This week I’m joined by Andrew Dittman — baritone, choirmaster, composer, and the man behind The Kyrial Project — for a rich conversation about chant, harmony, congregational singing, and the recovery of serious sacred music for ordinary churches and families.
We talk about Andrew’s musical upbringing, why children don’t need to be patronized with “children’s music,” why churches should give their people actual music to sing, and how chant can anchor us in the long memory of the church. We also spend time on The Kyrial Project, Andrew’s collection of traditional liturgical settings — especially harmonized Gregorian chant in English — designed to be beautiful, ancient, singable, and usable by Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches alike. In our conversation, Andrew explains that a kyrial is a collection of mass settings, and he describes his work as adapting older chant from Latin into English, harmonizing it, recording it, and making it scalable for choirs, congregations, and ordinary parish life.
Andrew also talks about Bach, barbershop quartets, The King’s Singers, Chanticleer, Take 6, Voces8, The Beach Boys, The Quebe Sisters, Byrd, Rossini, and why a healthy culture is a singing culture. Enjoy!
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Andrew Dittman is a baritone, choirmaster, and composer based in the Dallas area. He holds a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of North Texas, where he also earned bachelor’s degrees in music and computer science. His compositional work draws from Gregorian chant, Renaissance and Baroque counterpoint, American folk music, and shape-note singing.
His central work is The Kyrial Project, a collection of sacred music based on familiar melodies from Latin chants of the Ordinary of the Mass — including the Kyrie, Agnus Dei, Pater Noster, and others — adapted into English and given four-part harmonies in the Anglican tradition.
Sheet music from The Kyrial Project is arranged for four-part choir or congregation, with SATB vocal arrangements and organ accompaniment available for many of the settings. Click HERE for sheet music.
https://kyrialproject.com/
