♪ good morning. and on behalf of the archdiocese of san francisco, welcome to mosaic. the coppic is music, sound, ordered progressions of sound from a single voice or instrument or a massive opera with tones and harmonies and vibrations and rhythms that pull you in or fill you up or take you places that suggest wonders. is there a more powerful or

captivating art than music? today we will talk about sacred music in the catholic tradition. but we're not talking about the history or music of the past. i guess today is a much honored composer. it will premier here in december. after this brief break, please rejoin us. we will talk with frank about the path of beauty and music as a path to god.

♪ welcome to mosaic. my guest today is frank laroca. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for asking many e. >> i know you're from new jersey. >> yes. >> but you live here. >> moved here in 1974 when i came out to do my graduate work. >> you went to yale, got an undergraduate degree in music, did composition studies at berkr sic, composition. >> music theory and composition. >> al cal state, and i think you retired from that. >> right. i started there in 1981 and hung up my cleats in 2014. >> you're a well-known composer. much awarded. many prizes and so on. we want to get to the work you're doing for the arch die

sis of san francisco right now. you also write sacred music. what -- why the interest in sacred music? >> well, the interest in sacred music actually came to me relatively late in the total span of my career as a composer. i have been writing music broadly understood as in a classical style since 1971. but until a significant moment in my life in the late 90s, you could call it, i think, a kind of religious conversion experience, i had no interest at all in sacred music. >> okay. >> but i became convinced that

in order to leave -- to live a life that 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. >> uh-huh. >> 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 world view. and as it began to be reconstituted through learning what christianity was with the mind of an adult, not with the

mind of a child, i began to realize that this needs to be at the center of my life's work. it's 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 i was at the same time given a kind of understanding, i guess you would say, that i had to do penance for the sin that i had indulged in all those years that i was away from any kind of religious practice. and there's a great tradition in the psalms and another great text, psalms 56 and the

protestant numbering, create in me a clean heart, oh, god and renew a right spirit within me. >> yes. >> while i read words like that, i would just be stirred to my very core. and if what an artist, certainly in my case, an artist feeds off of is inspiration, well, that's where i was finding it. >> and i would think. you mentioned penance, that's an interesting concept, and your penance appears to be self imposed to write music. >> i don't consider the writing of the music to be penance. >> let's clear that up then. >> but i consider that my offering to god in the music that i write has to include a

mponene n 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 that as it says in that psalm, and my sins are always before me. i know they're forgive, but they're still there 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 neither toward the right nor to the left and to give thanks to god for having rescued me out of the pit of muck and myer. >> i was going to say your sacred music you have been writing ten years or so as i have it. >> a little bit longer than that. >> and it has the goal. it's a goal of reaching and/or

honoring god. >> giving glory to god, stayigo settings to serve as a adore -- >> well, i mean, the technical term is a sack ra mental, right? i mean, a sacrament. but the candles, everything of beauty in the mass is a portal through which god offers us grace if only we will cooperate with it. and that's what music should serve as in a litergical setting is one of those portals of grace. >> we're going to take a brief break right now.

we'll be back with more frank laroca and his music.

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hello and welcome back. it's so enjoyable to talk about music. it's a basic human creation. it goes from the deepest means of our being up to the highest complexities of mathematical relations, doesn't it? >> yes, it does. >> so we want to listen to a couple pieces of your music and have you discuss them with us. we have to disappoint you. these pieces each are five to seven minutes long. we can't do the whole thing. we'll do a brief excerpt from each. frank will tell us about what's happening musically. so clip one, please from frank laroca. ♪

