Master of Sacred Music

Acclaimed music scholars join Notre Dame faculty

We welcome our two new faculty members, Peter Jeffery and Margot Fassler, specialists in sacred music and liturgy.

"Our masters in sacred music program is built on a great collaborative relation between the theology and the music departments," said John Cavadini, chair of Notre Dame's theology department. "These distinguished scholars, one in each of those departments, will bring our collaboration to the next level of excellence, to the benefit, ultimately, of our students."

FACULTY

 

 

 

 

 

Theology Faculty

Michael S. Driscoll

Associate Professor of Theology
B.A., Carroll College, Helena, MT, 1969
S.T.B., Gregorian University, Rome, 1977 S.T.L., Saint Anselmo, Rome, 1980 
S.T.D., Institut Catholique, Paris, 1986
Ph.D., University of Paris Sorbonne, 1986

Driscoll's scholarly interests are in the area of liturgy and sacramental theology.  He has published a monograph entitled Alcuin et la pénitence à l'époque carolingienne, LQF 81 (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 1999) and numerous articles in journals such as Worship, Ecclesia Orans and Traditio. His major interests are medieval liturgy and sacramental theology, most notably in the Carolingian period. For the past several years he has collaborated on the Byzantine St. Stephen's Monastery Project in Jerusalem, Israel.

He has served as convener of the study groups in Medieval Liturgy for the North American Academy of Liturgy, and in January 2001 was elected Vice-President (2001) and President-Elect (2002). In August 2001 he was elected to the Council of the Societas Liturgica, an international and ecumenical society of liturgists. He has also served the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, a standing committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as a liturgical advisor.

David Fagerberg

Associate Professor of Theology
B.A., Augsburg College
M.Div., Luther Northwestern Seminary
M.A., St. John's University, Collegeville, MN
S.T.M., Yale Divinity School
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Yale University

Fagerberg’s area is liturgical theology: its definition and methodology, sacramental theology, and liturgiology. His work has explored how the Church’s lex credendi (law of belief) is grounded on the Church’s lex orandi (law of prayer). Liturgy is the trysting place where God and humanity meet. Additional interests include Eastern Orthodoxy, liturgical asceticism, linguistic and scholastic philosophy, and G. K. Chesterton.

Published books are What is Liturgical Theology? (Pueblo 1992), The Size of Chesterton’s Catholicism (Notre Dame, 1998), and Theologia Prima: What is Liturgical Theology? the second edition (Hillenbrand Press, Fall 2003). His articles have appeared in such journals as Worship, America, New Blackfriars, Pro Ecclesia, Diakonia, Touchstone, and Antiphon. He was the Richardson Fellow at Durham University, U.K. in 1996. He is on the editorial board of the Chesterton Review, and a contributing editor to Gilbert! A Magazine of Chesterton.

Margot Fassler

Keough Professor of Music and Liturgy
B.A., State University of New York
M.A., Syracuse University
Ph.D., Cornell University

Fassler's special fields of study are medieval and American sacred music, and the liturgy of the Latin Middle Ages. Her subspecialties are liturgical drama of the Middle Ages and Mariology. Her book Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris has received awards from both the American Musicological Society and the Medieval Academy of America; among her edited volumes is The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages (with Rebecca A. Baltzer; Oxford University Press).  Her monograph The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts will appear in 2010 (Yale University Press).   Fassler is the author over forty articles on a broad range of topics and is currently preparing a book on the twelfth-century theologian, exegete, and composer Hildegard of Bingen, and a textbook for W.W. Norton.  Under the auspices of a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc., Professor Fassler works with congregations and practitioners to make videos of sacred music in its liturgical contexts.  She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Maxwell Johnson

Professor of Liturgical Studies
B.A., Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD, 1974
M.Div., Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, IA, 1978
M.A., School of Theology, St. John's University, Collegeville, MN, 1982
M.A., University of Notre Dame, 1989
Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 1992

Johnson is the author and/or editor of several books, including The Prayers of Sarapion of Thmuis in the Orientalia Christiana Analecta monograph series published by the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome; Images of Baptism (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2001); as editor and contributor, Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville: Pueblo, 2000); as co-author with Paul F. Bradshaw and L. Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary, Hermeneia Commentary Series (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2002); The Virgin of Guadalupe: Theological Reflections of an Anglo-Lutheran Liturgist (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002); as editor, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy, Revised and Expanded Edition (London: SPCK, 2004); Worship: Rites, Feasts, and Reflections (Portland: The Pastoral Press, 2004); Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2005); and over 60 articles in scholarly and pastoral-theological publications.  An edited collection of essays, American Magnificat: Protestants on Mary of Guadalupe, will appear in 2010 from The Liturgical Press and he is currently working on studies entitled Issues in Eucharistic Praying (The Liturgical Press), Sacraments and Worship (The John Knox Sources of Theology Series), and with Paul Bradshaw, The Origins of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons (SPCK).

