St. Mary's Church in Auburn has its first new music director in more than 30 years.

Colleen Liggett has been hired to replace Dave Correll, who retired in May. Before coming to Auburn in September, Liggett served as the cantor and choirmaster at St. Anne's Church in Rochester. She has degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Rutger's University.

When asked how she learned of the vacancy at St. Mary's, Colleen said, “I worked with [St. Mary's pastor] Father Lioi at St. Anne's. He was one of the people I talked to when I was ready for a change.”

This timing coincided with the Auburn vacancy.

After he had chosen Liggett to be the new music director, Lioi made his congregation aware of it in the July 27 bulletin. After thanking the men and women who had served St. Mary's music ministry in some way, he wrote, “To ensure the future growth of liturgical music in our parish, I have asked Colleen Liggett to join our parish staff. Colleen is a specialist in early music and will bring her rich background to Saint Mary's.”

Building on some of the programs she directed or started in Rochester, Liggett has big plans for the music and musicians at St. Mary's Church.

“There is a lot of potential here,” she said. “I would like to start a Gregorian chant schola for both men and women. The children's choir starts in October. They're called the choristers. Nine children have signed up so far. I'm hoping to expand this program so there are more opportunities for them. I'd like to start a junior high/senior high school choir.”

The schola, which is a group of people who perform church music, that Liggett hopes to start, will be open to men and women who want to sing. Some of the members of Schola Feminarum, a woman's singing group that Liggett directed in Rochester, could read music, but others couldn't. They only had to listen, learn and sing.

Liggett is very knowledgeable about early music and instruments.

“I'm a medievalist,” she said. “In May there is an International Medieval Congress that meets in Kalamazoo, Mich. I've been going for a number of years. I got into chant through the back door. A lot of musicologists study chant, but I was studying the secular music of the same period, which was based on chant. So I started studying chant and got hooked.”

Liggett currently lives in Springwater but is looking for a place closer to Auburn. She would like to supplement her work at St. Mary's by giving private voice lessons. She has recently made arrangements to work with Lori Pettit out of her studio at Speno music. Liggett's husband, John, recently retired, but still operates a consulting business from a home office.

For the past few weeks, Liggett has been writing announcements for the church bulletin, encouraging adults and children to join the choirs.

“Now is the perfect time to join,” she wrote in the Sept. 21 issue, “because I am also new to the choir. If you sing, please consider this important offering to God and your parish.“

She has great respect for current members of the choir.

“The choir's great here,” she said. “They have done a lot, and they have sung together for a long time. However, a few people have retired recently, three from the bass section, and we would really welcome new members. We meet Thursday nights.”

Liggett may be contacted at the St. Mary's rectory at 252-9545.