Church Director of Music

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Carlan

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Should it be necessary for a Catholic Parish to hire a professional director of Music.
It is what our Pastor wants.
I believe the expense in the hiring of this could go to other more pressing needs.
We are a town of about 70 thousand deep in a section of the Bible belt, one Catholic Church serving our community. I understand the director is being sought outside of our community and not only within it. Thoughts please.
Peace, Carlan
 
Carlan said:
Should it be necessary for a Catholic Parish to hire a professional director of Music.
It is what our Pastor wants.
I believe the expense in the hiring of this could go to other more pressing needs.
We are a town of about 70 thousand deep in a section of the Bible belt, one Catholic Church serving our community. I understand the director is being sought outside of our community and not only within it. Thoughts please.
Peace, Carlan
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It’s the pastor’s decision.

Is it necessary? No. But liturgy should be a high priority and music is part of that. If you want someone who is any good you are going to have to pay for it. Hopefully your pastor has looked into what sort of budget he has available for a director or music and thinks he can find someone worthwhile.

For what it’s worth our parish has a full time director of music and liturgy. He is married and has managed to raise four children. Most of his career has been spent as a full time parish musician.
 
Follow your priest, and address your concerns to him or your pastoral council. Don’t gossip, seek opinions, or hope to bolster your argument against him and his decisions on an open forum.

Prayers for your priest, your parish, and for you.
 
Make sure you get someone affiliated with the American Guild of Organists or you run the very real risk of getting a happy clappy ****** music director - not a guaranty either way, but it does help the odds significantly.
 
This is why a lot of talented Catholic musicians are being driven to work in non–Catholic church jobs. There seems to be this mentality among Catholics that musicians shouldn’t be paid. Sure, the parish may not be able to afford a fully paid choir, but the organist and director ought to be paid. These would be professionals, though. Non–professionals don’t necessarily need to be paid.
 
JGMendes4049 said:
This is why a lot of talented Catholic musicians are being driven to work in non–Catholic church jobs. There seems to be this mentality among Catholics that musicians shouldn’t be paid. Sure, the parish may not be able to afford a fully paid choir, but the organist and director ought to be paid. These would be professionals, though. Non–professionals don’t necessarily need to be paid.
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I whole-heartedly agree. I’ve found that where I live that the first thing that goes when a church wants to save money is the music program. At my own parish, the organist’s pay was cut six times (over the course of three organists) in maybe ten years while they continued to waste money on lots of stuff that was unnecessary. The result is that church now really has no real organist and a music “program” that garners a lot of complaints. While hiring a person is no guarantee that everything will be great, you do need to be willing to pay (most times) to obtain the services of a competent musician. However, if there is a legitimate lack of funds and the parish truly cannot afford to pay, I’d actually propose NO music to having it done poorly.

In the end, it’s your pastor’s decision. If he wants music, hiring is a good route to go.
 
JGMendes4049 said:
This is why a lot of talented Catholic musicians are being driven to work in non–Catholic church jobs. There seems to be this mentality among Catholics that musicians shouldn’t be paid. Sure, the parish may not be able to afford a fully paid choir, but the organist and director ought to be paid. These would be professionals, though. Non–professionals don’t necessarily need to be paid.
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I agree completely. Those parishes which attract the best music directors will yield the best results and the congregation will be very appreciative of the music and liturgy, which should help attract more people in. So in the long-term the initial outlay will be recouped.

So many Catholic music directors are unpaid and are musicians rather than trained liturgical music directors. So for example the mass I went to at Candlemas didn’t even include a setting of the Nunc Dimitis - shameful!
 
As some others have stated, this is the decision of the Pastor. He can if he chooses seek counsel from his Pastoral Council or others, but it is his decision. I would assume he cares very much for the Mass and is making it a high priority.
 
Each parish has its own needs and priorities. Music is but one area of concern. There is much to be said for having a full time musician, if the parish is large enough for that kind of outlay of expense. The size of the city is not as critical as the size of the parish community, the mean income and the level of giving. My own parish has 1200 families, but is rather poor. There is no way we could take that route, but more affluent parishes our size might well be able to invest more in the music.
 
JGMendes4049 said:
This is why a lot of talented Catholic musicians are being driven to work in non–Catholic church jobs. There seems to be this mentality among Catholics that musicians shouldn’t be paid. Sure, the parish may not be able to afford a fully paid choir, but the organist and director ought to be paid. These would be professionals, though. Non–professionals don’t necessarily need to be paid.
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I agree with this, but I am biased since I am a professional musician. 😃 In all seriousness, though, you often get what you pay for. (Some parishes are very fortunate to have good volunteer musicians.) There is a reason why so many of my Catholic music colleagues have music positions in non-Catholic churches. Those churches pay, while the Catholic parishes expect them to do it for nothing. And it can be a lot of work, as much as musicians love doing it.

