Why Sing: Pat Love on Brotherhood and Song

From the boys’ choir in the lower school to the men’s chorus in the upper school, informal performances at faculty dinners to songs at the annual Maryland Day Gala, singing echoes throughout the whole of The Heights experience. This week, we sit down with Mr. Patrick Love, music teacher at The Heights since 2004, to discuss not only when and where we sing at The Heights but why we love to sing so much.

As you’ll hear, singing—broadly understood—is at the heart of our school’s mission. Cantare amantis est, St. Augustine tells us: singing belongs to the one who loves. And as Arthur Clutton-Brock wrote, “education ought to teach us how to be in love always and what to be in love with.” In educating our boys to become men fully alive, then, we are ultimately helping them to love, to find their voice, and to fall in love with One who sings them into existence.

Chapters

  • 3:40 Where does singing happen at The Heights?
    • 4:30 A musical history of The Heights
  • 8:00 Where does singing happen amongst the faculty?
  • 12:27 What motivates us to sing? Why do we sing?
    • 13:45 Only the lover sings
    • 15:30 From The Magician’s Nephew
    • 18:40 Singing: the real deal
  • 21:00 Love, education, and singing at the crossroads
  • 22:23 Fr. Luigi Giussani and the CL Songbook
    • 23:30 Singing in the home
    • 25:28 John Senior
    • 29:45 Cal Newport on technology fasts
  • 31:10 On iTunes
  • 32:46 Singing in the homeroom: teaching as singing
  • 39:00 Singing and silence

Also on The Forum

Additional Resources

Pat Love

About the guest:

Pat Love


Patrick Love joined the faculty at The Heights in the music department in 2004, and he continues to be one of our most enthusiastic members. He comes with full teacher certification for all band and string instruments and voice from Towson University, where he studied music education with an emphasis in classical and jazz saxophone. Mr. Love has taught privately for the past ten years and currently plays with the Pat Love Project, a jazz group formed to promote America’s musical art form: jazz. Patrick and his wife, Jessica, have four children.

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