These Dominicans Can Play Jazz, Sing Chant, & Evangelize the Streets!

Tucked in the heart of the U.S. capitol, and across the street from the Catholic University of America, is the Dominican House of Studies.

It’s a small seminary dedicated to preparing young men to be priests in the Dominican order (although others can enroll as well). If you visit the small but beautiful campus, you’ll see Dominicans in their full habits, and you might overhear a debate over some obscure point in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologicae.

You might also hear some great music!

Check out both the official channel for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, OP East.org, and a self-identified “unofficial youtube channel of a certain friar who lives at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC and happens to have an interest in vocations,” how2pray, and you’ll find everything from jazz to chant. In some of the videos, they are joined by the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist (Ann Arbor) and the Dominican Sisters of Rosary House in Washington D.C.

Here are some examples:

Jazz group “Instrumental Causality” (get it??)

“O Adonai” of the “O Antiphons” for Advent

“Lean on Me” while evangelizing in Washington D.C.

Singing Christmas carols on the streets of Washington D.C.

Two Dominicans playing “Roll Away Your Stone” by Mumford and Sons

Sancta et Immaculata

The Irish song “Whiskey in the Jar”

Benedictus at the Dominican House of Studies