The interviewee is correct that "composers writing liturgical music today - the great composers like John Tavener" have a good grounding in chant. I don't know if I agree that Tavener is "great" - he's certainly very, very good, but I'm not sure he's as good as his press. Anyhow, we just sang Tavener's "The Lamb" - and it's very chantlike (it branches out into bizarre polyphony before it finally resolves into a conventional harmony in E minor, but the chant sound is in there.)
I can vouch for the fact that anyone with a modicum of sense and a decent grounding in conventional notation can learn Gregorian notation rapidly and thoroughly.
Anglicans don't do Gregorian notation, it's all transliterated into conventional 5-line staff notation. So I never read this system until I got into the Catholic Church in the spring of 2004. Our new choirmaster didn't come on until 2005, and I caught on pretty quickly. I'm perfectly comfortable with the notation now.
Of course, NOW he's teaching us seven-character solfeggio (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do). . . and I already knew the four-character Southern (Sacred Harp) solfeggio (fa-so-la-fa-so-la-mi-fa) . . . so now I am totally confused again. This too shall pass . . . . .
Don-o and I have been singing Shape Note of the 7-shape denomination (Christian Harmony and New Harp of Columbia books) for a couple of years now. It is so tremendous. And we live here in Upper East Tennessee, so we get together with the Western North Carolina people regularly, and the all-day sings draw shape-noters from Georgia, Virginia, Alabama and beyond. Not church-sponsored: just us wild enthusiasts...
Thanks to your help, we are s-l-o-w-l-y getting our parish music director modestly interested in Gregorian. We'll do a little bit, Santus and Agnus Dei, this Advent.
Here's a joke I think is hilarious, though nobody gets it but Don-o:
You know about the 5-point Calvinists with their 5 solas, right? Did you know there's a Japanese shape-note version? It's called So-la mi-so.
:^P