A new organisation – The Gregorian Chant Network - has been launched to organise training in Gregorian Chant and to link singers and choirs singing Gregorian Chant for the Catholic liturgy, with the support of the Latin Mass Society, Una Voce Scotland, the Association for Latin Liturgy, and the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge. As the GCN website says:
On Saturday 30th January, a meeting was held at the London Oratory to launch a new grouping, the Gregorian Chant Network, of scholas and interested parties to coordinate the promotion of Gregorian Chant in the Catholic liturgy.
The meeting was opened and the concept of the GCN introduced by Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society. After lunch Colin Mawby, the distinguished composer and former Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral, gave the keynote address on the importance of Chant, followed by a fascinating practical session on methods of conducting the Chant, embedded below (40 minutes).
In the words of the esteemed Dr. Joseph Shaw:
One thing I am particularly proud of is getting a pretty definitive list of the amateur groups singing regularly at the Traditional Mass: something the Latin Mass Society has never had before, and which is going to be extremely useful. However, the meeting was by no means limited to 'LMS people'. It was addressed by Colin Mawby, the well-known composer who was Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral in the 1960s, and attended by a number of people connected with the Association for Latin Liturgy and the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, and representatives from Una Voce Scotland, the LMS's Scottish equivalent.
The Gregorian Chant Network has two functions: to link chant scholas to each other, for mutual support, and to organise training events. The training events will be coordinated with the existing groups to meet their needs, but are also intended to draw more people into the chant.
Joseph Shaw's article on the founding of the Gregorian Chant Network can be found here: Launch of the Gregorian Chant Network.
