Music

The internationally acclaimed Scottish composer has been appointed to Scotland’s highest order of chivalry in recognition of a distinguished career in music and public life

The Catholic Herald

Music has become increasingly passive in modern life, but the folk tradition offers Catholics a way to recover shared culture and fellowship through singing together

David Hahn

The fury of punk exposed the decay of post-war Britain, yet the movement left behind a cultural void it could not fill

Ruadhan Jones

Pentecost is not a feast of polite reflection but of holy disruption, and sacred music should recover something of that unsettling power

Simon Johnson

The St Birinus Festival at Dorchester Abbey seeks to restore sacred music to the liturgical setting for which it was composed

Dominic Bevan

The DJ-priest Padre Guilherme inspires real affection and curiosity, yet his music also raises serious questions about the relationship between devotion, beauty and form

Jane Cooper

James MacMillan’s Angels Unawares received its world premiere in the Sistine Chapel

Edward Barrett-Shortt

From the Psalms to baroque music, the Christian inheritance shows how genuine feeling emerges not from spectacle but from restraint, craft and grace

Lola Salem

Ambitious stagings in Paris and London test the limits of sacred and political music, while Elgar’s neglected oratorio receives a persuasive hearing

Michael White

Michael White reflects on recent performances of Bach, James MacMillan, Bernstein and Sondheim, and on how great music still illuminates the human search for meaning

Michael White