Nathan D. Mitchell

Professional Specialist, Department of Theology
Concurrent Associate Director, Notre Dame Center for Liturgy
B.A., St. Meinrad College, 1966
M.A., Indiana University, 1971
Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 1978

His books include Cult and Controversy (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press / A Pueblo Book, 1982), Eucharist as a Sacrament of Initiation (Chicago; Liturgy Training Publications, 1994), Liturgy and the Social Sciences (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999), and Real Presence: The Work of Eucharist (new and expanded edition; Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2001). His most recent book is Meeting Mystery ("Theology in Global Perspective Series;" Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006). Since 1991, his column "The Amen Corner" has appeared in each issue of Worship magazine.

In 1998, Mitchell was presented with the Berakah Award from the North American Academy of Liturgy. In 2003, colleagues celebrated Mitchell's 60th birthday with a Festschrift entitled Ars Liturgiae: Worship, Aesthetics, and Praxis: Essays in Honor of Nathan D. Mitchell, edited by Clare V. Johnson (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2003). He has lectured at the following international conferences: "La Cresima: The Sacrament of Confirmation" (Settimo Congresso Internazionale di Liturgia, Roma, 6-8 Maggio 2004); "Roads to Transcendence: The Dynamics of Christian Identity" (University of Tilburg, The Netherlands, 1-2 September, 2005); and "Die modernen Ritual Studies als Herausforderung für die Liturgiewissenschaft," (Conference of the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft katholischer Liturgikdozentinnen und -dozenten im deutschen Sprachgebiet," Soesterberg, The Netherlands; 28 August-1 September, 2006).

Music Faculty

Alexander Blachly

Professor, Department of Music
Ph.D., Columbia University

Alexander Blachly, the 1992 recipient of the Noah Greenberg Award given by the American Musicological Society to stimulate historially aware performances and the study of historical performing practices, has been active in Early Music as both performer and scholar for the past 25 years. He earned his post-graduate degrees in musicology from Columbia University. He is the founder-director of the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Pomerium, which is recording an on-going series of compact discs of a cappella Renaissance music. These recordings have appeared on the Glissando, Archiv, Dorian, Classic Masters, and Nonesuch labels. Prior to assuming the post of Director of Choral Activities at the University of Notre Dame in 1993, Mr. Blachly taught early music and directed collegia musica at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, Rutgers University and the University of Pennsylvania, where for eight years he directed the a cappella ensemble Ancient Voices. He directs the University of Notre Dame Chorale, Chamber Orcherstra, and Schola Musicorum. For eleven years he hosted a three-hour classical-music radio show each Wednesday morning on the University's classical-music radio station, WSND 88.9 FM.      

Craig Cramer

Professor, Department of Music
D.M.A., Eastman School of Music

Cramer has studied with Russell Saunders, William Hays, James Drake, David Boe, and André Marchal (Paris). Mr. Cramer has been named the winner of several competitions, including the Alexander McCurdy Competition in Organ Performance at Westminster Choir College and the National Organ Competition in Fort Wayne, Indiana. One of the most widely traveled organists of his generation, Cramer has performed throughout the United States and Canada. His annual European tours have taken him to Belgium, The Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Scotland, and Switzerland. Cramer has performed the complete organ works of Bach in eighteen concerts. He has performed for conventions of the American Guild of Organists; in 1998 he was Artistic Director of the Redlands Organ Festival in California; and in 1999 Cramer was a featured performer for the International Organ Symposium at Pacific Lutheran University. A frequent guest on "Pipedreams," Cramer's work was recently the subject of a ninety-minute program on this nationally-syndicated program on American Public Radio, one of the only American organists ever so honored. Cramer has several CD recordings on the Arkay, Motette, Sonic Windows, and Naxos labels. 

Mary Frandsen

Associate Professor of Music and of German and Russian Languages and Literatures
Ph.D., University of Rochester Eastman School of Music

Frandsen is a specialist in the sacred musical repertoires of the 17th and 18th centuries. Her focal areas include musical patronage, music and liturgy, music and spirituality, and genre development. Frandsen has published articles on various aspects of sacred music at the 17th-century court of Dresden, as well as on worship as representation, musical patronage, musical internationalism and Italianita, and the development of the concerto-aria cantata. Her monograph, Crossing Confessional Boundaries: The Patronage of Italian Sacred Music in Seventeenth-Century Dresden, was published by Oxford in 2006. Works in progress include a monograph on music and devotion in 17th-century Lutheranism, an article on hymnody at the Dresden court, and an edition of 17th-century sacred works from Dresden. Frandsen has delivered papers at national and international conferences, and is active in the area of liturgical reconstruction (Lutheran). She has received grants from ACLS and NEH. She has served on the Steering Committee of the Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship, and currently serves on the Executive Committees of Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär, and the Web Library of 17th-Century Music.