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>> that's a piece of a psalm, grace is poured out. what's going on with this piece of music? >> well, this is the communion proper for the feast of mary's -- the blessed mother mary's queenship of the world, august 22nd. this was commissioned from me by the die seize of oakland for the 50th anniversary of the die seize sell bra tory mass, which took place august 22nd, queenship of mary. imagroyalty,sould rich with

expect t qship of is of rich sf or approachha i okng this was t make it sound sumptuous. >> yeah. >> to give it an air of gravity, but also an air of light. >> you know, as an opening of a portal to god, i saw the portal opening, and i'm sorry we couldn't finish that because i want to see where it winds up. >> they can watch the rest of the clip on youtube. >> frank laroca's youtube has excellent works for you. let's look at the second clip here. >> yes. ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪agn, we have to interrupt as the bases are laying the foundation for what comes next. about a minute and a half to talk about what's the meaning? what's going on? >> this is a christmas text. so obviously, with all those

images you can tell it's a text having to do with the nativity. but more than just the nativity, the richer theology of the incarnation. in the book of revelation, it talks about the lam slain before the foundation of the world. >> yes. >> and so those images at the beginning, and i'm the one who made the little video accompaniment. look at the universe in formation. >> it starts -- yeah, yeah. >> right? and then christ comes to earth and you see the image of earth, and then 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's being sung then is large, and yet, all the images a of this tiny ysry is ty

child. >> the great mystery is the tiny child. >> let's leave it there for this moment and we'll take a short moment and be back with you shortly to talk with frank laroca.

♪ hello and welcome back to mosaic. i would like to call for our slide for this last segment please so we can see that. just some basic information. see hissitek laroca. go to,ten tman, ver resting. thher logo to the institute. iat of the arch bring beauty a splendor back the sacred music, and it's for this group that frank is the composer ca. so tell us about the mass of the americas which will premier here on the cathedral on december 8th. >> well, this is a really interesting project. takes me into interesting testimony as a come poerz.

it's actually the feast day of our lay day. and the celebration is this year it coincides with the immaculate conception, so we'll have both things happening at the same time at that december 8th mass. what's interesting about it is the archbishop's vision, and i've known him for a number of years and he's often talked about using music as a cultural bridge. so that's what he asked me to try to dos mass, to find a way to weave into the fabric of the music certain very popular devotional tunes associated with mexican-catholic culture, particularly -- >> okay. >> when we talked about a model for this, he and i were both familiar with colonial days

where the fryers would use the popular songs of the day -- as a way to draw people to the church. now, the musicians would stand outside, play the popular music, everybody would gather. then they would try to see if they could get them to come into the church to attend mass as part of the process. once they were inside the church, then it was primarily the music of the spanish -- whether they were from spain or whether they were spaniard composers who had moved to the new world. the ahbs vis t that one step further. he wants to get the music across the threshold and into the church. as a result, we have a mass that

hopefully will reveal the unity of the immack rat lateral conception, our lady of guadalupe, the wider continent by having high church music, such as i typically write, but woven out of pieces of these popular tunes. >> i'm coming to this thing. that's going to be good. >> it's going to be interesting, and the instrumentation to a certain extent supports that. we have a choir, string core at the time guitar, and one particular song. so we have in the mass text, spanish, english, latin, and then for the communion meditation, we have the aztec language. i proposed this to the archbishop because i knew that was the language our lady of

guadalupe proposed -- >> at 1531? >> somewhere around there. i don't know the exact date. recently it occurred to me that another thing it accomplishes -- it's a bit of a strong image, but i think it's important, is the aztec priests who 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. to me, that's an absolutely beautiful image to redeem this false understanding of the meaning of sacrifice with the true understanding of the meaning of sacrifice. >> that sounds daring and good. >> so i've got a setting of during commune meditation as the

ave maria. it's a native central south american instrument. >> wonderful. the mass repremiered in the cathedral on december 8th, and you mentioned it will be done down in texas next year. >> yes. i'm give 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 next year. their cathedral is the ka theed dral of our guadalupe. >> we have to close up. thank you so much for being with

us. the mass on december 8th will also be live streamed. thank you so much for being with us. thank you for your work. thank you for being with us on mosaic. ♪

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