A six-week immersive study of Catholic music in Italy, comprehensively training musicians to serve the liturgy as well as a missionary calling through music.
Applications Open January 2027
Summer Institute occurs July & August, 2028
Pope Saint John Paul II once wrote, “We continually live in a kind of tension among our various goals, which are sometimes at odds with each other. And a discussion is always taking place internally among these various goals. It may occasionally quiet down – something suppresses it – and then it speaks up again with greater force. This internal discussion, this tension, is related to God and to our soul.”
It’s likely that you, dear musician, have felt this tension more and more as you’ve discerned a call to serve the Lord with your craft. Perhaps this call has been best expressed, thusfar, in parish music ministry, or in other settings where your craft—be that as a composer, songwriter, music director, instrumentalist, vocalist, or myriad other callings—has begun to take shape as a lifelong vocation to the Church and the world.
Yet amidst this tension, questions arise that tend to challenge and derail us: Am I good enough? Do I need more training? Can I support myself and my family doing this for the rest of my life? Am I resigned to leading volunteer choirs from here on out, or is there a path to deeper beauty and excellence that I can walk? Can my compositions serve the Mass, or are they prayerful and powerful enough to speak deeply into the heart of the modern culture? We believe that the Lord is calling artists in droves to renew our Catholic Church and restore our world, and this Institute for Catholic Musicians is meant to be the place for that call to incubate. What follows is a dream that the Lord placed on our hearts, to create a six-week immersive experience where a select few who can come, enter deeply into the life of prayer, receive formation and equipping from the world’s best, and be sent forth to transform our world through music.
A SIX WEEK MUSIC INSTITUTE IN ITALY
This six-week immersion program is far more than a study-abroad or an extended pilgrimage, but rather entering into a new way of approaching your life and craft as a Catholic musician. Learn from some of the world’s top leaders in sacred music, devotional music, theology of the body, and more as we take a holistic approach to equipping you for ministry.
Week 01: Prayer & Wonder
Location: The Dolomites, Italy
We begin our time together with a retreat, visiting the many facets of the life of prayer and putting it into practice.
Week 02: Theology of the Body for Musicians
Location: Modena, Italy / Rome, Italy
We dive deep into Pope Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body from the lens of musicianship. This week also commences intensive daily study in classroom and one-on-one music instruction.
Week 03: The Heart and Mind of the Church
Location: Modena, Italy / Trent, Italy
Build a thorough understanding of the Church’s liturgical documents and the heart and mind that the Church offers musicians in her instruction and guidance. We will understand deeply what the liturgy is, how we are made for it, and what it demands of us musically.
Week 04: Integrated Musicianship
Location: Modena, Italy
Expanding beyond the liturgical life of the Church, how do we receive the gift of music and discern how best to apply it in the everyday life of faith, from devotional spaces to missionary fields and secular platforms?
Week 05: Mission and Evangelization
Location: Modena, Italy / Assisi, Italy
Explore the missionary option available to you in living your unique call as a musician, and the urgent call the Church has made to artists over recent decades.
Week 06: Mission Planning & Launch
Location: Modena, Italy
We turn sights on home, and equip you to the specific areas of ministry you are preparing to return to.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
The experience is only open to 25 Catholic musicians who are spiritually called and practically gifted for music ministry.
Participants should possess a desire to live their musical calling for a purpose that is bigger than themselves: the mission of the Gospel. The Institute will be hosted primarily in English, with some translation provided in Italian and German.
This is for you if you are:
- Desiring something for your music deeper than career ambitions, broader than parish walls, wider than audience, and higher than the paths offered by the music industry
- Actively engaged in ministry
- Just beginning to perceive a call to serve God through your musical gifting
- Currently play on big stages
- Play in the hidden places of home, parishes, and communities
- Looking for a place to be spiritually renewed and practically equipped for the mission of Catholic music-making
- Age eighteen and over (there is no too young or too old in that range)
- Of any musical background from cantor and organist to devotional and secular musician (you will be exposed to a wide range of musical and cultural offerings during the Institute)