Upcoming Events
Liturgical Music Workshop - Benedict & Maria Sheehan
November 8 - 9, 2019
ONE MOUTH & ONE HEART
a liturgical music workshop for singers and conductors
Clinicians: Benedict & Maria Sheehan
Friday, November 8 and Saturday, November 9, 2019
St. Luke Antiochian Orthodox Church
13261 Dunklee Ave., Garden Grove, CA 92840
This workshop is presented with the blessing of His Eminence, Metropolitan JOSEPH.
Sponsoring parishes:
St. Andrew - Riverside; St. Anthony - San Diego; St. Athanasius - Goleta/Santa Barbara;
St. Barnabas - Costa Mesa; Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral - Los Angeles; St. Luke - Garden Grove
$75/person including meals for both days ($25 for high school and college students)
$50/person for part or all of only one day ($15 for high school and college students)
$20 separate charge for catered dinner Saturday evening after Vespers. Please pay when you register.
Deadline for registration is November 1, 2019
To pay for the workshop online with a credit card, you can do so here.
Checks should be made out to St. Athanasius Orthodox Church and mailed to:
St. Athanasius Orthodox Church, Attn. Valerie Yova
300 Sumida Gardens Ln., Santa Barbara, CA 93111
Questions? E-mail Valerie at office@stathanasius.org or call 805-685-5400.
FOR THE SINGER
Develop and strengthen your individual voice
Maintain healthy technique in a choral setting
Increase your endurance and prevent vocal damage
Learn to warm-up and practice more effectively
FOR THE CONDUCTOR
Improve your conducting technique
Lead rehearsals in a more effective and engaging way
Deepen your knowledge of liturgical music
Diagnose and solve problems in your ensemble
FOR THE CHOIR
Convey sacred text with clarity and depth
Unify and develop your ensemble sound
Sing longer and stronger with less fatigue
Enhance ensemble “community” and connection
SCHEDULE
Friday, November 8, 2019
2:00 -5:00 p.m. Group Vocal Technique – Maria Sheehan
5:00 p.m. Registration & Q&A/Discussion (Topic TBA)
6:00-7:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00-9:00 p.m. Lecture – Benedict Sheehan
9:00 p.m. Reception/Folk music jam session
Saturday, November 9, 2019
9:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. Repertoire with full ensemble (including music for Great Vespers)
12:00-1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00-2:30 p.m. Ensemble technique/Conducting lessons
3:00-4:45 p.m. Full ensemble w/conductor coaching
5:00-6:00 p.m. Vespers
6:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00 p.m. Farewell
Benedict Sheehan is a composer, conductor, arranger, writer about, and teacher of music. He is Director of Music at St. Tikhon’s Seminary and Monastery; and, since founding the group in 2015, has served as Artistic Director of the Chamber Choir of St. Tikhon’s Monastery, a professional vocal ensemble. He is a frequent clinician and speaker in the field of Orthodox liturgical music around the United States and Canada. His musical education includes degrees in Composition from Westminster Choir College and in Conducting from Bard College Conservatory of Music. As a conductor, Sheehan has made numerous appearances with the St. Tikhon’s Chamber Choir, and has also appeared as guest conductor with noted vocal ensemble Cappella Romana, most recently conducting Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil in a series of West Coast performances. He has made several recordings with the choirs at St. Tikhon’s, and also acted as associate conductor on a number of recordings, including Clarion Choir’s GRAMMY®-nominated 2018 release, Alexander Kastalsky: Memory Eternal, on the Naxos label. His work with the St. Tikhon’s Chamber Choir and a number of other leading American ensembles on a premiere of Alexander Kastalsky’s Commemoration for Fallen Brothers (1917) recently received critical acclaim as one of the “Top ten performances of 2018” by the Washington Classical Review.
As a writer, Sheehan is a contributor to the Orthodox Arts Journal, among other online publications, and his blog on the Ancient Faith platform is called The Music Stand. A number of his compositions are currently in print with Musica Russica and MusicSpoke. Some of Sheehan’s recent publications include the debut album of Chamber Choir of St. Tikhon’s Monastery, Till Morn Eternal Breaks: Sacred Choral Music of Benedict Sheehan (2015), and an anthology entitled A Common Book of Church Hymns: Divine Liturgy (2016), both available from St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press. His most recent large-scale composition, the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (2018), commissioned by the Patriarch Tikhon Russian-American Music Institute (PaTRAM), is slated to be premiered and recorded in 2019. He is currently composing on commission for the GRAMMY®-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble. Sheehan’s compositions and arrangements are sung by choirs across the English-speaking world. He and his wife, vocalist and music educator Talia Maria Sheehan, live in Pennsylvania with their seven daughters.
Maria Sheehan has been a professional vocalist and music instructor for over 20 years. Her musical background and performance experience is very broad, including rock lead vocals, jazz and classical piano, operatic soprano, and ethnic and classical ensemble singing. She has sung with the likes of the Berlin and New York Philharmonics and in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Philadelphia Academy of Music. She was a founding member and administrator of the Patriarch Tikhon Russian-American Music Institute. As such, she developed curricula, taught online music courses, and managed tours and recordings, all with a focus on sacred music in the Russian Orthodox tradition. She currently works as a private teacher of voice, conducting, and music theory. Her instruction synthesizes age-appropriate choral vocal technique with an early music influence; systematic Kodaly-based music pedagogy; and the latest in educational technology for both a virtual and in-person setting.