Peter Jeffery

Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies
B.A., Brooklyn College, City University of New York
M.F.A., Princeton University
Ph.D. in Music History Princeton University, 1980

Jeffery’s publications have focused on medieval music, especially liturgical chant. He has held teaching and research positions at Harvard and the University of Delaware, during which he won the Alfred Einstein Award of the American Musicological Society (1985), a major research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a "Genius Award" Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (1987-92). He joined the faculty at Princeton as a full professor in 1993 until 2009 when he came to the University of Notre Dame.

Jeffery is the author of dozens of articles that have appeared in such publications as the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Early Music History, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, Jewish Quarterly Review, Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Ephemerides Liturgicae, Concilium, Plainsong and Medieval Music, Worship, Studia Liturgica, and the Notes of the Music Library Association. His books include Re-envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant (1992), the three-volume Ethiopian Christian Chant: an Anthology (1993-97, coauthored with Kay Kaufman Shelemay), The Study of Medieval Chant: Paths and Bridges, East and West (2001), and The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery (2006). His Gregorian Chant Home Page on the web has received several awards.

Stephen Lancaster

Visiting Assistant Professional Specialist
B.M. Moody Bible Institute
M.M. University of Notre Dame
D.M.A. University of Michigan

Baritone Stephen Lancaster, born and raised in Canada, made his professional debut as “Schaunard” in La Bohèmewith Arbor Opera Theater. He has performed roles with the Motor City Lyric Opera, Great Lakes Lyric Opera, University of Michigan Opera Theater, Opera Notre Dame, and the American Musical Institute for Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. He has been a featured soloist with the South Bend Symphony, the Notre Dame Symphony, and the UMS Choral Union “Summer Sing.” Especially noted as a recitalist, he performed recently in collaboration with Martin Katz and also appeared as a Young Artist at “SongFest” in Malibu, CA. His teachers have included Caroline Helton, George Shirley, John Riley-Schofield, and Judith Haddon.

He is also an accomplished church musician, having performed sacred concerts and conducted workshops both in the United States and France, and he served most recently as Minister of Music at the historic St. Matthew’s & St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church in Detroit, Michigan. Recent vocal performances include a recital at the University of Western Ontario, Fauré’s Requiem with the South Bend Symphony, and a televised production of Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Daniel Stowe

Associate Professional Specialist Choral Music
M.A., Cornell University, 1989
M.M., University of Southern California, 1986

Stowe's research interests are in the sacred and secular music of the sixteenth century. He has conducted the University Chorus, Chamber Singers and Early Music Ensemble of U.C. Davis, as well as the Cornell Chorale. In addition to leading the Glee Club, he also presently serves as conductor of the Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra and the Notre Dame Collegium Musicum. He is a founding member of the plainchant ensemble Schola Musicorum and has appeared in Notre Dame Opera productions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. Mr. Stowe contributed articles on Renaissance, Baroque and 20th-century Latin American composers to the Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music.

Regular Visiting Faculty

Nancy Menk

Mary Lou and Judd Leighton Chair in Music at
Saint Mary’s College, IN
B.S. and M.A. in Music Education,
Indiana University, PA
M.M. and D.M.A. in Choral Conducting, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

In addition to her duties at Saint Mary’s College,
Dr. Menk is founder and conductor of the South Bend Chamber Singers and serves as Music Director of the Northwest Indiana Symphony Chorus. She is Editor of the Saint Mary’s College Choral Series, a distinctive series of select new music for women’s voices published by earthsongs of Corvallis, Oregon.

Dr. Menk has been a conducting participant with the Vancouver Chamber Choir’s National Conductor’s Symposium and the Oregon Bach Festival. In 1998 she served as conductor for the Hong Kong Summer Music Camp Children's Choir, and she spent the winter of 2000 on a sabbatical trip to Korea, where she worked with several choirs in Seoul.  In February 2005 she conducted the Saint Mary’s College Women’s Choir in concert for the national convention of the American Choral Directors Association in Los Angeles, California.  In February 2010 she will make her fifth appearance at Carnegie Hall, conducting Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna for choir and orchestra.