Master of Sacred Music

Faculty


Theology Faculty Stowe

Michael S. Driscoll
David Fagerberg
Maxwell Johnson
John Allyn Melloh, S.M.
Nathan Mitchell

Visiting Theology Faculty

Jan Michael Joncas, S.L.D.

(Pontificio Istituto Liturgico, Ateneo S. Anselmo), Associate Professor of Catholic Studies and Theology, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN.

Fr. Jan Michael Joncas is a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, where he serves as Associate Professor in the Theology and Catholic Studies departments of the University of St. Thomas. He is a regular visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame both during the academic year and summer school. Although perhaps best known for his song "On Eagle's Wings", he has written seventeen collections of liturgical music; more than one hundred articles published in journals such as Worship, Ecclesia Orans, and Questions Liturgiques; and three books, including From Sacred Song to Ritual Music: Twentieth Century Understandings of Roman Catholic Worship Music (Collegeville: Liturgical Press: 1997); Hymnum tuae gloriae canimus: Toward an Analysis of the Vocal and Musical Expression of the Eucharistic Prayer in the Roman Rite: Tradition, Principles, Method (Rome: P. Graziani, 1991). He has led many workshops for liturgical ministers in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Australia.

Music Faculty

Alexander Blachly

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

Blachly, the 1992 recipient of the Noah Greenberg Award given by the American Musicological Society to stimulate historically aware performances and the study of historical performing practices, has been active in Early Music as both performer and scholar for the past 30 years. Blachly directs the University of Notre Dame Chorale and Chamber Orchestra and the Notre Dame Schola Musicorum. Blachly founded the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Pomerium in 1972. The ensemble, which he still directs, 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 Music at the University of Notre Dame in 1993, 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.       

Calvin Bower

Professor Emeritus, Department of Music
Ph.D., Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

Calvin M. Bower’s chief academic interests are the history of sacred music and the history of music theory in the Middle Ages. His translation of and commentary on Boethius' De institutione musica (which received the Special Publication Award of the Society for Music theory in 1991) has become a standard work for all who study ancient and medieval theory, and his edition of Latin commentary on Boethius' musical treatise--edited with Michael Bernhard of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences--has become a model for edition of medieval Latin glosses. Bower is also a member of the scholarly team at the Bavarian Academy (Munich) that publishes the Lexicon musicum Latinum, the dictionary of Latin musical terminology of the Middle Ages. Bower has directed choral ensembles specializing in medieval chant and early polyphony for over thirty years. He specializes in the music and poetry of the early medieval sequence and the early rhymed office.    

Craig Cramer

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

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 seven CD recordings on the Arkay, Motette, Sonic Windows, and Naxos labels.   

Mary Frandsen

Associate Professor, Department of Music and Department 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 (including forthcoming) on worship as representation, the patronage of Italian musicians in northern Europe, musical internationalism and Italianita, the development of the concerto-aria cantata, and the castrato phenomenon. Her monograph, Crossing Confessional Boundaries: The Patronage of Italian Sacred Music in Seventeenth-Century Dresden, was published by Oxford in 2006. She has a monograph in progress on music and devotion in 17th-century Lutheranism, and an edition of 17th-century sacred works from Dresden. Frandsen has delivered papers at national and international conferences. She is active in the area of liturgical reconstruction (Lutheran). She has received grants from ACLS and NEH. She serves on the Council of the American Musicological Society, the Executive Committee of Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär, and the Steering Committee of the Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship.