A Pasadena Christmas in November: New Advent Carols for YOUR parish

PLUS a Special Gift to You from Frank La Rocca, Mark Nowakowski, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, William J. Fritz, Mina Pariseau, Roseanne Sullivan, and More!

Advent is coming! Get ready by coming to a very special concert cosponsored by the Benedict XVI Institute and Saint Andrew Catholic Church in Pasadena: celebrate Advent/Christmas carols by Catholic artists, living and ancient.

The music will be gorgeous, with the choir led by maestro Steven Ottományi, a conductor, composer, organist and tenor. The living Catholic composers and poets will be there with you to share their insights into the ongoing Catholic renaissance in sacred music.

Listen to great beauty and then learn. Then fellowship with the Catholic artists and your fellow SoCal music directors and Catholics art-lovers with a reception on the Piazza.

The composers and poets have a very special gift for you and your parish: this Advent and Christmas season: any Catholic parish may use any of the new Advent/Christmas carols commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute free of charge--this Advent and Christmas season only!

Please note: most of these carols come in both a premiere format and a simpler parish format. So come and hear new sacred beauty that you can share with others in prayer services, lessons and carols formats, concerts and more this Advent and Christmas.

Listen and be uplifted. Learn and then share with your parish. Enjoy fellowship and food with your fellow Catholic creatives at a reception to follow on the Piazza.

Save the date: November 7, 7:30 pm, Saint Andrew Catholic Church in Pasadena.

Register today to help us plan for the reception to follow. And please share the news with your fellow Catholic singers, music directors, priests, and lovers of Jesus Christ and his Mother.

Steven Ottományi is a conductor, musicologist, composer, organist, and tenor with a rich background in pastoral music making since 1981. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music History and Theory from California State University, Fullerton, and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from California State University, Los Angeles. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in musicology, with a dissertation focused on the performance practice of the earliest layer of Gregorian chant. Ottományi’s sacred choral and liturgical music is published by major ecumenical and Catholic publishers, and his compositions have been commissioned by parishes and cathedrals nationwide. In 2012, he founded the California Mission Schola and Sinfonia to revive the music of the California Missions. Since 2020, he has served as director of music at Saint Andrew Catholic Church in Old Pasadena, where he established a large music department, a children’s choir school, and the Music at Saint Andrew concert series. He is an active researcher, presenting on topics from California Mission music to Gregorian Chant to the intersection of music and language, and is the son of Indigenous American and Hungarian immigrant parents.

While All The Earth in Darkness Sleeps

Music by Frank La Rocca, Words by James Matthew Wilson

Chesterton’s Carol

Music by Mark Nowakowski, Words by GK Chesterton

Our Lady Expectant

Music by Wilhelmina Pariseau, Words by Roseanne T. Sullivan

Our Lady’s Lullaby,

St. Francis Salutations to Our Lady, and

See the Oxen Bending Low

Music by William J. Fritz, Words by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

To learn more and listen visit: https://benedictinstitute.org/very-marian-advent-and-christmas-carols/

Host or Publisher Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music & Divine Worship