Dear Supporters of SMND,
Each year on Notre Dame Day, SMND shifts the weight of its considerable outreach to one of our specific needs for financial support: the Notre Dame Children’s Choir and Organ Training Program. It makes sense on this special day to support this aspect of our program, one that involves graduate students in choral conducting, voice, and organ as teachers of young people in our community. It is a vibrant training ground for our students and directly supports their vocations. Below is a letter from Artistic Director of NDCC, Mark Doerries, written especially to the families of the people our students teach. I wanted to take this opportunity to endorse his request for support and his eloquent appeal.
Margot Fassler, Director, SMND
Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy
Dear Families, Singers, and Friends of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir and Organ Training Program,
Each year on Notre Dame Dame Day I write to ask for your financial support of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir and Organ Training Program, collectively known as the Sacred Music Academy. Thanks to a generous grant from the Lilly Foundation, which concludes at the end of this school year, we have been able to provide all our weekly musical activities and our performances, retreats, tours, and recordings at no cost to families.
Today, I ask you to help us prepare for the future of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir and Organ Training Program by contributing to our Notre Dame Day campaign. Support our choristers as they sing virtually and in person over the next year and help us prepare for our Post-COVID Tour in 2022. To give, visit: https://notredameday.nd.edu/organizations/sacred-music.
At the conclusion of the first year of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir in May of 2014, a parent of one of our choristers (now a long-time family with the program) was surprised when I announced that the choir would return in the fall. She shared with me a sense that, too often, the University initiates community engagement programs that only last a year or two. We are now in our eighth year of music making and it is our intention to continue to provide quality choral and keyboard music education programs for years to come.
Take a moment between today and Tuesday, October 27, 2020 to make a contribution and show your support of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir and Organ Training Program. Whether it is a $10 or a $100 donation, your gift will help us continue to offer sacred music opportunities to children in our community for years to come.
Thank you for eight years of support and here’s to another eight years of inspiring music making! Sincerely,
Sincerely,
Mark Doerries
Mark Doerries, D.M.
Artistic Director of the Notre Dame Children's Choir
Acting Director of Graduate Studies, Sacred Music at Notre Dame
Associate Professor of the Practice of Conducting and Head of the Graduate Choral Conducting Studio