Dr. William P. Mahrt is Associate Professor and Director of Early Music Singers at the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Stanford University, President of the Church Music Association of America, and editor of Sacred Music, the oldest continuously published journal of music in North America.

Dr. Mahrt grew up in Washington State; after attending Gonzaga University and the University of Washington, he completed a doctorate at Stanford University in 1969. He taught at Case Western Reserve University and the Eastman School of Music, and then returned to Stanford in 1972, where he continues to teach early music. Since 1964 he has directed the choir of St. Ann’s Chapel in Palo Alto, which sings Mass and Vespers in Gregorian chant on all the Sundays of the year, with masses in the polyphonic music of Renaissance masters for the holy days.

His research interests include theory and performance of Medieval and Renaissance music, troubadours, Machaut, Dufay, Lasso, Dante, English Cathedrals, Gregorian chant, and Renaissance polyphony. He has published articles on the relation of music and liturgy, and music and poetry. He frequently leads workshops in the singing of Gregorian chant and the sacred music of the Renaissance.

Dr. Horst Buchholz received his first musical training in a boys’ choir in his native Germany and studied organ and sacred music at the Berlin College of Church Music and the University of Arts, and received his Doctor of Music degree in conducting from the Indiana University School of Music.

Dr. Buchholz has held positions in cathedrals and churches throughout the United States and Europe, including the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Colorado. He has served as a member of the organ faculty at Cleveland State University; Associate Professor of Music and Director of Schola Cantorum at St. John Vianney Seminary (Denver); conducting professor and organ faculty member at Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver. He is also Vice-President of the Church Music Association of America.

 Rev. Robert C. Pasley, KCHS, has been a member of the CMAA since his ordination. Fr. Pasley will present a breakout session on All that you wanted to know about the Ancient Form of the Mass but were afraid to ask, along with M.C. Bill Riccio and David Hughes.

He is a priest of the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey.

Because of his association with Msgr. Richard Schuler, he was introduced to the Sacred Music Colloquium and has attended most of the colloquia held since their foundation in 1990.

Father Pasley received a B.A. in Philosophy from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Philadelphia, an M.A. in Dogmatic Theology from Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg, and an M.A. in Education from Seton Hall University. He was ordained by the Most Reverend George H. Guilfoyle in 1982.

On October 13, 2000, he was appointed Rector, by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, of the newly established Tridentine-rite Parish of Mater Ecclesiae, Berlin, N.J. (materlatin.org). Mater Ecclesiae was the first diocesan-run Extraordinary Form parish in the United States.

Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka is an associate professor and the director of sacred music at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California, where she holds the William P. Mahrt Chair in Sacred Music and directs the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music.

Dr. Donelson-Nowicka serves as a consultant to the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship.

As a choral conductor, Donelson-Nowicka has directed collegiate, semi-professional, amateur, monastic, and children’s choirs.

Dr. Donelson-Nowicka is currently working on a project to adapt the Gregorian chants of the Mass proper for the Spanish language. She also hosts a weekly podcast entitled “Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast.”

 David Hughes is a composer, conductor, and organist who is in international demand as a recitalist and an instructor of Gregorian chant.

He served for thirteen years as Organist & Choirmaster at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he developed a program of seven choirs, including the professional St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum, the volunteer St. Mary’s Choir, and the St. Mary’s Student Schola, a comprehensive program of musical education for children. He directs Viri Galilæi, an ensemble of men from the tristate New York area who gather weekly to sing Vespers and medieval polyphony from facsimiles of original manuscripts. Hughes is Director of Music at St. John Fisher Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut, and serves as a consultant to several parishes in Connecticut looking to expand their musical programs.

Hughes’ composition teachers have included Ruth Schonthal and John Halle, and he has studied organ with Paul Jacobs and Daniel Sullivan. He is a graduate of Yale College.