Chanting with God

What’s God’s favorite music?

Marie Rubis Bauer believes it’s Gregorian chant. Her choir at St. Cecilia Cathedral specializes in this sacred music from the Middle Ages. And she’s sure her singers make a celestial connection whenever they sing it.

“Every time we open our mouths to chant, all the saints and angels in heaven sing along with us,” Bauer said during a recent rehearsal.

These are busy days for the choir, which is preparing to celebrate its 150th anniversary. The highlight of the season will come Nov. 22, when the choir performs Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and other works for St. Cecilia Day.

The 40 choristers should be well prepared to sing this difficult music. That’s because St. Cecilia’s choir is one of the few in the country to have a Schola Cantorum.

The Schola, named for the medieval papal choir that perfected Gregorian chant, was founded in 1998 at St. Cecilia to provide choristers with a thorough grounding in sacred and historic music. The Schola differs from ordinary choir instruction in that it is a formal school — integrated into the Cathedral’s St. Cecilia Institute — that teaches singing to children and adults.

Bauer, who holds a doctorate and specializes in church music, oversees the school. Among other things, she provides her singers with instruction in the arcane notation of Gregorian chant — that monophonic monastic style that originated in European Catholic churches in the sixth century.

“Our Schola is fantastic,” said chorister Maggie Fann of Lincoln. “It makes our rehearsals seem like individual voice lessons and music theory classes. We learn so much.”

The choir has come a long way since its prairie days.

Vincent Burkley, a German immigrant, formed the choir in the fall of 1859. His family made up the first choir. They sang simple Masses for the territory’s first bishop, James O’Gorman.

“Vincent was an extremely devout Catholic,” said Omaha resident Rob Harding, Burkley’s great-great-grandson. “For Vincent, the failure to provide music for the bishop would have been out of the question.”

Still, performing music of any kind was a challenge back then. Omaha was “essentially a mud puddle,” said Harding. And the city had only one instrument — a small cabinet organ.

Omaha’s Episcopalians and Catholics shared that instrument. Its transfer every Sunday from church to church has become part of the Burkley-Harding family lore.

“The men from the Catholic choir would trudge over to the Episcopal church to fetch the organ,” Harding said. “They’d carry it back in their Sunday best. By the time they got to church they were covered in mud.”

The choir’s pioneer days didn’t last long. It became a bona fide cathedral choir when it moved into the former St. Philomena’s — located at Ninth and Harney Streets — in 1868. When the choir began performing in St. Cecilia Cathedral in 1917, it gained its own cathedral organ. Frank Burkley, Vincent’s son, donated the $30,000 instrument.

Winifred Flanagan, niece of Boys Town’s Father Flanagan, took over the choir in the early 1920s. She led it for the next 50 years, performing the most complex high Masses.

“Flanagan really kept the choir together and brought it into modern times,” said the Rev. Michael Gutgsell, St. Cecilia’s current rector.

The contemporary choir still performs complex music. But its repertory is more diverse.

Bauer is currently teaching the choir a bright Brazilian piece called “Salmo 150,” in which the women sing a quicksilver text above the men’s grooving rhythmic accompaniment. The choir is also working on a swinging West African song, sung in French.

The choir’s membership is also more diverse. “We don’t look like a lot of other church choirs,” Bauer said. “We’re more intergenerational, with our singers ranging from junior high students to seniors.”

The choristers come from a variety of backgrounds. They are students, professors, accountants, housewives. “They are basically regular folks,” Bauer said.

Most of the singers, however, joined for the same reason.

“I just can’t think of another choir in Omaha that sings such beautiful music,” said Tony Jasnowski, 55, an English professor at Bellevue University.

Jasnowski, who’s been singing in the choir since 1987, said the group has changed a lot since the Schola opened.

“We used to be more of a social group,” he said. “Now we’re seeing more college music students joining the group, which has moved us to a higher professional level.”

Angelina Gradel, 22, a senior majoring in music education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is one of those students.

Gradel’s voice shimmered during a rehearsal. The group was note perfect as it read through the difficult Gregorian notation. Bauer was pleased but had a suggestion.

“Just make sure your vowels are round,” she said, “like the dome of our beautiful cathedral.”

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com