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RSCM America Training Courses
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RSCM America sponsors a number of summer training courses throughout the United States. Each course is as unique as its setting. All courses provide the opportunity for choral training and exploring wonderful choral music in liturgical and/or concert settings. Some courses offer master classes in organ performance, choral conducting and composition. Several courses offer adult seminars, activities, and opportunities for networking and fellowship.

The Courses take place in cathedrals and other large churches in major cities with choristers residing in hotels, university settings, small private schools or rustic, lakefront facilities. All course locations are chosen for the safety and comfort of the participants. Each course includes additional activities. These activities can include sports, recreation, crafts, field trips and boat races. There are customs unique to each course that generate fun and enthusiasm.

The music directors are renowned in their field and offer excellent leadership for youths and adults to learn new techniques and skills. In addition, significant opportunities for spiritual and theological enrichment are also offered.

The Training Courses provide programs for:

Boy (Treble) Choristers Girl Choristers
Mixed Youth Choirs Teens
Advanced Trebles Advanced Teens
Adults Organ Students

CLICK ON the video below to learn and HEAR more
about our Training Courses!

RSCM America 2009 Training Courses

 

Courses for Boys, Teen Boys, and Adults

MONTREAL COURSE

Participants: 40 boys age 10-18 and 25 adults
Dates: July 26 - August 2, 2009
Music Director: Andrew Lumsden
Organist: Patrick Wedd
Residential Venue: Sedbergh School, Montebello, Quebec, Canada
Concerts/Service Venues: Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, Quebec
Course Fees: $650, American or Canadian; a deposit of $100 is due with registration
Contact: Lawrence Tremsky, Course Manager: mbcc.canada@yahoo.com or
(516) 746-2956, ext. 18
More info: www.mbcc.ca

Courses for Girls, Teen Girls, and Adults

GULF COAST COURSE - HOUSTON

Participants: 20 Girls age 10-18 and 10 Adults
Dates: June 8-14, 2009
Music Director: Tom Whittemore
Residential Venue: University of St. Thomas
Concert/Service Venue: Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church, Houston
Course Fees: $495; RSCM members receive a $30 discount (deposit of $150 due April 15)
Contact: Courtney Daniell-Knapp, Course Manager: cdknapp@palmerchurch.org

CAROLINA COURSE

Participants: 60 Girls age 10-18 and 25 adults
Dates:  July 13-19, 2009
Music Director: Simon Lindley
Organist: Matthew M. Brown
Residential Venue: Saint Mary’s School, Raleigh, NC
Concerts/Service Venues: Christ Church, Duke Chapel
Course Fee:  $550; RSCM members receive a $25 discount
Contact: Nancy Hendricks, Course Manager: nchendricks88@cs.com or
(843) 889-0428
More info: www.carolinarscm.org

Courses for Girls, Boys, Teens and Adults

ST. LOUIS COURSE

Participants: 25 girls, 25 boys, and 25 adults
Dates: June 16-21, 2009
Music Director: Stephen Tappe
Residential Venue: Todd Hall Retreat Center in Columbia, Ill.
Concert/Service Venue: Grace Episcopal Church in Kirkwood, Mo.
Course Fees: $520; RSCM members receive a $25 discount. Adults requesting a private room add $100.
Contact: Phillip Brunswick, Course Manager: bvmcentral@aol.com

CHARLOTTE COURSE

Participants: 60 young singers ages 10-18 and 30 adults
Dates: July 6-12, 2009
Music Director: Malcolm Archer
Organist: Patrick Pope
Residential Venue: Queens University of Charlotte
Concert/Service Venue: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Myers Park Baptist Church
Course Fees: $495 before April 1, $520 after April 1. RSCM members receive a $25 discount.
Contact:  Alan Reed, Course Manager: (704) 408-7489, rscmcharlotte@aol.com or
Tracy Reed, Registrar: (704) 849-9791
More Information: www.saintjohns-charlotte.org/rscm

WASHINGTON COURSE for ADVANCED TREBLES

Participants: 8 boys and 22 girls who are of advanced abilities (red or yellow ribbon or equivalent)
Dates: July 20-26, 2009
Music Director: Bruce Neswick
Organist: Christopher Jacobsen
Residential Venue: St. Albans School
Concert/Service Venue: Resident choir at Washington National Cathedral
Course Fees: $600; RSCM members receive a $25 discount.
Contact: Douglas Beck, Course Manager: (703) 549-3312, ext. 17 or douglas@stpaulsepis.com

