beautiful and interesting point, quoted below:

I have a theory: I think music and art in general, especially the fine arts, are the "soft underbelly" of the modernist monster we are fighting...the modernists have not been able to compete with the art of the Catholic past, so this is where We (the new generation of artists and musicians) can conquer the beast!

Inspired, I wrote the following war-song for us. Bibiana, dubbing it the Antimodérniste, has promised music!! So we have a new jam-sessioners' anthem.... "Coming this August... only in St. Louis!" (in movie-preview tone). :)

♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪
Christ set up His Church on a Rock firm and strong,

And Hell's gates will never against it prevail;

The Ship of St. Peter sails bravely along,

Though tossed by the breakers and bent by the gale.

The modernist monster, a sea-serpent sly,

Attempts to engulf her in waves of deceit;

But we her brave sailors stand watchfully by;

With Christ at the helm, every foe we'll defeat!

Our foemen with vigor and lies do assault,

To banish the glory we held for so long;

But we can defeat them, we'll never default;

We'll beat them with beauty and smash them with song.

They drag down to earth those who strain for the skies

And turn to grey shadows the bright and the clear;

Their weapons are foulness and malice and lies;

Then fight them with that which they know not, and fear.

They fear what they know not -- the true and the fair;

Let those be our weapons, our beauty and truth,

With sword and with word, and with war-song and prayer,

The modernist monster will flee from our youth!

With art and with music, with grace on our side,

We'll battle our foes till they flee from the plain;

And then we'll pour out Palestrina with pride,

And Vittoria we'll sing-- and vittoria we'll gain!

♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪

Hymn to Mary, Queen of Angels

Here is a prayer to Our Lady. Enjoy!

O Queen of Angels - hear our prayer!
We come to kneel before thy throne,
The sinful sons of Eve, who dare
To claim thee, Mary, for our own.
O Mary, Mistress of the world -
Splendid as armies in array
With swords aloft and flags unfurled -
We kneel before thy feet today.

Worn with the long and cruel fight,
Wounded in many hard-fought fields,
Victorious seldom, strength grown slight,
With splintered swords and shattered shields,
We weary warriors kneel, and cry,
With banners trailing in the dust,
"O Mother, aid us or we die;
Without thy help, then fall we must…"

Seven swords pierced thy heart, the swords
Of sorrow, pain and misery,
But if thou draw them, all the lords
Of hell cannot but break and flee.
O Maiden fair, unstained, serene,
Hear then thy sons who cry to thee;
Take up the fallen sword, O Queen,
And lead us on to victory.

--Inés de Erausquin

Hurrah!

Here is Fr. Stanich's letter about the next jam!!!
Dear Singers,
Father Steven Soos has graciously accepted to host the next "Jam Session" in the beautiful city of St.Louis during the weekend of August 22-25th. Fatherbeing a Hungarian will surely try to outdo a Croatianbut that will be hard to do!
I will send out my proposal to all of you in the nearfuture to let you know what I would like to do nexttime.
Wishing you a holy Lent, I am
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Stephen Stanich

O Brother!!!!

Brother Gregory's Hilarious Interpretation of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. LOL!

Hi Palestrina Friends

Hey all
I have some pictures from the jam session weekend...how do I post them on here? I confess I have never "blogged" before....so I need all the help I can get from you experts!
Thanks Lucia for setting this up!
Best wishes and greetings to everyone,
Bibi

Hey Y'all !

I had a great time and it was really nice to meet all of you. Hopefully, we can do this again. Oh, and my e-mail address has changed to aggiedaughter@hotmail.com.

As Promised - A Jam-Session Ditty

Do re mi fa sol la ti,
Merry will our sessions be,
Arias, jazz, concertos too,
Keep us all from feeling blue,
(Though a blues chord here and there
Is a thing we love to share!)
Dorian, major, Lydian, minor,
Modes and keys get fine and finer,
Rounds, polyphony and chant,
Sight-sing, sight-play, and if you can't,
Ask the key and shut your eyes
And improv, improv, improvise!
When at last it's time to go,
End the jam with Figaro!
Tomorrow night - it's morning?! - then,
Tonight, we'll do it all again!

Hello!

Welcome to the Jam Session blog! Here's to our webmistress, Lucia, for making it! I'll probably post some jam poetry as well, when I write it.

Hello everyone!

I thought it would be fun to put up a blog for everyone's pictures, videos, and hopefully sound clips from the jam. I didn't take a camera myself, so I will just say that this weekend was the most fun I've had in a long time and I already miss Dickinson! A huge thank you to Fr. Stanich for organizing it and inviting us all.