Classical music enthusiasts venture to concert halls to hear choral Masses by renowned composers such as Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. For 50 years, the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale has sung those same acclaimed choral Masses as an integral part of the sacred liturgy at St. Agnes in St. Paul.
Comprised of roughly 60 volunteer singers, four vocal soloists, an organist and a professional orchestra, the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale sings the Ordinary of the Mass — the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei — at the 10:30 a.m. St. Agnes Latin Mass from October to June, except for Advent and Lent.
“These Masses were composed for the liturgy, and they are best experienced as a prayer in a church,” said Father Mark Moriarty, 50, who has served as pastor at St. Agnes since 2012. “Beautiful art is never meant to be kept on the shelf collecting dust.”
Founded in 1956 by Msgr. Richard Schuler as a parish choir at Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul, the chorale moved to St. Agnes in 1974 after Msgr. Schuler was named pastor there.
“It was a choir of the St. Agnes parish until it was incorporated as its own 501(c)(3) organization about 20 years ago, doing its own fundraising for the music director, soloists and professional musicians,” Father Moriarty said.
“The relationship between the chorale and St. Agnes is close and amicable, as they have the same purpose of giving glory to God through sacred music,” he said.
According to Father Moriarty, St. Agnes, which also has a Chamber Choir, Schola Cantorum and Parish Choir, is the only parish in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that has had a sung Latin Mass every Sunday since its inception.
“Our parish has, in its over 130-year existence, always emphasized beautiful liturgy and faithfulness to the teachings of Christ and his Church,” Father Moriarty said.
Virginia Schubert, 88, of Woodbury, a professor emerita of Macalester College in St. Paul, has been a soprano in the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale since its inception.
“I am very inspired to worship at the Mass as a member of the chorale; we hear from members of the congregation that they are inspired to prayer by the liturgy at St. Agnes,” said Schubert, who is also the author of “To Sing with the Angels: A History of the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale.”
“Sacred music is an integral part of the liturgy — the music for the liturgy must be sacred, and it must be art,” she said.
Marc Jaros, 53, is music director of the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale. A professor and chair of the music department at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Jaros sang the original Gregorian chant as a student at St. John’s University in Collegeville and “fell in love with it — that was my window into truly sacred music,” he said.
Jaros went on to earn his master’s degree in musicology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in music education at the University of Minnesota. He took the helm of the chorale in 2018, preceded by Robert Peterson, who succeeded Msgr. Schuler as music director in 2006.
“The Twin Cities Catholic Chorale is dedicated to performing the great Masses as they were originally intended; I liken it to Civil War reenactment groups — we’re a reenactment group of these great Masses of the European tradition,” Jaros said.
Jaros said the chorale, with singers ranging in age from their 20s to 80s, is a partnership between amateur singers and professional orchestra and soloists that’s been working well for 50 years.
“St. Agnes is a regular parish for some chorale members, but they also come from parishes throughout the Twin Cities,” Jaros said. “We’ve been gaining newer and younger members which is exciting, and we’re always looking for singers that have the ability to read and sing the music.”
“Our soloists are some of the top singers in the Twin Cities — some involved in opera, some as professionals with other choruses — and we have Dr. Mary LeVoir, one of the most gifted organists I’ve ever heard,” Jaros said.
Jaros went on to say that LeVoir and her husband, Paul LeVoir — a chorale member who also directs the Schola Cantorum which chants the Mass Propers at the choral Masses — “have been integral to the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale since almost its beginning, and they are invaluable to me.”
Mark Pilon, 71, a parishioner of St. Agnes for 38 years and former Twin Cities Catholic Chorale member, is the current president of the chorale board of directors.
“I serve in this role as I think the chorale is a tremendous gift, and I wanted to do my part to help ensure it continues to offer that gift to generations to come,” Pilon said.
“We don’t want the chorale to be a hidden gem, but a revealed one,” he said. “I think there’s an impression among many Catholics that this sort of music in the liturgy went out with Vatican II, when it in fact was the council that opened up the liturgy to an expanded employment of instruments ‘suitable for sacred use.’”
Pilon said Msgr. Schuler’s vision “was not something stuck in the past, but a recognition of the council fathers to preserve and foster ‘with very great care’ the ‘treasure of sacred music.’”
“Sacred music, like the faith itself, is not a passing fashion, but is as relevant today as it was hundreds of years ago; it retains its ability to help us lift up (our) eyes to the hills, from whence comes (our) help,’” Pilon said.
The Twin Cities Catholic Chorale will perform Mozart’s Coronation Mass at St. Agnes’ Christmas Midnight Mass. Prelude music, including carols sung in English, Latin and German, begins at 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 24; Mass begins at midnight. St. Agnes is located at 535 Thomas Ave. In St. Paul. For more information on the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale, visit catholicchorale.org.
