REPORT FROM FAIRFIELD: 

The Committee for Jesuits in the Fine Arts 
Raoul Orceyre 

FROM AUGUST 15 TO 19, 1966 A GROUP OF JESUIT ARTISTS AND SCHOLARS MET 

at Fairfield University in Connecticut to discuss Jesuit involvement in the 
fine arts. Thc group, known as the Eastern Committee for Jesuits in the 

Fine Arts, is one product of a renaissance of both the scholarly and practical 
cultivation of the arts in the American Jesuit community. The Committee 
includes composers, musicologists, and performers whose influence will be of 
the greatest importance in shaping the future role of musical education in 
Jesuit high schools and colleges. Father Clement McNaspy (Ph.D., Toronto, 
1948) did post-doctoral work at Oxford under Professors Westrup, Wellesz, 
and Rubbra, subsequently became dean of the College of Music at Loyola in 
New Orleans, and has taught periodically at Solesmes Abbey. Through his 
numerous articles and books he is now a familiar figure in the forum of the 
liturgical arts. Father Thomas Culley completed his doctoral work at Harvard 
two years ago; his dissertation discussed the Jesuit German College in Rome 
during the 17th century. Other musicians on the Committee are studying at 
the Peabody Conservatory and at Columbia, Yale, and Ncw York Universities. 

Leslie]. Schnierer, a harpsichordist at Peabody, presented a paper entitled 
"Some Prospects for the Jesuit Musician." It did not attempt to be exhaustivc, 
but merely outlined what Schnierer considers to be major questions facing the 
Jesuit musician in the realms of scholarship, performance, and education. He 
emphasized the need for broadly-based sources of information and for energy 
and ideas in attacking the problems of Catholic liturgical musicians in an era 
of renewal, as well as the practical difficulties faced by the individual musician 
in attempting to inaugurate a musical program in an educational institution. 
Subsidiary aspects of the paper concerned performance prospects, some specifi-
cally Christian aspects of musical education, and the field of popular religious 
music. The paper clearly pointed out that the difficulties confronting the 
Jesuit community are on a level quite different from those facing established 
musical institutions. They are problems not of continuing or strengthening but 
of beginning. 

One of Schnierer's ideas is especially worthy of note in this regard. He 
proposed that the high school and college musical life be centered on an artist-
in-residence rather than on an expensive and problematic curriculum. 
Schnierer cites the example of the city of Flint, Michigan, which engaged the 
pianist Coleman Blumfield, a student of Vladimir Horowitz, as artist-in-
residence. He suggested that the concerts and workshops which bcnefit the 
city are easily extended to the college community. Schnierer hopes such an 

RAOUL ORCEYRE, s.]., is a Jesuit seminarian and a student ofmusieology in the depart-
ment ofmusie, Columbia University. 

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approach would stimulate vital interest in the arts and thereby lead to more 
specialized study. The realization of this goal and the emphasis which it would 
lend to the active musical experience would, according to Schnierer, be most 
welcome innovations on the] esuit campus. 

Schnierer's artist-in-residence proposal does not, however, solve the prob-
lems of education in the arts faced by large institutions. Instead, it satisfies only 
one aspect of musical education: instruction in performance through close 
contact with a professional artist. But music education cannot stop there; it 
must proceed to reflective inquiry into the musical experience and into music 
itself. A meaningful and responsible music program requires the facilities of any 
rigorous discipline and so must have a faculty of musically-trained and literate 
teachers and a comprehensive library of scores, sound recordings, periodicals, 
and historical, theoretical, and critical literature. A music department also 
requires musical instruments, considerable electronic equipment for public 
and private listening, and acoustically-designed classrooms. But it is unlikely 
that an artist-in-residence plan would bring such facilities in its train. 

Despite the re-awakening concern the vast majority of] esuit faculties in this 
country are still only remotely engaged with the fine arts. The financial load of 
providing the requisite material and personnel for an adequate music program 
is considerable and is a major stumbling block. Some Jesuit schools have 
avoided these costs by affiliation with other institutions, but this solution leaves 
the great majority of students untouched. It provides little or no basic under-
graduate education in music but only advanced study for those already 
musically -trained. 

Ifthe]esuits are to attain their limited goals, it would appear that they must 
undertake a thoroughgoing review of the fine arts and make better use of their 
own creative talents. More musician-musicologists are needed in music, men 
whose musical and intellectual abilities would instill a genuine understanding 
and love of music in their students. The problem offacilities cannot be resolved 
quickly, but the problem of trained personnel needs to be resolutely approached 
at once. We may conclude that an educational community with long experience 
and a modicum of creative talent is awakening to the pressing need of a practical 
cultural life. The success of its endeavor is dependent on the study, concern, 
and support of those experienced in educational problems of the arts in general. 

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