AN INVITATION TO SPIRITUAL LISTENING:
THE BEAUTY OF MUSIC
February 15, 2025
ELIZABETH LYON HALL
COLLIS/Cornell University
A Varied Selection Including Music by Palestrina, Tallis, and Anthems from American Hymnody by the Harvard Catholic Schola (dir. William Endicott) and the COLLIS/Cornell Chant Choir (dir. Elizabeth Lyon Hall)
There are many kinds of musical listening—analytical listening, background listening, and stream-of-consciousness association, to name a few. Dr. Elizabeth Lyon Hall, musicologist, performer, and Executive Director of COLLIS Institute, makes a case for spiritual listening: using music as a vehicle for prayer, spiritual reflection and religious expression. Dr. Lyon Hall will guide us into the ways of spiritual listening, showing us how to access and engage some of the most archetypal meanings and techniques in sacred music.
The talk will be followed by a performance by the COLLIS Institute Chant Choir and Harvard Catholic Schola, co-directed by Elizabeth Lyon Hall and William Endicott. Selections include Marian chants; motets by Handl-Gallus, Gallus, and Byrd; parts of Gregor Aichinger’s Missa de beata virgine; and 20th-century anthems based on American hymnody.
The Harvard Catholic Schola at St. Paul’s sings weekly at the 5:00 PM Sunday Student Mass in St. Paul’s Church when the University is in session. The COLLIS/Cornell Chant Choir performs a varied repertoire and sings on selected feast days for the Cornell Catholic student community.
Hans Memling, Christ Surrounded By Singing and Music-Making Angels, panel painting, c. 1483-1494, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium
ELIZABETH LYON HALL
Elizabeth Lyon Hall, Executive Director of the COLLIS Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture at Cornell University, is a historian with research specialties in late antique and medieval music theory, Augustinian philosophy, and the medieval theology of sacred music. She trained as a professional cellist on modern and historical cellos and directs the sacred music choirs at COLLIS Institute. A graduate of Columbia and Juilliard, she has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (Frankfurt am Main). She received her PhD in musicology from Cornell.
WILLIAM ENDICOTT
William Endicott, Music Director of the Harvard Catholic Schola at St. Paul’s, is an accomplished organist, singer, conductor, and composer. He is a graduate of the St. Paul’s Choir School and earned a BA with an emphasis in vocal performance from Saint Anselm College, an MM in Choral Conducting from the University of Southern Mississippi and an MM in Sacred Music–Organ from East Carolina University. He also holds the Associate certification from the American Guild of Organists. Mr. Endicott is the Director of Music and Organist at St. John - St. Paul Catholic Collaborative in Wellesley, MA.
