Concerts
Music in the Chapel
Our chapel has been blessed with the sounds of the Palouse Choral Society, The In-Between Jazz trio, Wilson-McVey-Hilliard Trio, and more.
Concert attendees experience music from around the world in the acclaimed acoustics of our light-filled chapel.
Don’t let yourself forget that God’s grace rewards not only those who never slip, but also those who bend and fall. So sing! The song of rejoicing softens hard hearts. It makes tears of godly sorrow flow from them. Singing summons the Holy Spirit. Happy praises offered in simplicity and love lead the faithful to complete harmony, without discord. Don’t stop singing.
Upcoming Concerts at St. Gertrude’s
The Valley Singers
The Monastery of St. Gertrude will host an Easter concert with the Valley Singers and two handbell choirs on Sunday, April 16 at 2:00 pm in the monastery chapel located at 465 Keuterville Rd., Cottonwood, ID, 83522.
The Valley Singers, directed by Carrie Bain, will offer an Easter cantata on the theme of Hope that is found in Jesus’ Resurrection. The choir will perform a compilation of contemporary, black gospel, and traditional Easter hymns.
Both the Community Handbell Choir and the Grangeville United Methodist Church Handbell Choir will also perform.
The Valley Singers started performing in 1955 and have been performing for the community off and on since. The group was created by a band director of Kamiah High School and other community members. The choir currently consists of 30 singers from different backgrounds, professions, and faiths.
Gary Eller
Folklorist and musician Gary Eller will present “Songs and Poems of the Early Idaho Panhandle Region” on Tuesday, May 2 at 5:00 pm in Spirit Center at the Monastery of St. Gertrude located at 465 Keuterville Rd., Cottonwood, ID, 83522.
Before the advent of radio and affordable recordings in the early 1920s, it was common for everyday people to write poems and songs shedding light on their culture. In Idaho, these highlighted mining, railroads, loggers, farmers, merchants, ranchers, outlaws and much more. For seventeen years, the Idaho Songs Project has been collecting, preserving and interpreting historically-based songs. Gary Eller’s program will present examples.
Gary Eller has played American roots music since he grew up in rural West Virginia. Following a thirty-year career as a nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, he retired to Nampa and immediately became deeply involved in Idaho history and music. Since initial funding from the Idaho Humanities Council in 2007 and 2008, he has compiled approximately 200 historically rooted songs of our region. Gary works closely with regional museums and universities to collect, archive, and bring to life through performance and interpretation the wonderful windows into Idaho’s heritage that these songs present. To date he has published eighteen thematic books with CDs based on these songs.
Mission Statement of Spirituality and the Arts at St. Gertrude
St. Benedict encouraged artistic expression in monastic life. The Benedictine Community of the Monastery of St. Gertrude fosters awareness of the sacred moment, tending the inner life and the beauty of creation. An inclusive community, we welcome the manifestations of beauty in our world and nurture its artistic possibilities.
Art is essential to the contemplative path. It expresses new ways to “see” the invisible and participate with the Divine and the human. The visible and invisible inform each other. The monastic and the artist live parallel lives of devotion. Through communal sharing and hospitality, they honor the abiding mystery of creation.
We embrace the mysteries of spiritual experience and artistic expression. We provide silence, time and space for discernment, humility and focus. We wish to help the creativity in all to flourish and deepen. Beauty comes not only from head and hand but from heart and soul.
