Musica Sacra

THANK YOU to those who came to the workshop / Evensong @ The Abbey in Caboolture - it was a great success!! NEXT: 2 November @ St Andrew's - Sung Mass (8.30am) & Evensong (5pm). New Singers are alwasy welcomed!

Music Workshops - Please See "Events" Page for Latest Workshops

Gregorian Chant / Early Sacred Music Workshop

A school based Gregorian Chant / Early Sacred Music Workshop was developed by Jack Ho and Lindy Marsden soon after Musica Sacra was established. The first workshop was held in Jones Hill State School in July. This workshop saw Jack Ho working with Jones Hill Boys Choir (the only boys choir in a state primary school in Queensland and possibly further) and the Main Choir of Jones Hill State School. This was the first workshop of its kind conducted at a state school in Queensland. The workshop ended with the students performing in front of selected classes in the school. They also sang the service of Compline at St Patrick's Catholic Church with more than 200 people from the community (not just Catholics!) attending.

Musica Sacra workshops are focused mainly at school age children / young people. This is to allow us to bring better understanding and appreciation to this wonderful style of music in our schools.

Some areas focused in the Gregorian Chant workshop are:

The history of Gregorian Chant and development of Western sacred music up to around the 16th Century.

Latin as a language, its usage and its pronunciation

Early chant notation: Neums and the "square notation" with the 4 lines stave - the different styles of interpretation

The use of Sol-Fa in relation to Gregorian Chant

Other early sacred music up to around the 16th Century

Jack Ho has taught music workshops of different kinds in schools in Queensland and other states. He is an active composer of Gregorian Chant and other sacred music. In Brisbane, Jack teaches voice and piano at the Forte School of Music in Toowong and privately.

Here you may download excerpts of the Compline sung by Jones Hill Boys Choir on the 27th of July 2006. Please remember, these boys worked hard over a 5 hours workshop only that afternoon - they had 3 hours to learn the whole entire service of Compline before the service.

Here you may also download, photo slide shows of the workshop with Jones Hill Boys Choir conducted by Jack Ho.

Files for Download

Sound excerpts of the service of Compline (2MB)

Photo slide show of the workshop (6.33MB)
(with sound excepts from the Compline)

News Article from "The Gympie Times" (554KB)

Musica Sacra, through its strong and experienced teaching team, also offer workshops in sacred music in general,
voice techniques & development, and many other music workshops of different kind. We also offer follow up workshops
for those schools, churches and communities after the initial workshop.

** All photos of persons under the age of 18 on this website are used with permission of the parents**