Dr. Sara Pecknold holds a Ph.D. in Historical Musicology with a minor in Vocal Performance from The Catholic University of America, where she served as a lecturer in the History of Sacred Music and directed the Sacred Music Consort from 2016 to 2022. Dr. Pecknold has presented at numerous conferences and institutions, including Christendom College’s Beato Fra Angelico Fine Arts Series (2020 and 2022), the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music (2012), the Annual Conference of the American Musicological Society (2016), the International Institute for Culture (2017), Seton Hall University’s Monsignor Cafone Lecture (2019), and Princeton University’s “Strozzi ’400,” which celebrated the fourth centennial of the birth of the prolific seventeenth-century composer, Barbara Strozzi (2019). In March of 2016, Dr. Pecknold appeared on BBC Three’s Composer of the Week series on the life and music of Barbara Strozzi. Her articles have appeared in the Yale Journal of Music and Religion,  New Blackfriars, the Catholic Herald, Christendom College’sInstaurare and Catholic Arts Today, a publication of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship.  Dr. Pecknold’s current research concerns Marian art and music created throughout the Church’s history, Eucharistic devotion in seventeenth-century Venice, and the role of music in Counter-Reformation mystical theology. At Catholic University, Dr. Pecknold was the founding director of the Concerts spirituels, a sacred music concert series honoring the liturgical calendar. She is currently Director of the Center for Sacred Music and associate professor at Christendom College. Also a professional soprano, Dr. Pecknold has often served as a cantor in her home parish, the Basilica of St. Mary in Alexandria, Virginia. She lives in Alexandria with her husband and five children.

Dr. Kurt Poterack is a full-time assistant professor of music who specializes in music theory but teaches other classes as well such as Gregorian chant and a course in the Theolgy of Worship and Its Music. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education, and a Masters and a Doctorate in Music Composition. He was for ten (10) years the editor of the quarterly journal Sacred Music, the oldest continuously published journal on music in the United States and is a board member of the Dom Mocquereau Foundation in Washington DC. This Foundation which is housed at the Catholic University of America, oversees the Ward Method of Instruction in Music for children. He considers his greatest mission in life to be the handing on of what Fr. Dr. Robert Skeris, musician, and theologian of musica sacra so genrously gave to him while he was chaplain at Christendom College in the 1990's and beyond.

Sarah Shafer holds a Master of Music in Vocal Pedagogy and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University. While at Shenandoah, she received the Pruitt Scholarship for Academic Excellence, the Rita Noel Scholarship for Excellence in the field of Vocal Pedagogy, the Joy Shaeffer Barbera Scholarship for Excellence in the Field of Voice, and was awarded the Chamber Choir Award for Excellence in Choral Singing. Shenandoah’s rigorous choral program included annual concerts of major works at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra, and bi-annual European tours in which the choir performed a cappella concerts, and had the privilege to sing for Mass at various churches, including St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City and St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Sarah Shafer has taught vocal lessons in Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. and has worked as a soprano soloist and section leader. Primarily, Sarah Shafer has had a career as a Choral Director, with an emphasis on Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian Chant. She has twenty-four years of experience as a parish Music Director in the Diocese of Arlington. Currently, Sarah Shafer is the Music Director of St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Annandale, where she directs the Adult Choir, Children’s Choir, Schola, and seasonal Women’s Choir, conducting two Choir Masses each Sunday, including a Latin Novus Ordo Mass.

Benjamin LaPrairie, Associate Director of Music, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  Since 2011, he has assisted in the leadership of the music department and has regularly accompanied daily, Sunday, and other special Masses throughout the year.  Notable liturgies include the Canonization Mass of Saint Junípero Serra, celebrated by Pope Francis, and the Funeral Mass of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  In May of 2019, Benjamin performed with the Choir of the Basilica in concerts and liturgies in Rome for the commemoration of 35 years of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy See.  Previous posts include Principal Organist at St. Dominic Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., and Director of Music at St. Patrick Catholic Church in St. Charles, Illinois.

As a composer, Benjamin’s works have been performed by the Choir, Brass, and Orchestra of the Basilica, and have been recorded and broadcast worldwide on EWTN, Salt & Light Media, and CatholicTV.  His setting of Christus Vincit was premiered upon the entrance of Pope Francis into the Great Upper Church of the National Shrine in September of 2015.  Recent works include a setting of Ye Sons and Daughters for the Choir and Orchestra of the Basilica, a setting of Joy to the World for the choirs and orchestra of The Catholic University of America, and a choral setting of ISTE CONFESSOR for the Diocese of Orange, CA.  As an organist, Benjamin has performed throughout the United States and abroad, and has been featured as a soloist with the Pine Mountain Music Festival, at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, NJ, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Eccles Organ Festival at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, UT, the Sacra Liturgia Conference at St. Patrick Seminary in San Francisco, CA, the Cathedral Concert Series at St. Augustine Cathedral in Kalamazoo, MI, the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and the Festival Organistico Internazionale della città di Alba, Italy.

 A native of Michigan, Benjamin is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance, where he studied organ with Robert Glasgow.  He received a Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied organ with John Walker, and was the recipient of the Bruce R. Eicher Prize in Organ.  In the fall of 2019, Benjamin was appointed Lecturer in Organ at The Catholic University of America Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art, and in the spring of 2024, he joined the music faculty of Christendom College in Front Royal, VA.  Since 2022, Benjamin has been a member of the board of the Catholic Sacred Music Project, under the patronage of Robert Cardinal Sarah.