Schola

Schola

The schola is an integral part of prayer life at Saint Benedict's Monastery, as it would be at any Benedictine monastery because of the importance of sung prayer at the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours. The schola provides music leadership as well as inspiration and encouragement to the gathered assembly. At Saint Benedict's Monastery, the community continues to cherish Gregorian chant as part of their Benedictine heritage. We invite you to sample some of our schola sounds presented on this page.

For each sound clip, the title of the track is followed by the length of the clip. There are two available formats: UNIX (mu-law compressed AU format, 8012 Hz sample rate, 16-bit mono) and Windows (WAVE format, 22050 Hz sample rate, 8-bit stereo). Note that many platforms support playback of both forms (Macintosh included). The size of the clip is also provided in kilobytes.

Chants and Motets

Chants and Motets, a compact disc released in December 1997 by the monastic schola, includes the above chants and motets along with other compositions.

Creator alme siderum - 17.3 seconds
UNIX--133 Kb
Windows--732 Kb
Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming - 14.7 seconds
UNIX--112 Kb
Windows--619 Kb
Beautiful Saviour - 12.0 seconds
UNIX--92.5 Kb
Windows--509 Kb

Hodie Christus Natus Est

Today Christ is Born was recorded in 2004 by the monastic schola. It includes 20 selections of Christmas carols from many countries and Gregorian chant. The selections are accompanied by a variety of instruments including the cello, flute, piano, organ, electric keyboard and drums. The songs are mostly traditional and include German, Polish, American Indian and French backgrounds. Other carols bring a new contemporary style of sound.

Some samples are included below:

The compact discs can be purchased locally, as follows:

St. Cloud

Saint Scholastica Convent Gift Shop - 1824 Mn Blvd, SE

St. Joseph area

CSB and SJU Campus Book Stores
Whitby Gift Shop and Gallery