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the archdiocese of san francisco, welcome to mosaic. the topic is music, sound, ordered progressions of sound from a single pure voice or instrument up to a complex orchestra or massive opera with tones and harmonies and vibrations and rhythms to pull you in or fill you up or take you places that suggest wonders. is there a more captivating art than music? today we will talk about sacred music in the catholic tradition. but we're not talking about the history of catholic music were about music of the past, i guess today is a much honored composer who is writing a brand-new mass for the archdiocese of san francisco. that will premiere here in december. after this brief break, please rejoin us and we will talk with frank about the path of beauty and music as a path to god.

welcome to 'mosaic'. my guess today is frank. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for asking me. >> i knew you are from new jersey but you live here and have been here for 30 or 40 years. >> moved here in 1974 when i came to do my graduate work at california berkeley. >> you went to yale and got an undergraduate degree in music.

did composition studies at berkeley as a graduate student. you were a teacher of music, competition. at cal state east bay. i think you have retired. >> i started there in 1981 and hung up my cleats in 2014. >> you are well known composer and much awarded in many prizes and so on. what we want to get to today is the work you are doing for the archdiocese of san francisco. understanding is you are setting a mass and we will talk about that and you write sacred music. or the interest in sacred music? >> the interest in sacred music came to me relatively late in the total span of my career as a composer. i have been writing music , broadly understood as classical style since 1971. until a

significant moments in my life in the late 90s, you could call it. i think a kind of religious conversion experience . i had no interest in sacred music. but i campaign convinced in order to live a life was well ordered where what i did for work and what i believed in terms of religious commitments , needed to not be in conflict with one another. or occupy worlds that were too far apart. the other thing is , while i was raised catholic as a boy , i drifted away for

quite a number of years . when i had this kind of conversion experience in the mid-90s . it was a powerful disruption to my entire worldview. and as it began to be reconstituted through learning what christianity really was, with the mind of an adult, not the mind of a child. i began to realize that this needs to be at the center of my life's work. it is what i spend most of my time doing. and i was enormously grateful, even though it was painful and disruptive, i was enormously grateful for this experience that i had. and at the same time i was given a kind of understanding, i guess you would say, that i had to do

penance for the sin i had indulged in all those years i was away from any kind of religious practice. there was a great tradition in the psalms and in other sacred texts. psalm 51 in the protestant numbering, i am not sure. i get those mixed up. create in me a clean heart, god, and renew a right spirit deep within me. when i read words like that, while studying scripture or otherwise engaged in religious reading, i would be stirred to my very core. and if what an artist, in my case, what an artist feeds off of is inspiration. that is where i was trying to get. >> you mentioned penance. that

is an interesting concept. your penance appears to be, self-imposed or called into vocation by god, to write music . >> i don't consider the writing of the music to be penance. what i consider that my offering to god in the music i write , has to include a penitential component. penance is not just in a punitive sense but penance in the sense of , making sure that i never forget where i used to be and where i am now. and the fact that god brought me here. and as it says in that psalm, and my sins are always before me. i know they are forgiven but they are in front of me and i want to keep them there. not in any morbid or self-destructive way. but just as a way of turning either to

the right or the left. and to give thanks to god for having rescued me out of the muck and mire. >> your music now, sacred music you have been writing 10 years or so. >> a little longer than that. it has a goal of reaching god and or honoring god . >> giving glory to god and staying in communion with god but also particularly in music that will be heard in liturgical settings to serve as a portal of grace for people at mass. >> outdoor god. >> the technical term is a sacramental. it is not a sacrament. but the candles and the vestments and everything of beauty in the mass , is a

sacramental. it is a portal through which god offices grace, if only we will cooperate with it. and that is what music should serve as in a liturgical setting , one of those portals of grace. >> we will keep that in mind and we will take a brief break and we will come back and talk further in detail and listen to some of your music. we will be back with more of frank and his music.

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welcome back. it is enjoyable to talk about music. it is a basic human creation and it goes from the deepest most elemental parts of the being to the intricate complexities of mathematical relations. >> it does.

