Allen Henry Vigneron a native of Mount Clemens, Michigan, entered the high school program of Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit, in September 1962.

Upon graduation in 1970, he continued his theological education at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Archbishop Vigneron was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit on July 26, 1975, at St. Clement of Rome Church by the late Cardinal John Dearden.  He returned to Rome in 1976 for a year of study to complete the work required for his Licentiate in Sacred Theology degree, which he earned from the Gregorian University in 1977.

Cardinal Dearden assigned Archbishop Vigneron to begin graduate studies in the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1979.

He earned his Master of Arts in philosophy in 1983 and his Doctor of Philosophy in May 1987 with a dissertation on the German philosopher Edmund Husserl.

On June 12, 1996, Archbishop Vigneron was named an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit by Pope John Paul II.

On January 5, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop Vigneron as the fifth Archbishop of Detroit. He was installed on January 28, 2009, succeeding Cardinal Maida.

Archbishop Vigneron was elected Vice President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on November 12, 2019, after which he expressed gratitude to his brother bishops and offered prayers that the Holy Spirit would grant him “the grace to help us all in our service of Christ’s Church.”

Dr. William P. Mahrt is Associate Professor and Director of Early Music Singers at the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Stanford University, President of the Church Music Association of America, and editor of Sacred Music, the oldest continuously published journal of music in North America.

Dr. Mahrt grew up in Washington State; after attending Gonzaga University and the University of Washington, he completed a doctorate at Stanford University in 1969. He taught at Case Western Reserve University and the Eastman School of Music, and then returned to Stanford in 1972, where he continues to teach early music. Since 1964 he has directed the choir of St. Ann’s Chapel in Palo Alto, which sings Mass and Vespers in Gregorian chant on all the Sundays of the year, with masses in the polyphonic music of Renaissance masters for the holy days.

His research interests include theory and performance of Medieval and Renaissance music, troubadours, Machaut, Dufay, Lasso, Dante, English Cathedrals, Gregorian chant, and Renaissance polyphony. He has published articles on the relation of music and liturgy, and music and poetry. He frequently leads workshops in the singing of Gregorian chant and the sacred music of the Renaissance.

Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka is an associate professor and the director of sacred music at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California, where she holds the William P. Mahrt Chair in Sacred Music and directs the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music.

Dr. Donelson-Nowicka serves as a consultant to the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship.

As a choral conductor, Donelson-Nowicka has directed collegiate, semi-professional, amateur, monastic, and children’s choirs.

Dr. Donelson-Nowicka is currently working on a project to adapt the Gregorian chants of the Mass proper for the Spanish language. She also hosts a weekly podcast entitled “Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast.”

David Hughes is a composer, conductor, and organist who is in international demand as a recitalist and an instructor of Gregorian chant.

He served for thirteen years as Organist & Choirmaster at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he developed a program of seven choirs, including the professional St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum, the volunteer St. Mary’s Choir, and the St. Mary’s Student Schola, a comprehensive program of musical education for children.

He directs Viri Galilæi, an ensemble of men from the tristate New York area who gather weekly to sing Vespers and medieval polyphony from facsimiles of original manuscripts. Hughes is Director of Music at St. John Fisher Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut, and serves as a consultant to several parishes in Connecticut looking to expand their musical programs.

Hughes’s composition teachers have included Ruth Schonthal and John Halle, and he has studied organ with Paul Jacobs and Daniel Sullivan. He is a graduate of Yale College.

Nationally recognized for his leadership in sacred music education, he founded the Boston Chapter of Choristers Guild, for which he served as president for eight years, served for many years as a festival supervisor and member of the Board of Directors of the American Federation Pueri Cantores, and currently directs the upper school chorus at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Still
River, MA.

An active member of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), he holds the
Choirmaster and Colleague certificates from the AGO, has lectured at both regional and national conventions, and is the recipient of both the AGO Choirmaster Prize and the S. Lewis
Elmer Award. He holds music degrees from Harvard University and St. Joseph’s College of Indiana, and resides in Massachusetts with his wife Mary Ann and their four children.

Dr. MeeAe Cecilia Nam,  known for her musical versatility, sensitivity and genuine interpretation (the Denver Post), has had a rich performance experience as a soloist in recitals, oratorios, sacred music, chamber and orchestral concerts, and stage works throughout the United States, Germany, Austria, and South Korea.

