MTSM Welcomes Dr. Christopher Holman as New Director of Music

Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology (MTSM) is pleased to announce that renowned organist and scholar of music history, Christopher Holman, DPhil, will be joining the MTSM faculty as the new Director of Music, Assistant Professor of Music and Director of the Sacred Music Institute.

“The formation of priests is one of the most significant responsibilities in the Church today,” Dr. Holman said. “MTSM has a long-standing tradition of musical excellence, and the addition of the wonderful Pasi organ has brought renewed energy and possibility to both liturgical and academic life. Having worked across both academic and liturgical settings, I am particularly excited that my new role here will allow me to engage both teaching and practice in equal measure.”

Dr. Holman, who has served as Director of Music at St. Gertrude Church in Madeira for the last three years, established a Sacred Music Series there, which brought world-class performers from around the country to St. Gertrude for concerts, meditations and liturgies.

An accomplished organist himself, Dr. Holman was the winner of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition in 2010 and has gone on to perform at many of the world’s top venues for organ recitals, including the honor of playing the two oldest organs in the world in Sion, Switzerland, and Rysum, Germany.

In academia, Dr. Holman’s research interests include historical musicology, medieval liturgical practice and historical performance practice. He has lectured at the University of Oxford, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and the Sorbonne in Paris, and has been a regular presenter at major international conferences.

Dr. Holman holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Music from the University of Oxford, a Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland (which he received while being a Frank Huntington Beebe Fellow), a Master of Music in Organ Performance from the University of Houston and Bachelor of Music degrees in Organ and Vocal Performance from the University of Illinois.

“The work that we do here will shape the Church for generations,” Dr. Holman concluded. “What the seminarians learn will echo in the lives of the faithful across the country. My aim is not only to model sacred music, but to teach its roots in the Church’s tradition, and how that tradition can flourish in parish life today. In this period of liturgical renewal, how do we ensure that the music at the parish level remains rooted in magisterial teaching while being sensitive to pastoral realities? That can be a long and sometimes difficult journey. But what I hope to impart to the seminarians, above all else, is how to navigate that pastoral dimension while fostering true artistic excellence. It’s not an ‘either/or’, but a ‘both/and’.”