Dr. Mark Nowakowski is a scholar and composer whose music has been performed internationally and released on the Gramophone-praised Naxos Records album, "Blood, Forgotten." His writings on Catholicism, music, aesthetics, and music technology appear in numerous publications regularly, while he also maintains an active schedule as a composer and professor of music. A proud native of Chicago, he currently lives with his wife and three children in Ohio.
Author: Dr. Mark Nowakowski
New Album of Rare Sacred Music from TLM Choir
Above: the Victoria Consort at Winchelsea Church. Photo by Kt Bruce. Following on my recent theme of good news and the positive effects of entrepreneurial Catholicism so often seen in traditional circles, I bring you The Victoria Consort. Conducted by …
Let’s Continue the Growth of Catholic Counter-Culture
In reviewing Frank LaRocca’s Mass of the Americas release through Capella records on September 20th, I mentioned that in times and places of great sin and strife, great beauty is possible. That particular pursuit of great beauty was released on …
Modern Sacred Music at Its Best: the Mass of the Americas
And where sin abounded, grace did more abound… Amidst unnecessary contentions and frequent bad news in the Church, it becomes both essential and gratifying to share good news. Enter Catholic composer Frank La Rocca and the forthcoming CD/album release of …
On the Theological Impossibility of Dealing with Abusive Fatherhood
Like the Priesthood, and certainly even more fundamental than any clerical calling, biological fatherhood manifests its form in a single biological act which then reaches through a multiplicity of identities to the very existential zenith defined by God’s own self-revelation. …
Revenge of the Rigid: On Rejecting Grillo, Primitivism, and the Electric Slide
I often like to imagine how the radical liturgical reforms after Vatican II would have proceeded in the internet age. Certainly the quick availability of information and the means by which to network globally in seeking answers would have made …
Catholic Music: Revisiting The Unanswered Question
Can there still be an unanswered question in the great competition of metaphysical ideals? It may be that we are currently living in an era where clarity is available amongst the confusion of the questions of the modern and postmodern …
The Miniature Benedict Option: Recent Books to Cope with Chaos
I have lately witnessed some of the strongest Catholics I know shaken deeply by the visage of a society driving headlong into unnecessary strife and madness, and I would be lying if I did not number myself among them. This …
Music for Catholics: Henryk Górecki’s Opus for Instruments
When introducing the instrumental works of a composer to a musically untrained audience, a bit of trepidation naturally sets in. Tastes in music are often entrenched and become even more so where instrumental music is concerned. People are naturally more …
Music for Catholics: Rediscovering Henryk Górecki
There is a select group of composers who seemed to anticipate and ultimately embody John Paul II’s Letter to Artists, somehow also achieving great international prominence and influence despite their industry’s general hostility to all things Christian. They prove that …
A War For Meaning: Anxiety, Eschatology, Rebellion, and Hope
As a person naturally prone to pessimism and yet equally geared for the long and stubborn grind of societal combat, I find it necessary to sort out my thoughts and observations towards a clear goal in these disorienting times. I …
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