Training Courses

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:

Courses for Boys, Teen Boys, and Adults

• Participants: 40 boys, age 10-18, 15 adults
• Dates: July 16-22, 2012
• Music Director: James Rightmyer of St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church, Louisville, Ky.
• Organist: Bruce Neswick
• Residential Venue: University of Tulsa, Okla.
• Concerts/Services Venue: Trinity Episcopal Church, Tulsa
• Course Fees: $550 for registrations received by April 1, 2012; $575 for registrations received after April 1, 2012; $375 for commuting adults by April 1, 2012; $400 for commuting adults after April 1. RSCM members receive a $25 discount
• Contact: Sara Arnold, Course Manager: (918) 640-4274 or saraarno@swbell.net; Casey Cantwell, Course Manager: (918) 582-4128 or casey@wcaseycantwell.com
• Course Website: www.rscmtulsa.org

Courses for Girls, Teen Girls, and Adults

• Participants: 20 girls, age 10-18, 10 adults
• Dates: June 25-July 1, 2012
• Music Director: Joseph Causby of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Tex.
• Organist: Robert Brewer of St. David's Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Tex.
• Residential Venue: University of St. Thomas, Houston, Tex.
• Concerts/Services: May include a performance of Handel's Messiah with chamber orchestra
• Course Fees: $495 for all registered by March 15, 2012; $505 for RSCM members/$530 for non-members registered after March 15, 2012
• Contact: Courtney Daniell-Knapp, Course Manager, cdknapp@palmerchurch.org; Anna Teagarden, Course Manager: annateagarden@msn.com

• Participants: 40 girls, age 10-18, 25 adults, 1 organ scholar
• Dates: July 9-15, 2012
• Music Director: David Briggs
• Organist: Robert Ridgell
• Residential Venue: Saint Mary’s School, Raleigh, N.C.
• Concerts/Services Venues: Christ Church and St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Raleigh
• Course Fees: $540 for registrations received by April 1, 2012; $565 for registrations received after April 1, 2012; $390 for commuting adults. RSCM members receive a $25 discount
• Contact: Marilyn Neely, Registrar: (910) 690-9236 or marilyn.neely@gmail.com; Hugh Davis and Kevin Kerstetter, Course Managers: manager@carolinarscm.org
• Course Website: www.carolinarscm.org
  

Courses for Girls, Boys, Teens, and Adults

• Participants: 60 young singers (boys, girls, teens) ages 10-18, 30 adults, 2 organ scholars
• Dates: July 2-8, 2012
• Music Director: Bruce Neswick
• Organist: Aaron Goen
• Residential Venue: Queens University of Charlotte, N.C.
• Concerts/Services Venues: Myers Park Baptist Church and St. John’s Episcopal Church, Charlotte
• Course Fees: Deposit and forms received before April 1: $525 youth choristers; Adults: $525 residential, $395 commuting, $95 per day for adults registering for up to three days. After April 1: $550 youth choristers; Adults: $550 residential, $425 commuting, $100 per day for adults registering for up to three days. RSCM members receive a $25 discount
• Contact: Alan Reed, Course Manager: (704) 408-7489, rscmcharlotte@aol.com or Tracy Reed, Course Manager: (704) 849-9791
• Course Website: www.saintjohns-charlotte.org/rscm
• Course Repertoire

• Participants: 60 girls, 40 boys, 30 teens/young adults, 20 adults, 2 organ scholars
• Dates: July 23-29, 2012
• Music Director: R. Waldon Moore
• Organist: Mark Laubach
• Residential Venue: King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
• Concerts/Services Venue: St. Stephen’s Episcopal Pro-Cathedral, Wilkes-Barre
• Course Fees: $565 for registrations received by April 1, 2012; $605 for registrations received after April 1, 2012. RSCM members receive a $25 discount
• Contact: Steve Burk, Course Manager: smburk@gracecathedraltopeka.org
• Course Website: www.kingscollegecourse.com

• Participants: 25 girls, 25 boys, 25 adults, 1 organ scholar
• Dates: July 23-29, 2012
• Music Director: Dale Adelmann of The Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, Ga. 
• Organist: Tamara Schmiege of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Fort Collins, Colo. 
• Residential Venue: Todd Hall Retreat Center, Columbia, Ill.
• Concerts/Services Venues: To be announced
• Course Fees: $550; RSCM members receive a $25 discount
• Contact: Phillip Brunswick, Course Manager: bvmcentral@aol.com
• Course Website: www.rscmstl.org

• Participants: 8 boys and 22 girls of experienced ability (red or yellow ribbon, or equivalent)
• Dates: July 23-29, 2012
• Music Director: Robert McCormick
• Residential Venue: St. Albans School, Washington, D.C.
• Concerts/Services Venues: Washington National Cathedral and St. Paul's Church, K Street, Washington; St. Luke's Catholic Church, McLean, Va.; St. George's Episcopal Church, Arlington, Va.
• Course Fees: $595 residential, $350 commuting; RSCM members receive a $25 discount
  
• Contact: Ben Keseley, Registrar: bkeseley@saintgeorgeschurch.org

• Participants: Boys and girls, age 9-17, 8 adults
• Dates: July 30-August 5, 2012
• Music Director: Ben Hutto
• Organist: Jason Roberts
• Residential Venue: Salve Regina University, Newport
• Concerts/Services: Will include two Evensong services and a closing Festival Eucharist
• Course Fees: $575; RSCM members receive a $25 discount
• Contact: Priscilla Rigg, Course Manager or Allen J. Hill, Registrar: rscmri@emmanuelnewport.org
• Course Website: http://www.emmanuelnewport.org/rscm-newport-course-2010/

• Participants: 42 boys, 40 teens and adults
• Dates: July 29-August 5, 2012
• Music Director: Malcolm Archer 
• Organist: Patrick Wedd
• Residential Venue: Bishop’s College School, Lennoxville, Quebec
• Concerts/Services Venues: Bishop’s College School Chapel and Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal
• Course Fees: $730
• Contact: Larry Tremsky, Executive Director, 516.746.2956 ext. 18 or mbcc.canada@yahoo.com
• Course Website: www.mbcc.ca

Homily

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