Rooted in Gregorian Chant

I had my first formal interview with brother John during an early November visit to Weston. I was still getting my bearings in the monastic life around me and my role as ethnographer. My discomfort showed as I haltingly began the conversation, “I thought maybe we could start … I’m curious about … Could you tell me about what brought you here? To become a monk?”

Brother John smiled kindly, likely recognizing both my nervousness and a familiar question. He chuckled lightly as he said, “Of course. Well, it might not have a lot to do with music!” We were all still navigating my self-identification as an ethnomusicologist studying the brothers’ music. “Actually,” he went on, his facial expression becoming just a bit more thoughtful, “when I was a parish priest up in the Hardwick area, I was quite close to the Trapp family. I got a lot of feeling for good folk music with them.” He referred to the Von Trapp family of Sound of Music fame. They made their home in Vermont after their flight from the Nazis, made legend in film. “But before that,” brother John continued, “I was in the seminary and we had a lot of Gregorian chant. At that time, it was the 1940s, and the chant was pretty strong in the seminaries.” He explained that the seminary piqued his interest in liturgical chant, while the Trapp family singers introduced him to a wider variety of folk, popular, and religious music.