In the end, it’s up to the pastor to decide whether or not he wants to pay for a Director of Music or other musicians involved. Of course, there are definitely parishes which can’t afford this, so they have to rely on volunteers who can afford to or be able to sacrifice to give of themselves during the week and on the weekends. I don’t judge those who do that (I admire them, in fact), nor do I judge those professionals who will only take paid work, as not everyone can afford to sacrifice their time like that away from their family and loved ones every week.
 
pnewton said:
Each parish has its own needs and priorities. Music is but one area of concern. There is much to be said for having a full time musician, if the parish is large enough for that kind of outlay of expense. The size of the city is not as critical as the size of the parish community, the mean income and the level of giving. My own parish has 1200 families, but is rather poor. There is no way we could take that route, but more affluent parishes our size might well be able to invest more in the music.
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So true. At one parish where I work, it is small compared to a lot of suburban parishes or other city parishes, but it is fairly well-off, so they do give more and good musicianship for the liturgy is a priority for them. Because they can afford it, they are willing to pay for it. At another parish where I work, the parish is having financial troubles, so they no longer pay their cantors. If I have time, I will once in a while give my time there for nothing and then will also get paid to do special masses like at Holy Week, Easter, Christmas, etc. Then the another parish where I work, they do four masses a weekend, which pay less per mass. So, it is worth it to do the entire weekend (Saturday and Sunday) to get the same amount that I make cantoring just two masses (one mass a weekend) every two weeks. I love the parishioners and priests at all three masses and enjoy working with the other musicians. If I didn’t, I’d stop working there. I could easily go to a Protestant church, work one service and make the same amount that I’d have to work in a few weeks at a Catholic parish, but I just prefer working at a Catholic parish.
 
The only way we’ll turn our massive musical mess around in this country is by actually paying professional musicians. The liturgy needs to be a top priority.
 
superamazingman said:
The only way we’ll turn our massive musical mess around in this country is by actually paying professional musicians. The liturgy needs to be a top priority.
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If a parish has what they consider to be a musical mess, then it is understandable that they would make that a top priority. In my own parish, the music is not a problem, even though we have no staff musician, organist or pianist, or organ for that matter.
 
My cathedral has a professional director of music who is also a professional organist (he holds concerts as well in the city and elsewhere)… we have a magnificent pipe organ and a stunning polyphonic choir provides traditional Latin music at every 11 AM Sunday mass… totally blows me away each time… heaven on earth. The music of the mass is intended to have a sacred, transcendant quality about it - it should uplift the soul and highlight the reality of the mysteries of the mass - the celebration and mystical representation of the passion, sacrifice, and resurrection of the Lord!
 
twf said:
My cathedral has a professional director of music who is also a professional organist (he holds concerts as well in the city and elsewhere)… we have a magnificent pipe organ and a stunning polyphonic choir provides traditional Latin music at every 11 AM Sunday mass… totally blows me away each time… heaven on earth. The music of the mass is intended to have a sacred, transcendant quality about it - it should uplift the soul and highlight the reality of the mysteries of the mass - the celebration and mystical representation of the passion, sacrifice, and resurrection of the Lord!
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This is what cathedrals should have and I think most do (at least the ones I’ve been in). Many do have the funds needed to pay for a full-time music director/organist and even some can pay for their cantors and other instrumentalists for special occasions. My former parish was a cathedral and was like that. I first volunteered there as a chorister in college and then eventually worked there as a paid cantor. The former director of music/organist was one of my mentors in music as well as for church liturgy. He was/is remarkable, extremely gifted and one of the most humble and good people I know.

I think the liturgy at a cathedral for a diocese should set the tone for the entire diocese, at least showing what is ideal and what other parishes should look towards. Again, not all parishes can afford what a cathedral can afford (many can’t), but it is good to have a model to set little goals.
 
pnewton said:
Our new cathedral organ cost 2.2 million. I like to think that even though we do not have an organ at our parish, we were part of paying for that one.

chron.com/life/houston-belief/article/Massive-pipe-organ-is-musical-heart-of-1699554.php
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Very nice article! 👍 I’m sure your parish and probably all the parishes in the diocese was part of it paying for it. And anyone in the diocese and visitors from all over can hear it and experience the liturgy there.

There is an older parish near my parents with a gorgeous church built in the 1920s by Italian immigrants of the parish that is finally getting a new organ after years of not having one when the old one died. During that time, they could only use an electric piano until enough money was raised to build the new organ and expand the choir loft. It’s finally coming this year and everyone is so excited. The parish is working class to middle class with many generations of families staying in the same parish, but the parish saw the value of saving, having fundraisers and having the patience to wait years in order get something that will be left for other generations to help assist in their liturgies.
 
Gosh Guys, I am talking about a little town in the middle of the Ozarks. We don’t even have a church yet! Peace, Carlan
 
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