“Voices of Worship” is the new and exciting opportunity for Benilde-St. Margaret’s students and faculty to participate in music at Mass regardless of if they’re in choir class or not. Traditionally, the student body choir sings during all-school Mass along with a few members of our school community playing instruments. This year, we are introduced to a new system, giving the entire community the opportunity to be involved and share their love for music at school Masses.

BSM Choir teacher Miriam Augsburger brainstormed this idea with the help of some of her students’ feedback last school year. Unfortunately, music programs at BSM have faced a recent decline in participation. Choir specifically has seen a shift in numbers. Choir class here at BSM has so much to offer. However, when students think of choir, they think of ‘the group that sings at Mass’. To some, this is exciting and draws them into the class. To other students, it scares them a bit, pushing them away from joining the choir. Augsburger was noticing this trend and came up with a way to address it properly. “I want my students to feel safe. I don’t want them to be scared of making music. And so I thought, how can we make sure that students join the choir without that extra fear added on?” Augsburger said.

Thus, “Voices of Worship” was born. Essentially, a sign up email will be sent out prior to each school mass. Students and faculty then have the ability to sign up and participate in the Mass whether that is through singing or playing an instrument. “Anyone is free to join whenever. You don’t have to come to every single practice. So again, it’s very low key, open to everybody,” senior Sam Rude said.

Rude, a current member of the choir, emphasizes the fact that although many people enjoy and appreciate music, BSM offers such a wide range of elective classes and sometimes choir misses the mark when it comes to class registration day. “it’s hard to fit [choir] into your schedule sometimes with all the other electives BSM has to offer,” Rude said.

‘Voices of Worship’ will now allow for the BSM music program and busy students to meet in the middle. “This way, the people who have super tight schedules but want to sing could still get the opportunity,” Augsburger said.

No longer requiring the choir to sing at Mass will open up so much opportunity to spend their class time in the best way possible without the pressure of preparing for a school Mass. “[In choir class] we’re learning music theory, we’re learning history, we’re learning musical symbols, we’re learning all of this stuff. And when we prepare for Mass, we essentially had to stop that and spend, like, an hour to an hour and a half just singing through this music where we don’t have time and look at all the little details of it like I would if I was teaching it, right? And so it’s kind of nice that this will allow the choirs to not have to divide their focus,” Augsburger said.

This school year will be a time to test out this new opportunity. Look out for an email before each school mass to sign up for Voices of Worship.