First Vespers for the Feast of the Assumption
6:00 p.m., August 14, 2008
Shrine of La Leche
St. Augustine, Florida

Please join us in honoring Our Lady on her feast day. La Leche is the oldest Marian shrine in the United States, dating from the 17th century.



Welcome to our website!  The St. Augustine Schola Cantorae is a new women’s ensemble devoted to Gregorian chant and polyphony.  We bring six enthusiastic voices to the exploration of this music.  Founded in 2007 and directed by Mary Jane Ballou, the Schola has already brought its music to weddings, funerals, and a special New Year’s Eve Vespers and Te Deum.  We also sang for the Feast of Corpus Christi, both at the Mass and the Procession around the Plaza de la Constitucion.  And do we have plans for the future!

Gregorian Chant arrived in the Ancient City, as St. Augustine, Florida likes to call itself, on September 8, 1565.  The Te Deum was sung as Pedro Menendez de Aviles stepped ashore and claimed La Florida for Spain.  A chain of over 150 Franciscan missions stretched from St. Augustine up into Georgia and across to Tallahassee long before the famous missions of California.  Music traveled with the friars as they made their way through the flatwood forests and coastal marshes.  So we are part of a long tradition.