The Rev. Canon Aaron Huberfeld leads the choir in “Salve Regina”
Nick Botkins was a teenager from Maysville, Ky., when he attended Music at Maple Mount in the mid-1990s.
“I only have fond memories of the music camp here,” he said on Aug. 10 from the Rainbow Room in Saint Joseph Villa. It was that fondness from his youth that prompted Botkins to bring the Institute of Christ the King Choir Camp to the Mount Saint Joseph Conference and Retreat Center for a music camp in 2010, and to return this August for the second year.
“It’s very nostalgic for me,” Botkins said. Sister Elaine Burke worked with Music at Maple Mount for many years, and has her own nostalgia about Botkins. “He was the first person other than a sister who played our new organ in the chapel,” Sister Elaine said.
A little more than three years ago, Botkins went to work at St. Francis DeSales Oratory in St. Louis, as director of sacred music and master of choirs, starting choirs for both boys and girls. This is the second camp the oratory has organized, with half of the 25 attendees from St. Louis, and the rest from across the country, he said. Boys and girls ages 9 to 15 participate.
The Institute of Christ the King leads St. Francis DeSales Oratory, and the vicar, the Rev. Canon Aaron Huberfeld, led the children in a performance for the sisters at Saint Joseph Villa on Aug. 10. The Institute of Christ the King, begun in 1990, uses the traditional Latin Mass of 1962, and the children who perform during the camp sing in Latin. They sang “Salve Regina,” “Agnus Dei,” and “Sanctus” for the sisters, among others.
The sisters visited with the performers and organizers after the concert. Here is a slideshow of photos from the day.