Cloistered French nuns to make Gregorian chant album for Universal Music

cna ^ | July 27, 2010

[NYer]

Dickon Stainer, managing director of Decca Records, signs the contract with the Benedictine nuns.

Avignon, France, Jul 27, 2010 / 06:07 am (CNA).- An order of cloistered Benedictine nuns in France has signed a deal with Universal Music to produce an album of Gregorian chant. The abbess said that after time in prayer the nuns decided the effort could touch people’s lives.

The nuns of the Abbaye de Notre-Dame de l'Annonciation (Abbey of Our Lady of the Annunciation),  near Avignon, France, won a worldwide search to find the world’s finest female singers of Gregorian chant, Decca Records reports. The search surveyed over 70 convents, including some in North America and Africa.

The nuns’ order dates back to the sixth century and their convent remains closed to the outside world. Vowed sisters remain in the convent until their death and any visitors must communicate with them through a grill. Those women who choose to live in a cloister do so to fully offer themselves to God and to commit themselves to praying for the world and the Pope.

When it came time to hold negotiations with the record label over the album, the Benedictine nuns maintained their cloister.

"I passed the contract through the grill, they signed it and passed it back,” reported Dickon Stainer, managing director of Decca Records.

The prospect of producing an album while respecting the rules of the convent means that record company bosses will not be allowed into the abbey, and that the nuns will film their own television commercial and photograph their own album cover.

"We never sought this, it came looking for us," said the abbess. "At first we were worried it would affect our cloistered life, so we asked St. Joseph in prayer. Our prayers were answered, and we thought that this album would be a good thing if it touches people's lives and helps them find peace."

The album will feature the most ancient form of Gregorian chant, the first music ever to be written down.

Other artists on the Universal Music label include Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse, U2 and Lady GaGa.

“Although the nuns do not leave the convent, the whole world will now hear the true beauty of their singing,” Stainer commented.

Decca Records executive Tom Lewis was also enthusiastic about the prospective album.

"When you hear the sound of nuns chanting, it's like an immediate escape from the challenges, stresses, noise and pace of modern living. You're given a glimpse of a secret world of peace and calm," he said.

The nuns’ album “Voices – Chant from Avignon” will be released worldwide in November.

In 2008, the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz released their Universal Music album “Chant: Music for Paradise,” which sold over one million copies.

[NYer]

Ping!

[fieldmarshaldj]

Ah, but can they sing, “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria” ?

[trisham]

I love Gregorian chant.

[Maceman]

Well, technically, to be true Gregorian chant, it needs to be male voices only.

[I Buried My Guns]

I quit reading after "Dickon Stainer".

Most awesome bad name EVAH.

[GreenHornet]

The best track on the album is their awesome rendition of “Freebird.”

[Dudoight]

“Well, technically, to be true Gregorian chant, it needs to be male voices only.”

My thought exactly!

[SwotSonOfSitetest]

Ping!

[sitetest]

Dear SwotSonOfSitetest,

Thanks for the ping!

Classical Music Ping List ping!

If you want on or off this list, let me know via FR e-mail.

Thanks,

sitetest

[Charles Martel]

Well, technically, to be true Gregorian chant, it needs to be male voices only.

I'm pretty sure that the female orders were permitted to use the chant during their daily masses within the convents. This recording will therefore be something that 99% of Catholics have never heard - or even heard *about*, but which has been going on all along.

[monkapotamus]

http://en.gloria.tv/?media=90072

http://www.chantfromavignon.com/

[ELS]

All of the articles about this that I have seen fail to mention that at this convent the nuns follow the extraordinary form of the liturgy. I guess it is too much “inside baseball” for them.

[Maceman]

All I can tell you is that when I studied music history at the Berklee College of Music in the mid-70s, we studied Gregorian Chant, and among other things were given this acronym to help us remember its distinguishing characteristics of Gregorian chant:

S - Single melodic line
M - Male voices
U - Unaccompanied
T - (with) Text

[trisham]

I suppose. Maybe they’re WINOs. Women In Name Only. :)

[trisham]

LOLOL!

[ELS]

Well, technically, to be true Gregorian chant, it needs to be male voices only.

Where did you get that idea?

From the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Gregorian Chant:

In a stricter sense Gregorian chant means that Roman form of early plain chant as distinguished from the Ambrosian, Gallican, and Mozarabic chants, which were akin to it, but were gradually supplanted by it from the eighth to the eleventh century.

Notice that there is no mention of who can or should sing Gregorian chant. And from Wikipedia:

Singers
Gregorian chant was traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches, or by women or men of religious orders in their chapels, and is commonly heard in celebrations of the Tridentine [sic] Mass by those Catholics who follow the 1962 Missal.

[keepitreal]

Thank you for the ping. I look forward to this release.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

26 July 2010

Traditional Benedictine Nuns in France sign major recording contract

CATEGORY: Lighter fare, SESSIUNCULA — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 7:18 pm

It is hard to resist this story in the Independent.

What the story does not report is that these are the very traditional Benedictines of the Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine who are associated with the monks of Le Barroux on the next hill over.  My old chief and mentor, the late Augustine Card. Mayer, OSB, consecrated their first abbess.  They use only the old office and Mass and their vocations are through the roof.

Secluded order of nuns signs record deal behind closed doors [They missed the chance to say "behind bars".]

Members of an order of nuns so secluded they are rarely seen in the outside world have found a new vocation as recording artists with the record label of Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse and Eminem.

The Benedictine nuns of Abbaye Notre-Dame de l’Annonciation, near Avignon, France, signed a "major deal" for an album of their songs, and did so in a fittingly modest fashion. Since no visitors are permitted to enter the convent, the sisters had to be passed the contract through a grille, through which they posted it back signed.

[...]

The nuns’ new career originated in Decca’s search to find the world’s best female singers of Gregorian chant after a company executive was charmed by an old recording he discovered of nuns singing. The Avignon nuns, who sing together eight times a day, beat off competition from more than 70 convents worldwide. Tim Lewis, head of A&R at Decca, said: "When you hear them chanting, it’s like an immediate escape from the stresses, noise and pace of modern living." [I have written many times on this blog that I find Gregorian Chant sung well by women to be absolutely transporting.]

The album, called Voice: Chant from Avignon, will be released on 8 November. The nuns, who have no access to newspapers, TV or radio, now have their own Facebook page and feature in several YouTube videos.

Decca is hoping to repeat the success found when it signed the Cistercian monks of Heiligenkreuz Abbey, Austria, in 2008. The monks, who won the deal to record an album after uploading a video of their singing to YouTube, sold a million copies of Chant: Music for Paradise.

Singing monks and nuns are nothing new – in the Sixties a Belgian nun known as Soeur Sourire (Sister Smile) found international fame with her single "Dominique", and a group of Spanish Benedictine monks sold 16m copies of their album Chant in the 1990s.

[Maceman]

See my post #14.

I don’t doubt that women sing Gregorian chant in modern times, but originally (back when it was a hit), it was just males.