“I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart!”
The opening line of Julian Revie’s '02 setting of “Psalm 138” burst forth from the ambo, the pulpit at the front right of STM’s Chapel. The psalm was shortly followed by “The Lord’s Prayer” with music by Margaret Burk GRD '19. This time, the performers stood in the choir loft at the back of the Chapel while those below listened attentively in the pews. But this was not a Mass or a concert, it was a performance that sought to showcase the Chapel’s architectural acoustics. The performance was part of the New Haven Sacred Spaces Tour, which took place on Saturday, March 30. Over the course of the afternoon, tour attendees visited STM’s Chapel, Trinity Church on the Green and Christ Church. At each stop, the tour attendees experienced the sacred space’s architectural acoustics through brief performances by the singers of Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music Schola Cantorum.
The New Haven Sacred Spaces Performance Tour was part of a larger project put together by a team of students from the Yale School of Architecture, led by Davis Butner GRD '19. The project, along with the Saturday tour and a preview performance at the Yale School of Architecture on March 28, consisted of a lecture by Damian Doria, Yale School of Drama Lecturer on Acoustics, and an exhibition at the Yale School of Architecture that ran from February 21 to March 30. Butner and his colleagues hoped that by analyzing the various acoustical characteristics of religious spaces, architects can be better informed when creating future places of reverence, especially since contemporary architectural practices do not necessarily include overarching religious perspectives.
The tour closed with a reception at the Yale School of Architecture, marking the end of the day’s aural showcase. Those who attended the tour will now have the memory of experiencing sound in three of New Haven’s sacred spaces—yet another construct, like a beautiful altar or a vaulted ceiling, that reminds those present that they are in a place that is holy.
For more information: http://www.dsbutnerdesign.com/sounding-sacred
