how'd we get here?

David dancing before the ark.

Chances are that if you're reading this post right now, you've heard something about a weird 'sacred music collective' thing that maybe one of your friends is in or is playing at a church near where you live.  And chances are that you came here to learn something about said weird 'sacred music collective thing.'  And if you checked out our 'About Us' page, you might have found some cool thoughts about God being an infinite sphere, about plunging into an abyss or two, or some other such stories.  Hopefully that's interesting to you, but it may not actually answer the question of 'what the heck is this collective and what are you doing?'.  So, here you go: the actual story of how this collective came to be.

Nik, conducting a piece during rehearsal.

My name is Nik, and I'm a seminarian with the Marist Fathers & Brothers.  I just finished my philosophy studies in May and am headed to our international novitiate in the Philippines in November.  Before entering, I graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston and majored in jazz composition.  As I grew in my faith, I became interested in poetry that spoke about faith, and I started setting poems that have to do with faith...particularly poems by Thomas Merton and Gerard Manley Hopkins.  The result was this project.  When I finished my philosophy studies, my superiors decided to give me a few months to work on more 'sacred music' before going to novitiate.  By sacred music, I don't mean 'church music.'  I mean real art, something that strives after the transcendent.  In particular, I wanted to do something that tells a story -- the story of faith as we experience it here on earth.  Not the white-washed version where everything in somebody's life is perfect, provided that they believe in God and obey his commands.  That's not the faith that we hear about in Scripture.

Faith in Scripture is the overwhelming experience of God that calls Abraham to travel literally thousands of miles to the initial promised land.  It's the overwhelming joy that makes David dance naked before the ark of the covenant.  It's the resilience of Job, who can't make sense of his suffering, but believes anyway.  It's the knowledge that gave Peter the strength to say, even when he couldn't understand Jesus' teaching, "Lord, to whom else can we turn?  You have the words of everlasting life."  In other words, faith is a mystery that underlies the entire spectrum of human experience.  That's what I wanted to try and portray through music and poetry.

The one and only Eli Roberts.

So, I called up my friend Eli and asked if he'd be interested in working on this.  And he was.  Eli is an amazing composer and guitarist, and one of my best friends.  We were roommates in college, and when we weren't making music, we were talking about philosophy, theology, God, and faith.  And those conversations influenced my own vocation and my hope for Catholic art and this project.

Christina and Eli performing.

Mike (that dude on the right).

I had also heard this awesome record, done by a couple of other Boston-based musicians: Christina Smith and Michael Enwright.  Christina studies opera performance at Boston University and is one of the finest vocalists I've ever worked with.  Mike is a brilliant composer and pianist, and their work really inspired me, and I felt like they would have a lot to say in this project.  Thankfully, they were both really excited about this whole thing, and wanted to be a part of it.


We asked our friend Asa Spring to join this project and play bass.  Asa is an awesome guy, and he has a pretty different musical background from the rest of us, and also comes from a somewhat different background on faith and religion.  He found this cool Rumi poem that he's setting, and really just makes this whole project complete.

Asa.  The guy can play anything: piano, guitar, bass, drums.
He's also writing an awesome piece for this project.

Since Mike can't come with us on tour, we asked Danny Miller to play keys for us on tour.  Truth be told, Danny and I haven't met yet, but I'm really excited to have him playing with us.

So, there you are.  That's our group.  We decided to come together in Boston in early July and write all this music, then take it out on tour, then record it.  While that arose out of situational necessity, it's proving to be a really cool way to work.  It makes all of us live in the present moment, rely deeply on each other, and -- most importantly -- plunge into this whole abyss together.  In faith, we never really know where God will call us next (but only that He will), in this project we never know where the next writing session will take us, how the music will evolve and grow as everyone adds their own individual voices.  It is making it organic and authentic, and a lot of fun.