Scala Foundation | Silence and Music: A Scotsman's Song @ScalaFoundation | Uploaded July 2024 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
In this video, world-renowned Scottish conductor and composer Sir James MacMillan and Margarita Mooney Clayton, an Associate Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the Founder and Executive Director of the Scala Foundation, discuss silence, music, faith, and suffering.
Some topics discussed in this video include:
• Music is a spiritual journey, even for non-religious. “Music opens a window to the divine” “There's a kind of umbilical link between music and the spiritual”
• The social dimension of music: how a shared love of music like the Cumnock tryst builds community unity. Something about music resists being purely instrumental; it points to the divine and takes us out of ourselves.
• Music, including classical music, is not elitist. The desire for music is universal.
• MacMillan’s story growing up poor, falling in love with music at age 8, performing music at home, school, and church.
• Artists bring back to the church the love of beauty.
• The connection between folk music and classical music.
• Silence and music: “Silence is not absence, but presence. It is the silence of accompaniment of Christ accompanying us on the Via Dolorosa suffering with us, as one of us, rather than as nihil, nothing. And the notion of silence as presence as the mystical or metaphysical substance has many musical analogies.”
• Music is not fundamentally instrumental or material, yet it has a profoundly transforming impact on us.
MacMillan spent two weeks in Princeton in June 2024 as part of a program hosted by the Catholic Sacred Music Project to provide master-apprentice training to young composers, conductors, and choristers. Scala co-sponsored the summer program. Two other conversations with MacMillan can be seen here:
youtu.be/l3dD8MT7eo8?feature=shared
and here: youtu.be/kX1F5bzYZZw
Music from the event can be seen on this playlist:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRZHnw30gpFcVenqvTUoK-HIvMw535_II
Learn More about The Scala Foundation
Scala was founded in 2016 by Margarita Mooney Clayton, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, who is the author of numerous books and popular articles and an inspiring public speaker on topics such as education, culture, virtues, and faith. Her husband, David Clayton, is an Artist-in-Residence for Scala and the Provost of Pontifex University, where he founded the Master of Sacred Arts Program. He is an internationally renowned iconographer and writer for various online publications about topics like the mathematics of beauty, liturgical art, and cultural renewal.
The Scala Foundation’s vision is to restore meaning and purpose to American culture by focusing on the intersection of art, liturgy, and education. Scala engages in deep work with students at Princeton and Oxford to bring together artists, students, teachers, and scholars. Scala also produces publications (books, blogs, articles, interviews), and hosts public events like conferences, workshops for artists, webinars and campus lectures open to the public.
More Resources Can be Found on Scala’s Social Media and Websites
Scala Foundation: scalafoundation.org
David Clayton's blog and books: thewayofbeauty.org
Margarita Mooney Clayton's YouTube Channel:
youtube.com/channel/UCvvCBWH0LMe2i1-VLMaNEVQ
How to Support Scala
Find out how to donate to Scala here: scalafoundation.org/donate
The Fellowship of the Annunciation is a group of recurring donors to Scala that helps us in all our activities, notably by supporting apprenticeships for liturgical artists:
givebutter.com/fellowshipoftheannunciation
In this video, world-renowned Scottish conductor and composer Sir James MacMillan and Margarita Mooney Clayton, an Associate Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the Founder and Executive Director of the Scala Foundation, discuss silence, music, faith, and suffering.
Some topics discussed in this video include:
• Music is a spiritual journey, even for non-religious. “Music opens a window to the divine” “There's a kind of umbilical link between music and the spiritual”
• The social dimension of music: how a shared love of music like the Cumnock tryst builds community unity. Something about music resists being purely instrumental; it points to the divine and takes us out of ourselves.
• Music, including classical music, is not elitist. The desire for music is universal.
• MacMillan’s story growing up poor, falling in love with music at age 8, performing music at home, school, and church.
• Artists bring back to the church the love of beauty.
• The connection between folk music and classical music.
• Silence and music: “Silence is not absence, but presence. It is the silence of accompaniment of Christ accompanying us on the Via Dolorosa suffering with us, as one of us, rather than as nihil, nothing. And the notion of silence as presence as the mystical or metaphysical substance has many musical analogies.”
• Music is not fundamentally instrumental or material, yet it has a profoundly transforming impact on us.
MacMillan spent two weeks in Princeton in June 2024 as part of a program hosted by the Catholic Sacred Music Project to provide master-apprentice training to young composers, conductors, and choristers. Scala co-sponsored the summer program. Two other conversations with MacMillan can be seen here:
youtu.be/l3dD8MT7eo8?feature=shared
and here: youtu.be/kX1F5bzYZZw
Music from the event can be seen on this playlist:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRZHnw30gpFcVenqvTUoK-HIvMw535_II
Learn More about The Scala Foundation
Scala was founded in 2016 by Margarita Mooney Clayton, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, who is the author of numerous books and popular articles and an inspiring public speaker on topics such as education, culture, virtues, and faith. Her husband, David Clayton, is an Artist-in-Residence for Scala and the Provost of Pontifex University, where he founded the Master of Sacred Arts Program. He is an internationally renowned iconographer and writer for various online publications about topics like the mathematics of beauty, liturgical art, and cultural renewal.
The Scala Foundation’s vision is to restore meaning and purpose to American culture by focusing on the intersection of art, liturgy, and education. Scala engages in deep work with students at Princeton and Oxford to bring together artists, students, teachers, and scholars. Scala also produces publications (books, blogs, articles, interviews), and hosts public events like conferences, workshops for artists, webinars and campus lectures open to the public.
More Resources Can be Found on Scala’s Social Media and Websites
Scala Foundation: scalafoundation.org
David Clayton's blog and books: thewayofbeauty.org
Margarita Mooney Clayton's YouTube Channel:
youtube.com/channel/UCvvCBWH0LMe2i1-VLMaNEVQ
How to Support Scala
Find out how to donate to Scala here: scalafoundation.org/donate
The Fellowship of the Annunciation is a group of recurring donors to Scala that helps us in all our activities, notably by supporting apprenticeships for liturgical artists:
givebutter.com/fellowshipoftheannunciation
