PAUL JERNBERG, JR.
Born in Chicago in 1953, Paul's early professional formation included music and piano performance studies at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago and Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. He is a graduate of DePaul University in Chicago.
His early career in secular music included work as a piano accompanist and musical theater director. Alongside this musical work, Paul was also a professional swimming coach, holding positions in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at Arizona State University in Tempe, and in Gothenburg, Sweden.
In Sweden, 1983-1993, Paul's musical career expanded to include choral directing and composition. During this time he also participated in the community life of a Franciscan Friary near Gothenburg, through which he was introduced to the treasures of Gregorian chant and Eastern Orthodox sacred music.
Since returning to the U.S. in 1993, Paul has been a parish music director, composer, and educator: in Chicago’s inner city, in Peoria, Illinois, and in central Massachusetts. During his ten years at Trivium School in Lancaster, Massachusetts, he taught not only music but also English Literature and Composition, Theology, Latin, French, and Algebra.
In 2005 Paul became the founding director of Magnificat Academy, a Choir School with a full academic curriculum for grades 4-12 in Warren, Massachusetts. After flourishing in Warren for three years, it was moved to Worcester to become the Choir School of St. Paul's Cathedral. In the midst of national and local economic crises, Magnificat shifted its focus in 2011 to the renewal of Catholic liturgical music in the universal Church. Today Paul is the director of this full-fledged non-profit organization, which has been renamed Magnificat Institute of Sacred Music.
In the summer of 2014, the renowned Schola Cantorum of St. Peter the Apostle recorded Paul’s Mass of Saint Philip Neri, which is the first published musical setting of the entire Ordinary of the Mass in English, for congregation and SATB choir. This and other sacred music by Paul is now being sung in many parishes throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
In January 2021, EWTN aired the world premiere of The Song of the Longing Heart, a documentary by French filmmaker Francois Lespes, on Paul's work as a composer of sacred music.
