Sacred Music Institute

Please join us in the Chapel of St. Gregory the Great for Solemn Vespers and organ recitals throughout the year. Our liturgies bring together the Athenaeum Chorale, the Mount St. Mary’s Seminary Latin Schola and distinguished instrumentalists from Cincinnati and across North America. Here, sacred music is heard in its proper setting: not merely as an object of performance, but as part of the Church’s sung prayer.

Sunday, September 13, 2026
Organ Recital • 6:30 p.m.
Daniel Grotz
St. Gertrude Parish, Madeira

Solemn Vespers • 7 p.m.
Athenaeum Chorale
Mount St. Mary’s Latin Schola
Bach’s Magnificat in D with full orchestra playing baroque instruments

Sunday, November 15, 2026
Organ Recital • 7 p.m.
Guest Organist: Dr. Jonathan Moyer
Oberlin Conservatory
Co-Sponsored by the Cincinnati Chapter of the American Guild of Organists

Monday, December 7, 2026
Solemn Vespers • 7:30 p.m.
Athenaeum Chorale
Mount St. Mary’s Latin Schola

Sunday, January 10, 2027
Organ Recital • 7 p.m.
Dr. Christopher Holman, Organist
Director of the Sacred Music Institute
Dr. Alexander Belser, Serpentist
McGill University

Sunday, January 31, 2027
Organ Recital • 6:30 p.m.
Dr. Michael Unger
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

Solemn Vespers • 7 p.m.

Sunday, March 14, 2027
Organ Recital • 6:30 p.m.
Sean Connolly
The Cincinnati Oratory

Solemn Passiontide Vespers • 7 p.m.

Sunday, April 18, 2027
Organ Recital • 6:30 p.m.
John Valentine
St. Lawrence Church, Price Hill

Solemn Vespers • 7 p.m.

The formation of future priests in Catholic sacred music is guided by the Church’s liturgical tradition, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, and the practical knowledge pastors need to serve parishes in the United States. By supporting the Sacred Music Institute and MTSM, you contribute directly to the musical formation of seminarians in the following areas:

• Appreciation of the transcendentals: truth, goodness, and beauty
• Reading modern notation and Gregorian chant notation
• Aural skills and sight-singing
• Individual vocal training
• Individual organ lessons
• The history of Western sacred music and the Catholic Church’s patronage of artists and composers
• Working knowledge of the Church’s musical and liturgical documents, especially those of and following the Second Vatican Council
• Pastoral skills for working with church musicians
• Guidance for leading parish music programs through demographic and cultural change
• A final-year Mass practicum in which seminarians chant the entirety of the Mass
• Coursework on the aesthetics of beauty and the relationship between art, architecture, and music

Through classroom instruction, individual coaching and lessons, daily liturgical prayer, and the Music and Liturgy Series, seminarians encounter sacred music not as an ornament to worship, but as a living part of the Church’s prayer. Your support helps ensure that future priests are formed to understand, value, and foster the Church’s treasury of sacred music in the parishes they will one day serve.

Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology (MTSM) is pleased to announce that renowned organist and scholar of music history, Dr. Christopher Holman, 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 two oldest organs in the world in Sion, Switzerland, and Rysum, Germany.

Learn more about Dr. Holman here.

Blessing and Dedication of Pasi Opus 29
On October 8, 2023, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology (MTSM) welcomed a capacity audience into the Chapel of St. Gregory the Great for the blessing and dedication of its new pipe organ, Pasi Opus 29. The evening, with MTSM President/Rector The Very Rev. Anthony R. Brausch as presider, featured performances by The Athenaeum Chorale, The Athenaeum Chorale Chamber Orchestra and The Mount St. Mary’s Seminary Latin Schola. In addition, MTSM welcomed Dr. Michael Unger from the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music as the Guest Organist.

See more on the evening below!

Athenaeum Magazine | Pasi Opus 29: A New Era of Sacred Music Begins
MTSM Welcomes Pasi Opus 29 at Organ Blessing and Dedication

Please prayerfully consider a contribution to the Sacred Music Institute. We rely on your support to continue our wonderful programming in the Music & Liturgy Series. To make a donation, please click here.