She has toured the U.S. and Europe with special recital programs of sacred music for voice and organ in the past 15 years. She has performed and premiered music written for her, and participated in many artistic collaborations with current composers in their works. 

In addition to her position as Professor of Voice at Eastern Michigan University, she has been on the faculty of the Church Music Association of America and at the Vianden International Summer Festival and School in Luxembourg. She has also been Guest Artist and Clinician at numerous institutions such as the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul, the Seoul National University of Education, University of Colorado in Boulder, and University of Tennessee in Knoxville, among many others.

Dr. Nam published a critical edition of Gouvy’s songs in two volumes with EC Schirmer in 2018. These two volumes are a unique and exclusive publication, and a valuable contribution to song literature. They are the result of her extensive scholarship and research in France, Germany, and the United States.

Composer, singer, and professor of music based in the shire of Lincoln, NE.  His works range from sacred choral music to cafe americana.  Nicholas has written for, and collaborated with, a number of choirs, most notably The Singers—Minnesota Choral Artists; Schola Cantorum of St. Joseph’s Seminary, Archdiocese of New York; the Church Music Association of America; and the Polyphonic Choir of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary. 

Nicholas has written music for stage and theater companies such as Epiphany Studio Productions (Scrutiny Passions), Open Window Theater (Allesandro, Vitae Monologues), Live Action Set (The Percussionist), and choreographer Vanessa Voskuil (The Silents). Nicholas was composer, mandolinist and a founding member of the Minneapolis-based avant-classical quartet Spaghetti Western String Co.  His compositional pen can be heard on their three critically acclaimed albums.

He is a professor of Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony, and vocal instruction at the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter’s (FSSP) Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, NE, a position he has held for the past eleven years.  Additionally, he directs the choir of St. Francis of Assisi Chapel (Lincoln, NE) and periodically provides chant instruction for diocesan religious and sacred music clinics throughout the USA.  For more information please visit www.nicholaslemme.com

Susan Treacy, Ph.D., is Professor of Music Emerita at Ave Maria University, from which she retired in July of 2019. Prior to AMU, she taught at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Luther College, and Emory University, where she was a Mellon Faculty Fellow in the Humanities.

Dr. Treacy holds the Ph.D. in historical musicology from the University of North Texas; her B.Mus. and M.Mus. degrees are from Oberlin Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music.

At Ave Maria University Dr. Treacy taught music history, art song literature, special topics courses, sacred music courses, and Gregorian chant; in addition, she directed the Women’s Schola Gregoriana and the Men’s Schola Gregoriana.

Alex Begin is co-creator, executive producer, and host of Extraordinary Faith, a half-hour television series about traditional Catholic sacred art, architecture, liturgy, and music on EWTN, the global Catholic cable TV channel.

Alex has been promoting the traditional Catholic Latin Mass since the mid 1980s, primarily in the Archdiocese of Detroit and the Diocese of London, Ontario, Canada.  He has created hundreds of Latin/English Propers Handouts for each day in the liturgical year to help people follow the Mass; these handouts are now used by churches across the globe.

Since 2006 he has been writing a weekly column, the Tridentine Community News, distributed at several metro Detroit Latin Mass sites and ​available at www.windsorlatinmass.org

At the urging of a former official of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, with similar encouragement from a former Auxiliary Bishop of London, Ontario, Alex began to offer a two-day intensive training session to teach priests how to celebrate the Traditional Mass. Over 200 priests and several bishops in the United States and Canada have taken Alex’s training, which is unique in that it is offered on-site at the priest’s church at no charge for time or travel. Every training session ends with the priest offering his first live Latin Mass.

William Riccio joins us again on staff for Colloquium 2023 as Master of
Ceremonies during the week. His extensive experience with both forms of the Roman Rite have made his assistance invaluable to the CMAA. Bill will present a breakout session on All that you wanted to know about the Ancient Form of the Mass but were afraid to ask, along with Fr. Robert Pasley and David Hughes.

Bill will work with celebrants and servers to assure the seamless coordination of all our liturgies.

Many participants have gained valuable experience and knowledge about serving at both Extraordinary and Ordinary Form Masses in past years by serving with Bill during our liturgies.

We know this will again be true in 2023.
Bill Riccio is a frequent contributor to the New Liturgical Movement, offering articles about the Traditional Latin Mass. He serves as Master of Ceremonies at St. Mary’s in Norwalk, CT.