Episodes
Monday Dec 11, 2023
Music at Christmas with Mr. Paul Jernberg
Monday Dec 11, 2023
Monday Dec 11, 2023
The music coming over the air—for those who still listen to the radio—and in various Christmas mixes from Pandora, Apple Music, Spotify, and so on tends to be a wild and wooly mix including everything from “O Holy Night” to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” It’s a mishmash of worship, good theology, horrible theology, family, home, childhood, greed, and, of course, romance.
As we try to sort it all out, here are some thoughts from Wyoming Catholic College’s choir director and composer-in-residence, Paul Jernberg.
Tuesday May 02, 2023
Sacred Music and Renewal with Mr. Paul Jernberg
Tuesday May 02, 2023
Tuesday May 02, 2023
There was a time not too long ago when every church had a church choir. Ordinary people knew how to sing parts and often tackled difficult pieces of music with wonderful results.
At Wyoming Catholic College, the choir loft in our oratory and, during special masses such as our upcoming graduation mass, the choir loft at Holy Rosary Church here in Lander are crowded places. Our students love to sing.
And this spring semester they have the added inspiration of a new choir director, our Composer in Residence, Paul Jernberg. Mr. Jernberg is also the founder and director of the Magnificat Institute of Sacred Music.
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Music, Mathematics, and Morality in Boethius with Prof. Christopher Hodkinson
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
“For no path,” wrote Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, “is more open to the soul for the formation thereof than through the ears. Therefore when rhymes and modes have penetrated even to the soul through these organs, it cannot be doubted that they affect the soul with their own character and conform it to themselves.”
Boethius lived from about AD 470 to 524 and is known primarily as a Roman scholar, a Christian philosopher, and a statesman. And it’s because he was a scholar, philosopher, and statesman that he became interested in music.
Prof. Christopher Hodkinson assigned Boethius’ “Fundamentals of Music” to Wyoming Catholic College juniors in the course Music in the Western tradition.
Tuesday Jun 16, 2020
The Liturgical Music of the Christian East with Prof. Christopher Hodkinson
Tuesday Jun 16, 2020
Tuesday Jun 16, 2020
In the past Wyoming Catholic College’s Byzantine chaplain, Fr. David Anderson has been a guest on The After Dinner Scholar so you know that our students are able to attend Byzantine Divine Liturgy regularly.
What you may not know is that while in the Western liturgical tradition, Mass can be celebrated without singing, in the Eastern rites, singing is mandatory.
Assisting Fr. David musically has been Prof. Christopher Hodkinson, Instructor of Music and Fine Arts who is also our Director of Music and our guest this week.
Tuesday May 19, 2020
Music, Worship, and Theology by Dr. Stanley Grove
Tuesday May 19, 2020
Tuesday May 19, 2020
“Right from the beginning liturgy and music have been closely related. Wherever people praise God, words alone do not suffice. Conversation with God transcends the boundaries of human speech; everywhere it has, according to its nature, called on music for help, on singing and on the voices of creation in the sound of the instruments. Not only man has a role in the praise of God. Worship is singing in unison with that which all things bespeak.”
That quotation is from Joseph Ratzinger’s essay, “The Image of the World and of Man in the Liturgy and Its Expression in Church Music,” an essay Wyoming Catholic College juniors recently read for the course “Music in the Western Tradition.”
On this podcast, their professor, Dr. Stanley Grove comments on that essay and the nature of music in worship.
Tuesday Apr 28, 2020
Tuesday Apr 28, 2020
“You can kill people with sound," noted Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Then he went on, “And if you can kill, then maybe there is also the sound that is opposite of killing. And the distance between these two points is very big. And you are free—you can choose.”
This is, perhaps an apt commentary on mid-20th century classical music. In this lecture to Wyoming Catholic College juniors, Dr. Stanley Grove discusses the musical works of Pärt as well as John Cage and Krzysztof Penderecki. Sounds that kill, sounds that bring life, and in the case of John Cage’s “4:33,” no sounds at all.
Tuesday Dec 18, 2018
Choirs of Angels, Choirs of College Students with Prof. Christopher Hodkinson
Tuesday Dec 18, 2018
Tuesday Dec 18, 2018
Someone new attending a midweek college mass might wonder why more students don’t attend. Then, as communion is about to begin, the question is answered. Nearly half the congregation on any given weekday is in the choir loft.
Choir, while a big commitment that begins with an audition, remains the most popular extracurricular activity at Wyoming Catholic College.
his year, Prof. Christopher Hodkinson has joined the college faculty as Instructor of Music and Fine Arts and Director of Music. Prof. Hodkinson who grew up in Nottingham, England is a graduate of Cambridge University and for the last five years was Director of the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge. Prof. Hodkinson is our guest this week on The After Dinner Scholar.
Tuesday Jun 06, 2017
Great Music Amid the Great Books with Dr. Peter Kwasniewski
Tuesday Jun 06, 2017
Tuesday Jun 06, 2017
While Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy, he also teaches courses on music and art, emphasizing the importance of the beautiful along with the good and the true.
Ignorance of the great works of music, he wrote at The Imaginative Conservative, “is as bad for someone who seeks to be educated in Western (and Catholic) culture, as ignorance of Dante and Shakespeare in literature, Plato and Aristotle in philosophy, Augustine and Aquinas in theology.”
Dr. Kwasniewski is this week's guest on The After Dinner Scholar.