SCOLA GREGORIANA

The Scola Gregoriana of Bruges was founded in 1970. To fill up the gap that was created by the retirement of the then conductor P. François and when the boy and the seminarist choir in the Saint Salvator Church in Bruges stopped their activities, the organist of the cathedral Roger Deruwe invited some enthusiastic people to sing every week during the High Mass in the cathedral.
Soon the core developed into a Scola that consciously and intensively engaged in the study of the Gregorian music. In 1974 the first study trip took place to Solesmes and there the choir made a first performance outside a cathedral.
A national tour of 'Davidsfonds' gave the Scola a reputation in all the Flemish provinces.
In 1979 the 'Festival of Flanders' made for the first time an appeal to the Scola; a lot of invitations would follow.

Great European Festivals invited the Scola.
The choir performed at the 'Festival du Mosan', the 'Bregenzerfestspiele', the 'Festival Musique en Bourgogne', the 'Festival of Avignon', the 'Festival Estival de Paris', the 'Kirchenmusikfestival in Salzburg', the Spanish Festivals in Santander, San Sebastian, Palma, Cuenca and Girona.
Also they have had performances in The Netherlands, England and Switzerland.
The choir regularly lent its co-operation to Eucharistic celebrations on radio and TV, and some of its auditions were broadcasted by the VRT, the RTBF, France Music, the Spanish and the Basque radio and TV.
The Scola has 4 CDs: 'Laudes Mariae', 'Puer natus est', 'Requiem' and 'Resurrexi'.

The pioneering and the performing practice of the monks of Solesmes inspired the style of the Scola. Besides that the choir is open for new discoveries and a justified approach of the Gregorian seminology.

The Scola intends to contribute to the reincarnation and a renewed appreciation of the Gregorian music as one of the great masterpieces of the Church and the basis of West European musical culture. The Scola doesn't consider the Gregorian music as an in the course of time dead form of music. On the contrary it approaches every medieval singing as a living prayer, a to music matured reflection for every day and for the mood of the ecclesiastical year. The Scola engages itself with the utmost exertion to keep these great cultural assets in its original environment: the liturgical and Eucharistic form.

After a service of 25 years in the Saint Salvator Cathedral the Scola nowadays sings during the weekly High Mass in the serene monastic Church of the fathers Carmelites in Bruges.