California Mission Music
Gloria Dei: The Story of California Mission Music was published by the California Department of Parks and Recreation with funds provided in part by the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of California. The booklet was the result of research conducted by Sister Mary Dominic of Dominican College in San Rafael. The commission’s financial support also paid for recordings of two Mission Music master records and two live performances at La Purísima Mission by the John Biggs Consort, a mixed voice group accompanied by period musical instruments. The concerts featured sacred music from Spain and Mexico, and music originally taught to and sung by the missions’ indigenous inhabitants. The concerts included performances of indigenous music of Southern California tribes. These songs from the Miwok, Mojave and Yurok peoples, among others, were transcribed in the early twentieth century by two University of California professors, Alfred Louis Kroeber and Derrick Norman Lehmer. The musical recordings would later be played at missions across California.
