I think our new music director thought I was nuts when I told him I had the schola practicing in the summer.  I had two motives: 1) up until now we have been playing catch-up, rushing to get ready for the next big feast, with no time to learn the basics and 2) the Assumption is coming up, and it won't be a holy day of obligation in our diocese again for another couple of years, so I'd like to do something special for it this year. 

He went along with this, and our schola as we know it will have it's "last hurrah" on the Assumption.  Our numbers are down for the summer, so I didn't want to suggest anything too elaborate.  One chant piece, one polyphonic piece is all we can reasonably handle at this point in our development, and the polyphony needed to be less than 5 parts.

I settled on the Salve Regina, which is one of those chants everyone should know, and some of our schola members were already familiar with it.  It's perfectly appropriate for the Assumption.  With the experience of the colloquium fresh in my mind, I took a different approach to learning the piece this time.  I sat down and marked the ictuses, took note of all the various rhythms marked in the music, and where the rests are and for what duration.  It was a few weeks before it was someone other than me who realized we were not singing together and that we ought to look at that rhythm... and then I was actually prepared to walk everyone through the counting, etc.  It worked much better after that, we were together.  It was a good feeling to apply something I learned at the colloquium... and it actually worked!  The Salve Regina will be chanted by the women only.

Our polyphony piece is Diffusa est gratia by Giovanni Maria Nanino (1540-1607).  It is written in 4 parts, which is still a challenge with our tiny group.   We have one man on bass, me on tenor (which is a little low for my range but I can do it if I have to), a few altos, and two sopranos.  However, there will be a couple more people joining us shortly before the Assumption that will give us a man on tenor, and maybe one or two more altos.  It'll be a little off balance perhaps, but it is a beautiful piece (unanimous opinion of the schola members) and much better than doing just another hymn.  The score is only two pages long.  Really, those of us who have been at the last few practices already pretty much have this down, but we have 3 more practices to go before the Assumption which we will need as we add new people to the mix.  So it works out for the best.

This piece, by the way, comes from the Gradual for Mary Mother of God.  The verse given is different than the verse in the Gregorian Missal for that day, however.  This is the translation of the text of the score we are using:

Grace flows from your lips because God has blessed you forever.

All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia: out of th ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.  King's daughters were among thy honourable women.

We will also be singing the hymns Hail Holy Queen Enthroned Above (basically the English hymn version of the Salve Regina) and Immaculate Mary.  Singing the tenor lines on these is a little tougher!  I wish we had descant parts to them - then maybe one of our sopranos could jump on that, and I could move up to the melody line. 

At any rate, we are proceeding with doing something special in honor of Our Lady's Assumption, and I think she'll be pleased.