For your resource shelf:  LATIN:  Latin Pronunciation According to Roman Usage  Edited by William D. Hall, National Music Pub., Anaheim, CA. This is an indispensable, thin paper back manuel...  Mine is old but I can't imagine that it is very expensive.  ~janine

Barbara-

 

Consider this: if you sing a piece in Latin, composed by an Italian composer, use the Italian pronunciation  of Latin, as cited by Kentaro;  if you sing a German or Austrian piece, say, composed by Mozart, check out the pronunciation guide published by MENC. It has a section on German pronunciation of Latin, which is a bit different from the "Roman usage."

 

IF you sing a piece composed by an English composer, say, William Byrd, the pronunciation is again a bit different. Or you can have the chorus sing the Italian pronunciation, if t hat works for you. For the German pronunciation, listen to German choruses- I think it is nice to sing the texts with the pronunciation of the geographic region!

 

Best Wishes,

Carl Smith

 Assuming you are going to do more Latin sacred texts in the future (a laudable goal), you should have the following book in your personal library:

 

Translations and Annotations of Choral Repertoire

Volume 1: Sacred Texts

Ron Jeffers

Published by earthsongs

 

Not only will this book give you authentic Italian Latin pronunciation, it will give you translations and useful descriptive materials for any Latin sacred piece you program.

 

Bill Paisner

Director, Southwest Women's Chorus

Barbara,

I agree that sometimes close is good enough and that doing Latin in MS is one of those cases.  Let's not confuse them with too much information.  Get them tasting the language and hook them, then in later years add some of academics.  At any rate, I find that using words they know helps them get the right sound.  In your case I would use the word "queasy" for Qui and two words for Venit - "vent" to get away from the diphthong, and "neat" for the last syllable.

 

Randy Van Wingerden

Grand Rapids Christian HS and MS