The Ensemble of the Gregorian Chant Academy
Carolingia
Traditiones Custodes — Guardians of Tradition
Coming Soon ✦ Defend Us In Battle ✦ The Debut Recording of Carolingia
Learn MoreWho We Are
The Professional Ensemble of the GCA
Christopher Jasper
Founder & Director
CAROLINGIA is the professional ensemble of the Gregorian Chant Academy, directed by GCA founder Christopher Jasper. Its singers are professional, independently contracted musicians — each of them devout, practicing Catholics who bring vocal skill and genuine faith to everything they sing. Carolingia was first conceived in January 2022, with four years of preparation and discernment preceding its formal establishment in January 2026.
Where the Academy teaches, Carolingia sings — offering a living example of what prayerful, historically grounded sacred music sounds like, not as a theory, but as a practice. Every interpretive choice is rooted in prayer, and the authentic musical manuscripts and treatises of the time.
Carolingia's first and foremost dedication is to the restoration and fostering of authentic Gregorian chant. Alongside this, the ensemble is also devoted to the early polyphony of the 12th through 15th centuries — from the Codex Calixtinus to the works of Josquin des Prez — repertoire that grew directly out of the chant tradition and carried its prayerful spirit into new voices.
Carolingia sings for real liturgies, concerts and albums, seeking to orient humanity toward God. This music is offered as prayer — a small act of beauty given back to the One from whom all beauty comes.
The Threefold Mission
Why Carolingia Exists
While the Academy teaches, Carolingia hopes to offer a helpful point of reference: a living example of chant rooted in both prayer and historical practice. Every performance choice is grounded in authentic manuscript tradition, so that it can be accounted for rather than merely felt. For the men of the ensemble, this includes the robust vox virilis — also called vox gravis — a full, grounded vocal tradition advocated by saints such as St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Dominic: the voice of the Church Militant, joyfully and unapologetically singing the praises of God. Carolingia also composes new chants — among them the Sancte Michael — and at times sings the traditional repertoire in harmony, whether in early polyphony drawn from the same centuries as the chant itself, or in new harmonies shaped by that same tradition. A living tradition must also live.
We believe sacred music is not passive. It reclaims spaces. It drives back demons and disorder. And when sung joyfully in the full vox virilis style, it uplifts and reorients the human soul toward the Divine. Carolingia's recordings — including Defend Us In Battle — are not designed merely for listening. They are designed to restore the domestic church, to serve as formation tools, and to place authentic chant in the hands of every Catholic household.
The Second Vatican Council, echoing Popes Pius X, XI, and XII, declared that sacred music is "a treasure of inestimable value, greater than that of any other art," and that Gregorian Chant "shall have principal place in the liturgy." A renewal of sacred music is already taking root across the Church, carried forward by many communities, scholars, and musicians who came before us. Carolingia hopes to add its own small voice to that renewal, in whatever way God allows.
The Name
Why Carolingia
The name CAROLINGIA refers to the Carolingian dynasty — the era of Charlemagne — when the Roman and Gallican chant traditions first merged to produce what we now call Gregorian chant, and when musical notation itself was born.
It was from this fusion that polyphony emerged, that the arts and architecture flourished, and that the intellectual culture of the West was rebuilt after centuries of fragmentation. The Carolingian era was, in the truest sense, the first Renaissance — predating that of the fourteenth century by five hundred years.
We hope, in our own small way, to do something similar: to help bridge the gap between historical scholarship and living liturgical practice, and to take part in a new flowering of sacred beauty in the Church.
A Legacy in Three Movements
Century
Under Charlemagne, Roman and Gallican chant traditions merge. Musical notation is invented. The first Renaissance begins.
to Present
Doms Guéranger, Pothier, Mocquereau, Cardine, Jean Claire, and Saulnier, together with friends such as Luigi Agustoni, Msgr. Alberto Turco, and Nino Albarossa, have painstakingly worked to restore the chant tradition from its manuscripts.
Carolingia carries both inheritances — the Carolingian synthesis and the Solesmes restoration — into the present moment, for the living Church. While holding the Solesmes tradition with reverence, we remain free to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
How We Gather
A Project-Based Ensemble
Carolingia is not, at this time, a permanent ensemble with a fixed roster of singers. Rather than maintain a small resident group, singers are Catholic, independently contracted musicians already known to the director, selected for each liturgy, recording or engagement.
As Carolingia grows, this model may change. For now, it allows the ensemble to bring together some of the finest voices available for each work undertaken, while remaining a small, faithful, and flexible endeavor.
Carolingia Defend Us In Battle
A collection of Gregorian chants for the domestic church — not background music, but a sacred arsenal. Designed to reclaim your home, reorient your soul, and give glory to God.
Learn More"Sacred Music is a treasure of inestimable value, greater than that of any other art. Gregorian Chant shall have principal place in the liturgy."Second Vatican Council — Sacrosanctum Concilium
Bring the Renaissance to Your Parish
Carolingia is available to sing for liturgies, sacred concerts, and music workshops. If you are interested in bringing authentic Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony to your community, we would be honored to hear from you.
Inquire About Bookings