About Me
A little about me:
Welcome! My name is Emily! I am a resident of the United States of America and I aspire to be a Catholic in heart, mind, body, and soul. Currently, I am working at a Catholic parish in Kentucky as a sacred music director.
I found my calling to be a church musician while I was an English major/piano minor at Franciscan University, and so I switched my major to sacred music (a.k.a. Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony) and organ performance and I never looked back! I recently earned my master of music degree in organ from the Cleveland Institute of Music and I just finished my doctorate in organ at Notre Dame University in May 2017. So yes, "I'm the Doctor." jkjk.... ;-)
In addition to my love for my faith and for music, I am terribly bookish -- I love to read and, most of all, I love stories! Some of my favorites include The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, Brideshead Revisited, A Man for All Seasons, North and South, Crime and Punishment, The Little Prince, The Velveteen Rabbit, and The Tale of Despereaux, to name a few of the stories especially dear to my heart. I am also a little obsessed with British culture! ;-)
About this blog:
Above all, this blog is dedicated to the gleaning of truth and beauty from our current culture, especially music, film, and literature. Someone once told me that music isn't just "pretty stuff, but a matter of life and death." A bit much, you might say? I disagree. True beauty has the ability to heal the soul. Just as a doctor is charged with healing the body, the artist is charged with healing the soul through the creation of beauty. Beauty also helps awaken the heart to the truth. Truth speaks to the mind, but beauty speaks to the heart. For this reason, they must be presented together, especially in the liturgy. As Pope emeritus Benedict XVI once said, "I think that the great music born within the Church is an audible and perceptible rendering of the truth of our faith. In listening to sacred music -suddenly we feel: it is true!"
