Welcome
Experience Sacred Music
in New York City
Discover the deep heritage of sacred music through liturgy, content series, and community.
What We Do
Three Ways to Experience Sacred Music
Weekly
Vespers
The evening prayer of the Church, sung together. A place to pray in beauty and stillness. No experience necessary — just come.
Monthly
Content Series
Music & theology sessions exploring the ordinaries of the Mass, the spirituality of chant, and the deep patrimony of sacred music.
Quarterly
Special Events
Beautifully performed sacred music — from Lessons and Carols to polyphony showcases. Experiences of transcendent beauty.
WHO WE ARE
Restoring the Conditions in Which
Sacred Music Can Flourish
The School of Sacred Music is an educational and liturgical initiative based in Manhattan. We are dedicated to teaching people how to pay loving attention to the concrete forms of the Church’s liturgical and musical heritage. We do this by helping people encounter sacred music not as an abstraction or performance style, but as a lived form of prayer within the worship of the Church.
Our work includes sung liturgies, educational content series, workshops, and special events. Our focus is on the content of the Catholic musical tradition as it serves prayer, contemplation, and deeper knowledge. Our approach emphasizes the ordered relationship between Scripture, prayer, and music.
Long ago, Aristotle asked why music is more pleasurable when it is familiar than when it is unfamiliar. We aim to make the music of the Church more pleasurable in this deeper sense—by helping people come to know it not merely as a piece of history or a set of musical techniques, but as a living voice that speaks to us today.
Zachary Watters
Executive Director
More about Zach
Zach Watters was born and raised under the shadow of the Himalayas in the country of Nepal. He was raised with a deep love for the beauty of language and a conviction that the words we hear and say can change our lives. He studied medieval studies and classical languages at Baylor as well as philosophical theology at Yale, while singing in professional choirs at both institutions. He has been a founding teacher, assistant headmaster and headmaster at different schools, and he now brings his love of language, liturgy, and music to the School of Sacred Music. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and two children.
All Are Welcome
Our Community