Celebrating World Choral Day
On this World Choral Day - Sunday, December 14, 2025 - we're shining a light on a recent Les Choristes concert where choir members had the opportunity to sing directly from Western Libraries' 16th century antiphoner, and bring history to life from the medieval pages of song.
As part of the concert on December 4, audience members and students were also treated to a special exhibit featuring a collection of special musical artefacts, acquired by Western in the 1960s. The Music Library purchased what it later labeled, a “mutilated” 16th century antiphoner from a Parisian manuscript dealer.
Musicologist and faculty member Kate Helsen, Les Choristes conductor, notes "The information that came with the book located its provenance in the Burgos monastery in Granada, Spain, but its contents can neither confirm nor deny this. What we find when we open the book, still with its original binding, is that about half of its parchment pages have been hacked away, presumably sold individually as pieces of wall art, and we are left with only the standard chants for the time in the church year between Holy Week and the Sundays after Pentecost. The first fifty pages are among those cut out; they would have contained the chants for the six Sundays in Lent. How beautiful, that history would come to us like this: ragged, honest, and strong."
To learn more about the artefacts and medieval fragments in Western Libraries' collection, and the concert program based on them, download the concert program. Special thanks to professor Kate Helsen for providing the write up.
Photo: History came to life as the Don Wright Faculty of Music's only all-treble choir, Les Choristes, rehearsed a selection of works from Western Libraries' medieval manuscripts collection to prepare for their choral concert on Dec. 4 in von Kuster Hall. (Photo source: Christopher Kindratsky/Western Communications)
Related links
Medieval music collection at Western gets rare addition - Western News (April 2025)
Elephantine chant book dates to 1600 - Western News (September 2021)
Research finds harmony in big data, Gregorian chants - Western News (October 2019)