>> we want to listen to a couple of pieces of your music and have you discuss them with us. we have to disappoint you. these pieces of five to seven minutes longer we cannot do the whole thing. we will do an excerpt from each and frank will tell us about what is happening musically and theologically. first clip from frank laroca. ♪ ♪

♪ >> that is a piece. grace is

poured out. what is going on with this piece of music? >> this is the communion proper for the feast of the blessed mother mary's queen ship of the world. august 22nd. this was commissioned from me by the diocese of oakland for the 50th anniversary of the diocese celebratory mass, which took place august 22nd , queen ship of mary. the text itself is rich with images of royalty, as you would expect for the queen ship of mary. there is images of rich robes, fragrant garments, houses of ivory. the approach i took in writing this was to make it sound sumptuous. to give it an air

of gravity but also an air of light. >> you know, the opening of a portal to god, i saw the portal opening and i'm sorry we could not finish. >> you can watch the rest of the clip on youtube. >> frank la rocca's website has youtube links with many of his works . let's look at the second clip and this is [ speaking in a global language ] . ♪ ♪

♪ ♪

>> we have to interrupt , for what comes next. a minute and a half to talk about, what is the meaning? >> this is a christmas text. with all those images you can tell it is a text having to do with the nativity. more than just the nativity, the richer the all the richie of the incarnation. in the book revelation it talks about the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. those images at the beginning , i am

the one who made the video accompaniment. look at the universe in formation. then christ comes to earth and you see the image of earth and right as the musical phrase , swells, what do you see? you see jesus in the manger. what i'm trying to convey is a kind of contradiction because the word that is being song is large . and yet, all the images of our of this tiny baby. >> the great mystery, is the tiny child. let's leave it there for this moment and we will take a brief break. we will be back shortly to finish up talking with frank la rocca.

hello and welcome back to 'mosaic'. i would like to call for a slide for the last segment so we can see that. just some basic information. this is frank la rocca. you see his website. go to it and listen to the music. learn about the man. very interesting. the other logo is benedict xvi institute. that is an initiative of the archdiocese to bring beauty and splendor back to liturgical and sacred music and it is for this group that frank is the

composer in resident and commissioned to write a mass that we will talk about now. thank you for the slide. frank, tell us about the mass of the americas which will premiere here in the cathedral on december 8th. >> this is a really interesting project . it takes me into very new territory as a composer. the inspiration for it is the feast day of our lady of guadalupe and the annual celebration surrounding that. this year coincides with the immaculate conception. we have both things happening at the same time at the december 8th mass. what is interesting is the archbishop's vision and i have known him for a number of years and he has often talked about those . using music as a cultural bridge. and that is what he asked me to try to do with this mass. trying to find a way to weave into the fabric of the music ,

certain very popular devotional tunes associated with exit can-catholic culture. -- mexican- catholic culture. when we talked about a model for this, he and i were both familiar with colonial days where the fires would use the popular songs of the day. as a way to draw people . the musicians would stand outside and play the popular music and everyone would gather and then they tried to see if they can get them to come in to attend mass as part of the evangelization process. something similar happen with music with the california missions. once they were inside the church , it was primarily the music of the spanish

baroque. whether they were from spain or spaniard composers who had moved to the new world. the archbishop's vision takes that one step further. he wants to get the popular music across the threshold and actually into the church. as a result, we have a mass that hopefully will reveal the unity of the immaculate conception, our lady of guadalupe, patroness of the wider american continent. high church music, as i typically write, but woven out of pieces of these popular tunes. >> i am coming to this thing. it will be good. >> it will be interesting. instrumentation to a certain extent supports that. we have a choir oregon, string guitar.

we have text, spanish, english, latin and for the communion meditation we have the aztec language. i propose this to the archbishop because i knew that was the language that our lady of guadalupe addressed juan diego during her operations. in 1521 or 31, i don't know the exact date. recently it occurred to me that another thing it accomplishes a bit of a strong image but it is important , the aztec priests performed human sacrifice on those stone alters . also spoke this language . to bring this language into the sacrifice of the mass , the true victim, jesus christ , who died for our sins and who can remit them on our behalf,

this is an absolutely beautiful image to essentially redeem this false understanding about the meaning of sacrifice, with a true understanding of the meaning of sacrifice. >> it sounded daring and good. >> we have the old bay maria but it is in a different language with a soprano violin and oregon because it is the native south american incident. >> the mass we will premiere in the cathedral on december 8th and it will be done down in texas next year. >> i am given to understand that this past weekend the archbishop was visiting in dallas . was a guest at the dallas cathedral. and proposed

to their bishop, bishop burns, that this mass of the americas be sung to the next year for their feast of our lady of guadalupe. they are cathedral is the cathedral of our lady of guadalupe and there are many throughout the greater southwest. >> that is wonderful. we have to close but i want to say thank you for being with us . tell the viewers to come to mass on december 8th but it will also be live streamed from the cathedral on computer and broadcast on ewtn network. thank you for being with us. thank you for your work as a composer of music.

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