 USF Composer Teaches the Whole World to Sing
Composer Dan Schutte’s music can be heard all over the world, in Spanish, German, and Vietnamese. His compositions number more than 100 and his arrangements run the gamut from solo guitar and one vocalist to a 25-person full choir ensemble with strings and brass. Yet he has only one musical obsession: To get inside his listeners.
“For me, the important thing is that the music connect with people’s souls,” said Schutte, new director of liturgical music for University Ministry and composer-in-residence at USF. “It’s meant to lead people to prayer and for people to participate in.”
Schutte is a composer of Catholic liturgical music. In the 30-odd years of his career he has produced four collections of music on CD, with a fifth due out this fall. Some of his earlier works, produced in the mid-’70s, are well-established favorites at Mass. So much so, that many of the students he now directs in the University of San Francisco choir grew up singing his music.
Most of those songs, like “City of God” and “Here I Am, Lord” are prayers or incitements to prayer. Inspired by passages from Scripture, they are melodic renditions of the Psalms and stories familiar to Christians. Schutte, a Jesuit for 20 years before he left the order in 1986, said he writes most of his songs to complement different parts of Mass. Much of his inspiration comes from his many years of parish work as a choral or musical director.
“I realize we could use a piece of music for this or that or I get inspired by something in the Scriptures,” Schutte said. “It’s a wonderful way I get inspired, by working at ground level with people.”
It was Schutte’s work for St. Ignatius Parish that introduced him to the USF community. USF President Stephen A. Privett, S.J. asked Schutte to perform one of his songs for Fr. Privett’s inauguration. He was also appointed choral director for the 2001 graduation. After that, it seemed only natural to invite Schutte to become director of liturgical music for University Ministry and a composer-in-residence at the school.
“When I was at Mass in New Jersey last summer we were singing one of Dan’s songs,” said Don Crean, associate director of University Ministry. “I looked around and no one was looking at their books. It’s inspiring how many people know the words to his songs and are able to pray through his music.”
A Milwaukee, Wis. native, Schutte got his start composing at St. Louis University where he began his Jesuit studies. At that time, in the early ’70s, the Catholic liturgy was changing. The Vatican Council II had approved Masses in English in 1965 and suddenly, in Schutte’s words, the Church was “throwing the doors open.”
Schutte and four fellow Jesuit students and composers at St. Louis began to write more contemporary music for their newly modernized church. Influenced by popular folk music of the day, they substituted lively guitar accompaniment and syncopated rhythms for the stately organ music and measured beats of an older tradition. “It was very welcome and positively received,” Schutte said.
From folk music, Schutte moved all over the musical landscape for his inspiration. He has used gospel and Gregorian chant in his songs. Even the Native American beats he heard while teaching at a reservation in South Dakota influenced his work. His own personal constant, however, is a well-written melody. Without that, he said, his music can’t touch people.
“To me, the music gets inside them and then it makes a second step, to lead them into prayer.”
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