I spent some of last week with musician Michael Olbash and other singers, at this recent chapel (photos) in the "northeast kingdom" of Vermont.
It was built in 2006 by Richard and Joan Downing, a Catholic couple from Massachusetts, generous people who raised 35 foster children during Mr. Downing's long financial career. Now they spend part of their time in northeast Vermont on a property that includes a cattle farm, a comfy country inn, and a health spa.
Now, lay-owned oratories are uncommon, so I was curious to see this one. It is not regularly used for liturgical worship, but occasionally priests with retreat groups have received diocesan permission for celebrations of Mass there; in fact that just happened on the weekend after our stay.
We were there to record some chant performances, and the resulting recording should be ready for us some time in 2008. With the cattle farm next door, the microphones and our ears picked up some sounds of lowing from the newly weaned calves, so before the week was over, Steven Olbash quipped that the eventual CD would be titled either "Moosica Sacra" or "Angus Dei".
