Canticum Novum - Schola Cantorum Bogotensis


The Society CANTICUM NOVUM was founded in 1984 in the City of Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia for initiative of the Psychologist and Professor Dr. Ramiro Alvarez Cuadros.

The Choir is conformed by Professionals of the most diverse disciplines united by the admiration for the Gregorian Chant and their desire of studying it deeply and of giving it to know.

The name of the choir was taken of the first words of the psalm 97 that begins saying: "CANTATE DOMINO CANTICUM NOVUM" . The subtitle Schola Cantorum Bogotensis makes reference to the city of Bogotá, Colombia, where it was born and where the choir acts.

The choir interprets this music whose name comes from the Pope Gregory I, following the writing of the XI century that consists on neumas or groupings of notes consigned in tetragrams, that is to say, a staff of four lines, and it follows the rhythmic technique of the Abbey of Saint Pièrre of Solesmes, institution to which the Pope Pius X in 1903 assigned the task of editing the Gregorian music for the Roman liturgy.

"At first sight, the Gregorian Chant can seem monotonous. Without a doubt it confuses our modern hearings, habituated maybe to other more spectacular music types but less deep. In fact the Gregorian repertoire is a complex world that gathers many centuries of history of the music. It is a contrasted world that joins the almost delirious enthusiasm uncannily with the most delicate interiority. A paradoxical world in which the music extends itself in the silence" (Abbey of Solesmes - Page in Internet)

"The Gregorian art is full of power and variety, grandiose serenity, concentrated passion and ineffable sweetness. It is a music to the service of simple and strong ideas that express a faith, the most intense and irradiant form of spiritual energy" (Bernard Champigneulle)

With this mentality, Canticum Novum has presented Concerts of didactic type in universities, it has participated in festivals of coral music, but it is inside the Liturgy of the Church, in the celebrations of Holy Week, in the masses for the deceaseds, in a priestly Ordination, in an anniversary of Weddings, etc. where the force of the Spirit makes its members to give the best thing of themselves.

After all, the Gregorian Chant has been composed to be executed inside the Liturgy of the Church.

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Members of the Coral Society

"Canticum Novum"

Luis Eduardo Alvarez Ramírez

Ramiro Alvarez Cuadros

Rafael Arteaga Díaz

Alberto Luzardo Carrillo

Carlos Eduardo Martínez Villamizar

Guillermo Eugenio Ortega Llanos

Carlos Prieto Suárez

Francisco Rocha Pereira

Pedro Ignacio Rodríguez Velandia

Rafael Rubio

Alfonso Segura Barrera

Soloist

Fagua Alvarez Flórez

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Director:

Carlos Eduardo Martínez Villamizar

 


Canticum Novum

Canticum Novum 1998 - Bogotá Colombia