The Notre Dame Choir was founded in 1985 by Dr. David Schofield.  Under the baton of Christopher Mueller from 1999-2012, the ensemble offered Gregorian chant and Renaissance sacred polyphony during the 11:30 a.m. Mass on Sunday mornings at the Church of Notre Dame in New York, NY.

We sought to fulfill the mandate of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which noted in Sacrosanctum concilium:

"The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art... The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations..." (§112, 116)

The group was small and did mostly one-on-a-part singing. Membership is diverse, including a geneticist, a financial analyst, a student in medical school, a paralegal, a chocolatier, undergrad and grad students from various disciplines, a music teacher, and a professed sister!  We brought our faith and our love of music together each week in order to sing and, we hope, inspire the congregation to contemplation and prayer.

Complete repertory lists for the twelve seasons under Mr. Mueller are available here.

In addition to our regular Sunday morning Mass, we did a multitude of additional singing:

• once monthly at St. Patrick's Cathedral, for the Archdiocesan Young Adult Mass.
• twice yearly for the Sisters of Life - at their December Advent concert and their August Mass of Profession
• three concerts yearly - Advent, Lent, and a Marian program.
• Good Friday (Tenebrae and Adoration services), and Easter Vigil during the Triduum, as well as Easter Sunday.

And we sang other events, such as these:

• two weddings in Maryland (2007 & 2010)
• a pro-life Mass in Washington, D.C. (2009)
• an Advent Mass for Legatus in Manhattan (whence the above photo was taken, Dec. '08)
• a daily Mass for the seminarians at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, NY (2009)
• a Renaissance sacred music clinic for seminarians here at Notre Dame (2006)
• first Mass for newly-ordained priests (2009, 2010, 2011)
• Masses in the Extraordinary Form (2010)

It was a wonderful dozen years of friendship, faith, and fine music-making.