Meet the School’S New Sacred Music Director
Mr. Micheal Olbash, the new Director ,of Sacred Music at Donahue Academy, moved from Boston to Ave Maria earlier this year. His rich career includes experience teaching sacred music at two seminaries. At Donahue Academy, his goal is to help his students understand how music points to transcendental values. “It’s not just a matter of taste. We can discern what is beautiful in music and what points us to the truth… What points us to the ultimate truth, which is our Lord Jesus Christ,” says Mr. Olbash. His love for music, especially as it relates to the faith, began at an early age. At around 12 years old, he would stop at the church, sit down at the piano or organ, and play in the “It was my way of speaking with the Lord to communicate with Him and listen to Him in the silences that followed,” he says. He desires to give his students the same opportunity to pray in that way with our Lord, “that perhaps even when they don’t have the word themselves, to know what to offer the Lord, that they can give something of themselves, something very intimate in the sung Liturgy,” he says. For instance, he describes the schola that sings at the daily school Mass as “living in a monastery together,” as they “sound very convincing.” Mr. Mark Haas, Music director of music at Ave Maria Parish describes the Mr. Olbash’s arrival as “a very healthy experience” because the music at both the parish and school can be brought closer together. “He has brought a level of excellence that we are lucky to have,” says Mr. Haas. Mr. Olbash points to that excellence when he says “I’m convinced many of [Donahue’s students] will go on to be great parish priests, bishops, great theologians, great politicians who will usher this country into an age of greatness.” And to that we sing: Alleluia!
