Willem Gommaar Kennis, alreadya violinist with the St. Gummarus church orchestra at age eleven, was appointed chapel master in 1742. The preserved appointment deed stipulated...

Willem Gommaar Kennis, alreadya violinist with the St. Gummarus church orchestra at age eleven, was appointed chapel master in 1742. The preserved appointment deed stipulated that he was expected to teach the choir boys to read and write, to attend church services on a regular basis, to compose music and leave it for free on the singers tribune. There are only eight known vocal works, including a Magnificat, a Salve Regina and a Te Deum, which have now been recorded on an album for the first time. The works are kept in the archives of the Antwerp cathedral and come from the estate of Willem Jacobus Josephus Kennis, a son from Willem Gommaar's second marriage. Christoffel Drymans studied at Leuven University and was ordained as a priest. In 1763, he was appointed chapel master. During his tenure in Lier, the music academy flourished and the music library collection expanded considerably with new works by local and international composers. Of Drymans himself, only six compositions are still held in the church's archives, including Tria sunt, an anthem for the Office of the Dead, the motet Dixit Dominus and the extensive Opusculum musicum novem lamentationum, a collection of works to texts of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah for the Paschal Triduum.