KING'S COLLEGE COURSE

Participants: 60 girls, 40 boys, 30 teens/young adults, and 20 adults
Dates: July 27-August 2, 2009
Music Director: Richard Tanner
Organist: Mark Laubach
Residential Venue: The Campus of King's College
Concert/Service Venue: St. Stephen's ProCathedral, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Course Fees: $525; RSCM members receive a $25 discount.
Contact: Linda Rosengren, Course Manager: (904) 387-5691 or kingscourse@bellsouth.net
More Information: www.kingscollegecourse.com


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HOMILIES
A Sermon for the Final Evensong of the First Annual Rocky Mountain RSCM Course for Girls in Denver, Colorado

" May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer." Amen.

We gather here this evening, continuing the tradition of evensong that goes back hundreds of years in this Anglican form, and much earlier still in its basic elements and motivations. For people have always felt the urge to say their prayers in the evening, in every time and culture and place, to thank God for the blessings of the day, and to ask God’s protection for the coming night.

Tonight is not only the day’s end, but also the completion of a remarkable week for the girls and adults in our inaugural Rocky Mountain course as part of the Royal School of Church Music. A lot of work has gone into making this week a success – work by the staff, and considerable work by the girls and adult singers, who have maintained a demanding schedule of rehearsal.

This is an auspicious start for a program that I believe will thrive here for many years, drawing young and not as young deeper into the life of faith through music.

What happens over the course of a week like this is really the building of a community. In hard work, prayer, music making, and fellowship together, a collection of individuals from all over the country and from many and varied backgrounds is forged into a community. And what is the final act of this community, before it disperses back to the other communities from which it came?

A culmination, a final act of praise, not for itself, but for God. In this final evensong, we take everything we have made together - the music, now polished, that contains all our experiences, our joys and sadnesses, that utters the inutterable - and we give it away. We give it away, with all of your prayers, joined with us silently and aloud, give it away to God, the sweetest source from which all we are and have comes.

What a countercultural act this is. In a society which values individualism and accumulating – getting things and holding onto them, white-knuckled, for dear life, we make our common prayer and praise to God, an offering of thanksgiving for all God has done for us, expecting nothing in return.

Like the beautiful Buddhist mandalas made, painstakingly, in sand of many colors, only to be swept away at their completion, our evening song will remain only in our memory. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory.

We do this not because God needs our prayers, any more than God needed Gideon’s meat and cakes and broth, but because, like Gideon, we need to offer them.

When God received Gideon’s offering, Gideon knew that God was listening to him, and that God would be with him. Gideon was the least in his family, of the weakest clan in Manasseh. But he knew that with God, all things were possible, even leading the people of Israel out of the hand of mighty Midian.

We pray and give praise to God, in harmony with the chorus of heaven, to remind ourselves that God is still with us, to this very day. We ask God’s grace that what we sing with our lips, we may believe in our hearts, and show forth in our lives.

And when we do this, when this community, both ancient and new, gathers to worship God in song, we experience no less than a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

Jesus built his own community of followers in his own day, coming up to Philip and to others, and saying, simply, “follow me.” And they did, and invited others, like Nathaniel, to do so as well, leaving all they had behind to follow him, to come and see what this Jesus had to say. This group of disciples, from all over, with different gifts and challenges, grew into a community around Jesus.

It was a community with wild ideas, like the mighty being put down, and all being equal in dignity, the proud scattered, the hungry fed, and the humble and meek exalted. They believed this was what God wanted, and what God’s kingdom would be like.

And they believed that by not holding onto their lives too tightly, but by giving them, all their gifts and talents, for the glory of God, this radical vision just right, just might come closer to reality.

We are the descendants in faith of those disciples, and we join with them in praying that God’s kingdom of justice and mercy will come.

We give all that we have to thank God for what God has graciously given us, and we pray for God’s love, wider than any sea, to be with us this night, and for evermore. Amen.

The Reverend Canon Poulson Reed
Saint John’s Cathedral (Denver, CO)
Rocky Mountain RSCM 2005 Course Chaplain

 

 

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