The Pontifical Ambrosian Institute of Sacred Music (PIAMS) is a research centre of academic nature with scientific, teaching and pastoral aims in the liturgical-musical area, which gives particular attention to the Ambrosian rite and chant.
The Institute, founded in 1931 by the blessed cardinal A.I. Schuster, archbishop of Milan, was raised according to the rules by the Holy See in 1940 and nowadays is - similarly to the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, which is consociated with - an Institute "ad instar facultatis" and it is authorized to confer university qualifications with canonical validity.
Through the scientific improvement and the teaching of liturgical-musical subjects, the PIAMS intends to advance the knowledge, the development and the diffusion of the liturgy and of the sacred music, and the education of the ecclesiastical musicians and of future teachers and people in charge in the liturgical-musical area.
«The application of the Second Vatican Council's guidelines on the renewal of sacred music and liturgical song - especially in choirs, sacred music groups and scholae cantorum - today requires of pastors and faithful a sound cultural, spiritual, liturgical and musical formation. It also calls for profound reflection in order to define the criteria for creating and disseminating a high-quality repertoire which will enable musical expression to serve its purpose, "the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful"».
«I wish we too could consider this celebration as the beginning of a new march, which first of all must concern our ambrosian liturgy. Not only we have to celebrate it faithfully, but also understand and experience it spiritually and through its symbols, convey it to the new generations in a right and faithful way, improve it contemporaneously with inventiveness, so that it can express the vitality of our particular Church in the symphony of all liturgic forms belonging to the universal Church».
Corso Garibaldi, 116
I - 20121 MILANO
Tel: +39 02.89406400
Fax: +39 02.89406400
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