Search - Steven C. Warner, Director The University of Notre Dame Folk Choir :: Witness of the Saints

For the past forty years, composers of the American Catholic Church have been diligently crafting a new repertoire to meet the demands of a vernacular expression of our faith. Those labors have yielded rich rewards - in psalmody, hymnody, and ritual music - deepening the sacramental expressions of our life in Christ. For all of this, there is still rich, new ground to celebrate in music: in part, the words, prayers, and poems of those heroes and heroines whom we honor as "saints". Their words provide a marvelous window to the passionate witness of these men and women. From the early catechetical writings of Cyril of Jerusalem to the deeply poetic encouragement of John Cardinal Newman; from the prophetic stance of Ignatius of Antioch to the urgent, intimate words of Our Lady of Guadalupe - this recording brings together a truly universal collection of Catholic thought, and through vital expression of the Notre Dame Folk Choir, celebrates all of it in a festival of variegated song styles.