Little Sparks

Send us Fan Mail This week on the Little Sparks podcast, we're excited to introduce you to flutist Cathy Herrera! In full story-telling mode, she shares her musical path, her faith journey from various Protestant churches to the Catholic church, and how having an open heart has allowed God to lead her in delightfully unexpected ways. Cathy is an absolute delight, and her wisdom and insights a...

Send us Fan Mail As Catholics, we practice our faith. As musicians, we practice our craft. How can our practice of each aid in the practice of the other? In today's episode, we seek to explore the connection between the two, and how the art of practicing (for it truly is an art) can help us not only grow as musicians, but in holiness as well. What we're listening to this week: Cecilia: P...

Send us Fan Mail For the first time ever on the podcast, we have two guests! Meet Dan (Tara's boyfriend) and John (Cecilia's fiancé). We invited our significant others on the show today to talk about their perspective on music as non-musicians, and it was a really fascinating and beautiful conversation to have. What we're listening to: Cecilia: Consider the Stars, Keith and Kristyn...

Send us Fan Mail On December 31, 2022, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI passed away – and it seems that on that day, people began to really wake up to the treasure he was to the Church. Benedict XVI had a deep and profound appreciation for beauty, and for music. He had a grand piano in the papal apartments on which he enjoyed playing, he was an avid lover of Mozart, and he gave an address to artists aro...

Send us Fan Mail It might seem ironic to talk about silence in a podcast episode, but today we're discussing silence with our first guest of the season, Lauren Revay. If you've been following the Hildegard Collective for awhile now, you might recognize her name as she's written a couple of wonderful pieces on beauty for our blog. This episode comes just in time for the beginning of...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back for season 2 of the Little Sparks podcast! We start out with an episode on beauty. What is it? Can beauty be defined? Are there characteristics of beauty? We're also spending some time chatting about the Transcendentals – qualities of God. Resources: Beauty: What It Is and Why It Matters, by John-Mark Miravelle What we're listening to: Cecilia's pick: I...

Send us Fan Mail We're back! Well, almost. We're recording season 2 and having such a good time with it that we wanted to share a sneak preview with you of what to expect! Be sure to listen to the end to hear when Season 2 will premiere!

Send us Fan Mail While you wait for news on season 2, we've compiled a blooper episode from our interview we did with Anselm Black! We hope it gives you a good laugh & we'll see you in season 2!

Send us Fan Mail In our last episode of season 1, we chat with Emalie Huber of The Cantor Coach! We were so blessed to have Emalie Huber, aka @thecantorcoach, on the podcast for our last episode of season 1! We chatted with Emalie about how she started her ministry, the beauty that's come from it, and her new work with training seminarians how to sing. Emalie's ministry is so beautiful a...

Send us Fan Mail In this bonus episode, Tara's sharing her top life hacks for managing and overcoming performance anxiety.   As someone who's personally suffered from this for years, Tara's run the gamut when it comes to trying out ways to manage performance anxiety. She notes that ultimately it's up to each person to figure out what works for them; but these ten tips she'...

Send us Fan Mail Today we're chatting with Anselm Black, a cantor at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in Spokane, Washington, lifelong Byzantine Catholic, and dear friend from college. Anselm gives us an insight into the use of music in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy and his own experience with it, and we explore the ethereality of Eastern liturgical music. We also have a great discussion t...

Send us Fan Mail When life gets crazy, it's very tempting to put prayer on the back burner. We've all done it – no shame! But God calls us to relationship with Him regardless of how busy we are, and even if we haven't been the most successful at continuing to pray during busy seasons in the past, we can always try again. God's always waiting for us with open arms! This week on...

Send us Fan Mail In this short bonus episode, Cecilia addresses the difficulties musicians often have in wrapping up their identities with their profession. She shares her own personal journey with this difficulty, and passes on a helpful insight from her freshman year theology class. 

Send us Fan Mail Today on the podcast, we're discussing the purpose of liturgical music, and why understanding the purpose of liturgical music matters. We chatted about how liturgical music also includes music for the Liturgy of the Hours, took a detour into Eucharistic miracles, and touched on the difference between sacred music and liturgical music.  This is a scratch-the-surface episode on...

Send us Fan Mail We brought on mezzo-soprano Julia Janowski for a chat on the podcast today. She and Tara met at SEEK 2019 and have been good friends ever since, and Cecilia's just meeting her for the first time today after hearing about her from Tara for four years! We had a fantastic time chatting about her musical journey, mezzo soprano roles, Edward Elgar's The Snow, and those profou...

Send us Fan Mail When we hear the words "Theology of the Body", we're most likely going to do one of two things. Either we ask what it is, or we associate it with Pope St. John Paul II's teachings on human sexuality. But while human sexuality is a key aspect of theology of the body, there's so much more to it. Theology means study of God; and so theology of the body is wha...

Send us Fan Mail Today we're super excited to chat with Bridget Gindhart, a songwriter located in Harrisburg, PA and a dear friend of the Hildegard Collective. She shared some beautiful perspective on glorifying God through the creation of secular music and how she desires to bring God to her listeners regardless of their faith and beliefs. She also shared how experiencing a guitar-related in...

Send us Fan Mail Join Cecilia and Tara for a chat about the life and legacy of St. Hildegard von Bingen, the impact she had on the Church and continues to have today (cough cough pumpkin spice cough), and what she can teach us about authentic self care. 

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Tara and Cecilia chat about Pope St. John Paul II's Letter to Artists, a beautiful letter released on Easter Sunday, 1999, to artists worldwide. They especially chat about the creative streak in every human (whether they realize it or not), the capacity of genre of music to lead someone towards God, and the Church's embrace of all that is good, beautiful...

Send us Fan Mail Learn more about the Little Sparks podcast, our co-hosts Cecilia Leskowicz and Tara McDermott, and what to expect from the show!