Music
liamoc.net

In addition to my computer science career I am also a classically-trained singer, with extensive experience in liturgical music in the Catholic and Anglican traditions.

Currently, I sing with the Choir of All Saints, Ainslie, located near my home in Canberra. We sing for most of the weekly Sunday Eucharist services as well as semi-regular Evensong services. I am also available for liturgical singing in and around the Canberra area. Please get in touch if you are interested.

I began my musical career as a treble in St. Mary's Cathedral Choir, Sydney at the age of 10. At that time, St. Mary's was under the direction of David Russell, who encouraged me to pursue my interest in medieval liturgical music. I studied Gregorian Chant semiology and performance, both independently and under the tutelage of Prof. Neil McEwan FRSCM.

From 2006-2010 I led the Schola Cantorum at St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, performing the propers of the mass every Sunday. I also performed occasionally with many other choirs, including: the Choir of Christ Church St. Laurence in Sydney, the Australian Brandenburg Choir, and others. After Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum pontificum, I ran a Schola Cantorum to assist in the performance of chant propers and ordinaries in Latin masses around Sydney and later in Edinburgh, after I moved there.

In 2022 I visited the monks at the Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Solesmes, under Dom Geoffrey Kemlin. In Edinburgh I sang with the the Choir of St. Michael and All Saints Episcopal Church. I am a member of the Royal School of Church Music.

In particular, I have an interest and considerable expertise in the rich chant tradition of the medieval western church, and I am seeking rare prayer books, hymnals, graduals, nocturnals, vesperals, diurnals, antiphonaries and similar. In particular, I am looking for (reprintings of):

  • A Cistercian Gradual,
  • A Medicaea Gradual,
  • Amiens and/or Paris Graduals
  • Facsimiles of manuscripts.

I am also generally interested in liturgical music that is solemn and ancient. If you have any books that may be interesting to me, please get in touch. I already have a complete set of books for the Sarum Use (both Mass and Office) and all of the recent Solesmes books, including Les Heures Grégoriennes, the Liber Usualis, the Graduale Triplex (and Simplex), the Antiphonale Romanum (and Monasticum) and the Graduale Novum. With regards to the Anglican tradition, I have a Noted Book of Common Prayer, the New English Hymnal, and various Oxford Anthem books.