APMN/NLC Conference Day 1, 1st October 2025.

The biennial conference was held in Adelaide this year and I was there, at the Hilton Hotel, which is agreeably placed between the Adelaide markets and the Cathedral, both of which came in handy.

As usual, the organisation was top notch and Michael Mangan, Clare Schwantes and their hard working committee are to be commended.

The conference kicked off with a welcome and opening ritual in which all our ministries were blessed and we were challenged to share our gifts in the liminal space which is today’s church.

The first keynote was from Rev Ricky Manalo CSP entitled, “Sacred Rituals, Sacred Sounds: Rediscovering the Centrality of Ritual Music in Liturgical Worship.” He took us through the history of music in the church from music of worship, to music for worship, to music at worship, with the decline of participation from the early church to the Medieval and Baroque era. He noted that an ornate secular style was being performed in a sacred context.

He then noted the influence of Vatican 2, with the move to encourage participation while preserving what was worthy in tradition and the adoptation of the vernacular and incultured liturgy.

After discussing the various combinations of music alone, music with action, music with text and music with both action and text in the liturgy, he moved to the proper place of music, that is music as liturgy.

After lunch, we broke into our Block A workshops, and I attended The Willow Music team’s “Made in Australia”. I have got the point where I frequently have only Austraian music in my liturgies, unless an old favourite from the US or UK is heavily suggested by the text. The Willow team did “All the Hungry” by Beth Doherty (sung beautifully by Lauren Bierer because Beth was double booked). Gen Bryant sang and then the whole team presented music written by Aunty Donna, Amanda McKenna and James Martin. I’m pretty sure Gina Ogilvie sang “Here at the Table” a few hours after it had been sung at the Vatican.

The Block B workshop I attended was the one given by Elizabeth Fort called ‘Praying the Preface”. She pointed out that most of the time as musicians, we are waiting for the cue at the end of the Preface to play the Sanctus, but she opened up the options and the riches of the texts in an insightful and surprising way. I suspect these texts would be good inspiration for liturgical song.

The last talk I attended on day one was the mini keynote from Fiona Dyball, focussed on music, called “Partners in Music Ministry.” She noted the need for musicians to have liturgical training and liturgists to have musical training, and the fact that this was not a widespread occurrence. Her local knowledge came to the fore acknowledging the tendency in Australia to imagine these things happen without a budget. She noted the availability of online courses and the new NLC website as possible supports. I would very much like to see more content from great speakers whose experience is within the Australian church, to ensure their relevance to our situation, which is vastly different to the church in the US.

I did hang around for AGM of the APMN before heading out to a night of music at St Paul’s Church at the Monastry. Beth Doherty, Tim Hart, Lauren and Peter Bierer and others were there and it was great music. I was fading out after a very long day and had to leave early. I successfully used a taxi app for just about the first time was able to find my way back to the hotel.