About this Event
Join us as we remember Stanford Prof. William P. Mahrt, Champion of Sacred Music.
Calling all lovers of art, sacred music and the liturgy! With Special Guest Cynthia Haven
William P. Mahrt, a scholar of early church music and professor emeritus of Stanford University, passed peacefully at the age of 84 on January 1, after receiving last rites and the Apostolic Pardon. He was the president of the Church Music Association of America and director of the famed St. Ann Choir. Prof. Mahrt was the author of numerous books and scholarly articles including his 2012 magnum opus "The Musical Shape of the Liturgy.” When St. Patrick’s Seminary brought on Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka as its first sacred music professor in many years, the Archbishop and the Seminary chose to honor him by establishing "The Professor William P. Mahrt Chair in Sacred Music".
To honor and remember him and his legacy, we will gather together in the old chapel of Holy Family convent (across the street from Star of the Sea-SF) for learn about his legacy and to share our memories of this extraordinary man.
Our featured guest will be Cynthia Haven, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar, longtime friend and admirer of Bill Mahrt, and author of the Stanford book blog The Book Haven. Cynthia wrote biographies of both Rene Girard and Nobel-prize winning poet Czeslaw Milowsz. At the University of Michigan she studied under another Nobel-prize winning poet Joseph Brodsky.
Upon Professor Mahrt's death, Archbishop Cordileone said:
“I, and so many others, have lost a dear friend. We have lost a giant of a man, a legend as a scholar of music, a true gentleman and one of the finest and most faithful Catholics I've ever known. The successful revival of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony in this country owes much to the gifts, the generosity and the persistence of this great human being. We will miss him. Please, as he would request, pray for his soul.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace."
Please register to join us on Sunday January 26 at 4 pm. Your registration helps me know how much homemade dinner to cook. You donations help me purchase this hospitality. Thank you for both and see you soon for a wonderful evening of fellowship among and for Catholic artists and art lovers. Fellow travellers also welcomed!
Program
- Opening Prayer
- Introductions of all those attending and sharing of current work or works
- Introduction of Cynthia Haven to share her memories of Bill Mahrt
- Discussion with Maggie Gallagher and questions from the audience
- Invitation to share memories or admiration for the legacy of Prof. William P. Mahrt
- Group Reading of Two Essays from William P. Mahrt's The Musical Shape of the Liturgy.
- Discussion
- Chanting of the Litany of the Faithful Departed
- Closing prayer, Grace for dinner.
- Dinner
About Prof. William P. Mahrt
Dr. Mahrt's professional and personal life was dedicated to studying, preserving, teaching, and performing the traditional sacred music of the Catholic Church. Even during the long decades after the Second Vatican Council when the traditional music of the Church was virtually banned, the St. Ann choir—which he first sang in as a Stanford graduate student and led in Palo Alto for most of its 60-year history—continued performing Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphonic music during Masses in diocesan Churches.
Born in 1939, Dr. Mahrt dedicated his life to the study and performance of the Catholic Church’s sacred music, leaving an indelible mark on the field of musicology, as well as on the hearts and souls of those who knew him. His insights into the characteristics of the various forms of Gregorian chant elucidated the nature of the chant as integral to the sacred liturgy, even explicating the nature of the sacred liturgy itself. His exposition of the nature of beauty and its embodiment in Catholic sacred music, liturgical gestures and symbols, and architecture has served as an important guide in the Church’s understanding of the purpose of artistic beauty in divine worship. His work with medieval and Renaissance polyphonic masters illuminated the performances and scholarship of many choirs and students.
Dr. Mahrt’s academic journey began at Gonzaga University, near his family’s wheat farm in rural eastern Washington (near Reardan), where he earned his B.A. in 1960. He went on to receive an M.A. from the University of Washington in 1963 with a thesis on the keyboard fugues of Schumann. Driven by an insatiable curiosity and a deep love for music, he continued his studies at Stanford University, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1969 with a dissertation entitled “The Missæ ad organum of Heinrich Isaac.” Throughout his illustrious career, Dr. Mahrt held prestigious teaching positions at Case Western Reserve University, the Eastman School of Music, and Stanford University, where he inspired countless students as an Associate Professor, teaching courses on medieval notation, the modes, medieval and Renaissance repertoire and analysis, and the music of Johannes Brahms.
William Mahrt served as the President of the Church Music Association of America starting in 2005 after first joining the board in 1977. Under his editorship of the CMAA’s journal (2006–present) Sacred Music, the oldest continuously-published music journal in the United States, the publication expanded in length and breadth to serve as an important locus for the study and praxis of the Church’s music. The editorials he wrote for the journal evince a profound understanding of both the sacred liturgy and its music and were remarkable both for their integration of scholarship and Catholic theology, as well as for the wide range of topics covered. As president of the CMAA, Dr. Mahrt played an important role in the discussions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which led up to the 2007 publication of guidelines on music in the liturgy, Sing to the Lord. At the initiative of his friend and the CMAA’s then-director of publications, Jeffrey Tucker, a collection of his essays, The Musical Shape of the Liturgy, was published in 2012.
