The Collegian

Issue date: 10/30/08 Section: Arts

Media Credit: Andrew Dodson Eden Simmons leads members of the Schola choir in singing portions of the Mass at Saint Anthony's Catholic Church

Harmonies reverberated through the rafters of the church Sunday after choir director Eden Simmons sang music for her choir to echo.

St. Anthony's Catholic Church choir, Schola, began strengthening the congregation's singing and the music of worship last Sunday for weekly Mass.

"We've always had a choir around Christmas and Easter time," said St. Anthony's Music Director Douglas Spangler. "We wanted to beef things up four years ago, and today we have Schola."

Spangler plays the church's 1929 Casavant organ for Schola. He says the choir allows him to program a greater selection of music, rather than just focusing on single-melody congregational hymns.

For the past 18 months, Spangler has been compiling a hymnal specifically for St. Anthony's. The new hymnal will supplement the current one used by the church and should be ready before Christmas, he said. It includes 50 original psalms by Spangler and 10 traditional hymns.

Schola derives its name from the Latin term "schola cantorum," a place for the teaching and practice of ecclesiastical chant, or a body of singers banded for rendering the music in the church.

Though Hillsdale College students comprise a majority of the choir, Hillsdale Academy students and other parishioners of Saint Anthony's contribute to Schola as well. Simmons said the choir's size contracts and expands according to the college's schedule. When students leave the neighborhood during the summer and at Christmas, Spangler and Simmons assemble a choir of parishioners.

Simmons and Spangler constantly look for more members to join what they call a great community.

J.T. Tucker '08, who is in graduate studies at Ohio State University, returned to Hillsdale this past weekend to visit friends and sang with Schola at the Sunday 9 a.m. Mass.

"I love the people," he said. "This choir develops its own community. I sang with them for the past two years. They are normally low on male singers, so Eden appreciated the bass voice."

Simmons keeps rehearsal time to a minimum due to the hectic schedules of the college students, limiting it to a half-hour practice before the 9 a.m. mass and about 30 or 45 minutes between the 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Masses. Mass parts remain the same throughout specific liturgical seasons, so Schola uses the same songs for these parts of the Mass.

Simmons said those songs become stronger each year because of choir members' familiarity with them.

"Songs we use each year for the Lenten and Easter season become more significant each year," she said. "The prayer becomes deeper."

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