Bill Mahrt
Professor Mahrt received the 2010 Thomas Binkley Award presented by Early Music America, a national organization, for outstanding achievement in performance and scholarship by the director of a university or college Collegium Musicum.
He grew up on a farm in Washington State, and played trombone in high school. After attending Gonzaga University and the University of Washington, he completed his doctorate at Stanford University in 1969. He taught at Case Western Reserve University and the Eastman School of Music, and then returned to Stanford in 1972 where he continues to teach early music.
Since 1972 he has directed the Stanford Early Music Singers, which presents quarterly concerts of music from the late Middle Ages through the early Baroque. Since 1964 to the present he has directed the St. Ann Choir in Palo Alto, which sings Mass and Vespers in Gregorian chant on all the Sundays of the year. He frequently leads workshops (such as the Singers' Retreat) in the singing of Gregorian chant and the sacred music of the Renaissance. He has published articles on the relation of music and liturgy, and music and poetry, as well on the music of Machaut, Dufay, Lasso, Byrd, and Brahms. He is President of the Church Music Association of America and editor of its Journal, Sacred Music.
In 2012 he published The Musical Shape of the Liturgy, the first full treatise that maps out -- historically, theologically, musically, and practically -- the musical framework of the Roman Rite in a way that can inform audiences of all types. Mahrt demonstrates that the Roman Rite is not only a ritual text of words, but is a complete liturgical experience that embeds within it a precise body of music that is absolutely integral to the rite itself. In other words, the music at Mass is not arbitrary. It is wedded to the rite as completely as the prayers, rubrics, and the liturgical calendar itself. Everything in the traditional music books has a liturgical purpose. When they are neglected, the rite is truncated; the experience is reduced in splendor. These claims will amount to a total revelation to most all Catholic musicians working today. As Mahrt points out, genuine Catholic music for Mass is bound by an ideal embodied in the chant tradition. This tradition is far more rich, varied, and artistically sophisticated that is normally supposed. It is the music that is proper to the Roman Rite.
He grew up on a farm in Washington State, and played trombone in high school. After attending Gonzaga University and the University of Washington, he completed his doctorate at Stanford University in 1969. He taught at Case Western Reserve University and the Eastman School of Music, and then returned to Stanford in 1972 where he continues to teach early music.
Since 1972 he has directed the Stanford Early Music Singers, which presents quarterly concerts of music from the late Middle Ages through the early Baroque. Since 1964 to the present he has directed the St. Ann Choir in Palo Alto, which sings Mass and Vespers in Gregorian chant on all the Sundays of the year. He frequently leads workshops (such as the Singers' Retreat) in the singing of Gregorian chant and the sacred music of the Renaissance. He has published articles on the relation of music and liturgy, and music and poetry, as well on the music of Machaut, Dufay, Lasso, Byrd, and Brahms. He is President of the Church Music Association of America and editor of its Journal, Sacred Music.
In 2012 he published The Musical Shape of the Liturgy, the first full treatise that maps out -- historically, theologically, musically, and practically -- the musical framework of the Roman Rite in a way that can inform audiences of all types. Mahrt demonstrates that the Roman Rite is not only a ritual text of words, but is a complete liturgical experience that embeds within it a precise body of music that is absolutely integral to the rite itself. In other words, the music at Mass is not arbitrary. It is wedded to the rite as completely as the prayers, rubrics, and the liturgical calendar itself. Everything in the traditional music books has a liturgical purpose. When they are neglected, the rite is truncated; the experience is reduced in splendor. These claims will amount to a total revelation to most all Catholic musicians working today. As Mahrt points out, genuine Catholic music for Mass is bound by an ideal embodied in the chant tradition. This tradition is far more rich, varied, and artistically sophisticated that is normally supposed. It is the music that is proper to the Roman Rite.
