Jacob Benda, the director of the Chapel Arts Series at the University of St. Thomas, stands outside the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul, where the series’ performances are held.

Jacob Benda, the director of the Chapel Arts Series at the University of St. Thomas, stands outside the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul, where the series’ performances are held.
DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

This fall, the University of St. Thomas will launch its second season of the Chapel Arts Series, an initiative that uses music, performed by world-renowned artists, as a mode of transcendence accessible to anyone.

The second season, which will be available free to the public in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas on the north side of the university’s St. Paul campus, promises diverse performances including a celebrated Bach master, a silent film accompanied by organ and improvisational music inspired by a Jewish prayer.

The Chapel Arts Series began last year under the leadership of Father Larry Snyder, who was St. Thomas’ director for mission at the time. He intended to create an opportunity for the UST community, as well as the greater Twin Cities, to access sacred music that can help people encounter God through an encounter with beauty.

“Music is a window into the soul, into the transcendent,” Father Snyder said. A common point of encounter with the divine is important at UST, where about 60% of the students are not Catholic, he said.

He hopes the series can “model how people of different faiths can not only live together in harmony, but can also work together and can discover the treasures of each other’s faiths as well, which hopefully leads them to a respect that they are going to take into their lives after they leave St. Thomas.”

The genesis of the program sprung from a desire to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Aquinas chapel in 2021. That anniversary was also accompanied by the construction of the Iverson Center for Faith, which reflects the religious diversity of St. Thomas as well as its Catholic foundation. The center — situated at the base of the church — is home to the campus ministry staff, which includes a Protestant minister, a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim leader.

Jacob Benda, the current director of the Chapel Arts Series — who is himself a renowned organist — said that whether or not those attending the program are Catholic, they will be invited to experience beauty through music.

“I think that in the world and culture today, we need beauty,” said Benda, who began his role in February as UST’s director of music and organist. “I’m hoping that when people come in and they experience our programs, whether they recognize it or not, it facilitates a conversation, a dialogue with God, with the divine.”

Benda, a parishioner of St. John the Baptist in Excelsior who previously served as the organist and music director at Our Lady of Lourdes in Minneapolis, was particularly attracted to St. Thomas because of its stunning pipe organ, which has been part of the campus for 35 years. Several of this year’s performances will center around the instrument.

To open the season Oct. 1, the award-winning and internationally-acclaimed organist Wolfgang Rubsam will perform an organ concert exclusively of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose music the artist has recorded professionally.

On Nov. 5, another world-renowned musician, organist Filip Presseisen, will accompany the 1903 silent film “La Vie et la Passion de Jesus Christ.” Presseisen, who won the 2015 International Cinema Organ Competition in Berlin, will improvise the soundtrack to the black-and-white rendition of the life and death of Christ, which will be played on an 80-inch monitor in the chapel.

Performances continue through May, including concerts for Advent and Holy Week to draw the audience into contemplation of these liturgical events. The Chapel Arts Series will culminate May 6 with organ concertos performed by Benda and accompanied by the UST orchestra. The full schedule of events is available on the website of St. Thomas’ Office of Mission at stthomas.edu/mission.

Jesuit Father Chris Collins, who currently directs the Office of Mission, said he hopes the series will be a place of “interreligious dialogue and encounter.”

“As a Catholic university, we look for those ways to have ecumenical and religious engagement, and for people of no faith at all, the arts can be a place where the Church encounters culture most powerfully, in those who are seeking more in their lives,” he said.

The Chapel Arts series hopes to harness the power of beauty to draw people to contemplate the divine in a way that transcends cultural and doctrinal differences, he said. “When we encounter beauty in any way, we are always having a pathway to encounter God himself,” he said.

According to Benda, last year’s series met this goal: The performances were attended by a wide diversity of cultures and religions from the university community and beyond. He said one performance drew a heavily Jewish audience.

Susan Stabile, distinguished senior fellow and former UST law professor, attended the organ and choral performance of the Seven Last Words of Christ, which fell on Palm Sunday. She said the performance was a contemplative experience rather than merely a concert for entertainment purposes.

“Conversion, ultimately, is an experience of the heart, not an experience of the head, and what all the arts do is touch a place in the heart,” said Stabile, who now leads Ignatian retreats and attends St. Thomas More in St. Paul. “You can think intellectually about those words, for example in this case, those that Jesus utters on the cross, or you can really sink into them and allow them to touch you in a deep place, and I think the music helps you do that.”

Stabile hopes to attend the series this fall and spring whenever she is able.

Father Snyder said he wants UST to be known for this initiative and aspire for a broad audience.

“I hope that St. Thomas becomes a destination point for sacred art and sacred music,” he said.