We Believe: Faith, Community, and the Holy Act of Singing

Sponsored by Glen & Judy Brown Richardson

Joyfully Sing!, a new curriculum that teaches children to sing and read sacred music, combines the best practices of contemporary music education with the Church’s song. Developed over the past decade with the Notre Dame Children’s Choir at the University of Notre Dame, the curriculum is an ecumenical approach that weds a Kodály-inspired educational philosophy with sacred repertoire. Designed for children from preschool through high school, the incremental curriculum employs a sound-before-sight methodology where children gradually associate playful and reverent sacred melodies with notation.

To safeguard the artistic, intellectual, and social accomplishments of the Hungarian people, Zoltan Kodály, composer and music educator, advocated for children to be the stewards of the musical heritage found in their folk music. In sacred contexts, music transmits shared theology, ethics, and a sense of belonging across time. For over a millennium the Church entrusted the propagation of its sacred music to child choristers who sang Gregorian chant, the music of Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Fauré, Britten, Vaughan Williams, and many more. Texts included liturgical settings of the mass to seminal theological tenets such as Ubi Caritas (Where charity and love prevail), Sicut Cervus (Like as the hart desireth the waterbrook), and If Ye Love Me.

Joyfully Sing! seeks to elevate the role of children singing the sacred music of the Church and to encourage congregations to invest in the musical acculturation of children and young adults. Artistic Director and Director of Education Mark Doerries and Cynthia Berryman will introduce the curriculum to Hymn Society attendees and discuss ways to adapt it to the unique needs of each congregation.