Known for his expertise in Gregorian chant, medieval performance, and the works of composers such as Machaut, Dufay, Isaac, and Lassus, Dr. Mahrt’s scholarly contributions earned him numerous accolades, including the NEH’s Newberry Library Fellowship in 1976, the Albert Schweitzer Medal in 1991, and the Thomas Binkley Award in 2010. He served as President of the Northern California Chapter of the American Musicological and Chairman of the Bay Area chapter of the Latin Liturgy Association. He was a frequent presenter and attendee at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, the International Fota Conference, as well as the conferences of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, International Musicological Society (IMS), and the IMS’s study group Cantus Planus. In demand as a teacher, Dr. Mahrt was a regular faculty member and plenary speaker at the CMAA’s annual Sacred Music Colloquium, Cantores in Ecclesia’s annual Byrd Festival in Portland, Oregon, the Lumen Christi Institute of the University of Chicago, the Singers’ Retreat in San Anselmo, California, the Renaissance Polyphony Weekend in Dallas, Texas, the Sacred Music Institute of America, and the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park.
In addition to his scholarly achievements, Dr. Mahrt was a founding member of the St. Ann Choir in 1963 and served as its director for most years since 1964. Under his leadership, the ensemble developed an extensive repertory of medieval and Renaissance motets and masses, singing each Sunday and principal feast day a Missa cantata in Latin, with Gregorian propers, two motets, and a mixture of Gregorian and Renaissance ordinaries at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Mahrt played an organ prelude and postlude for every Mass in which the organ was permitted. The choir, in response to an initiative by Dr. Mahrt several decades ago, also sings Sunday vespers and compline, with vespers usually at the St. Ann Chapel, the choir’s original home in Palo Alto. The ensemble is one of the few in the world which has a continuous tradition of singing the Church’s treasury of sacred music, all the while implementing the reforms to the sacred liturgy called for by the Second Vatican Council’s Sacrosanctum concilium and the 1967 Instruction Musicam Sacram. Dr. Mahrt was a graceful and compelling proponent for the place of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony as the central music of the Roman rite, especially in the celebration of the modern Roman missal. He carefully collected and produced editions of important and interesting polyphonic works, teaching them to his choir with love and enthusiasm for the music in all its aspects. The choir continues singing from these editions, as well as the large choirbook-style score of the Gregorian chants from Annie Bank Editions, even inspiring the production by longtime choir member Susan Altstatt of beautiful illuminations of the choir’s patronal feast’s propers. The extensive library of the St. Ann Choir, complete with its elegantly accurate translations of many motet texts, was a core part of the early formation of the Choral Public Domain Library by one of Dr. Mahrt’s students at Stanford, Rafael Ornes. Many of Dr. Mahrt’s students from Stanford joined his ensemble to augment their experience of the music, in its proper liturgical context, about which they were writing dissertations and theses. Singers flocked from all backgrounds to sing with him in this unique ensemble, and they are the core of those who attended Dr. Mahrt’s bedside until his hour of death. The friendships formed in the choir by Dr. Mahrt served as an anchor in his life and the lives of so many others. His leadership of the St. Ann Choir and the Stanford Early Music Singers was a testament to his unwavering commitment to sacred music, the true and deep bond between the highest levels of scholarship and praxis, and a fervent love for his Catholic faith.
To celebrate his life and legacy, a conference entitled “The Musical Shape of the Liturgy: Celebrating the Life and Work of William P. Mahrt” was held in November of 2023, marking the 150th volume of Sacred Music and honoring the establishment of a new chair in sacred music at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park under the leadership of Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka. Scholars, musicians, and friends from around the country gathered to fête Dr. Mahrt’s remarkable accomplishments and work.
Dr. William Mahrt’s contributions to the field of musicology and his passionate dedication to sacred music will be remembered and cherished by his family, friends, students, colleagues, and the countless lives he touched through his work. His legacy will continue to inspire and guide future generations in the pursuit of beauty and excellence in sacred music.
More than just a scholar and a musician, Bill—as he liked to be called—was a gentleman, a colleague, and a dear friend. Highly respected by his students, singers, and all who knew him, he was a very modest man and always remained a humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord. After a year of several health problems, Bill suffered a stroke while in the hospital receiving care for other matters. He was preceded in death by his mother, Evelyn, his father, Peter, and his sister Kathryn. He is survived by his sister Susan Perkins, brothers-in-law Tom Brannon and Norman Smith, nieces and nephews, and their children and grandchildren.
Bill, you have been a shining light for so many of us, and you shall never be forgotten. Requiescas in pace!
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
4350 Geary Blvd, 4350 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, United States
USD 0.00
