About Sylvia Romer

I first met Sylvia Romer at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, Killara NSW in 2007.

Being a thirteen-year-old hymnodist at the time, I was mesmerized by the music she was already proficiently composing for our Sunday Mass each week. Within a few months, Sylvia and her husband Ted had secured me a position playing for Sunday Mass once a month; and have continued their wonderful friendship to me in the fourteen years which have since passed.​

Sylvia was born in Sydney, Australia in 1939 to Louise and Joseph Mauro. She spent her early childhood in Campsie NSW - Australia before living briefly in France with her family in 1947 before returning to Australia .

Sylvia met Edward (Ted) Romer in 1955 at a Catholic youth group and they were married in 1959. Between 1960 and 1978, Sylvia and Ted had four children and as of 2016 they have nine grandchildren aged between 4 and 29, two great grandchildren and one step-great granddaughter.

​Sylvia was prompted by Fr Paul Cahill at the time, the parish priest of Killara, to compose for the liturgy; a vocation with which she followed through on 3 September 2001. Sylvia composed a Psalm and Alleluia for every Sunday of the three-year cycle, at Fr Paul's original request but also composed four Mass settings between 2001 and 2009 for the 1969 ICEL translation of the Roman Missal and in 2011 composed the Mass setting Donum Maximum to accommodate the 2010 revisions to the ICEL translation of the Roman Missal.

Sylvia has also composed some fifteen congregational hymns as well as solo items to be sung by cantor or choir.​ Much is unique about Sylvia's style of writing, most notably her Inversion de Sylvia used at cadence points – a technique I have often borrowed in my own music. In its purest form , it is defined as the root note in a tonic chord (or a tonicised dominant chord), usually the second chord in an authentic cadence, moving from the fifth (usually) or the third (sometimes) to the tonic of that chord over the course of the chord, in a situation where the expectation would simply be a tonic note in the root of the chord. However, variations of the Inversion de Sylvia exist; and any situation in which a bass note moves from the fifth or third to the tonic of the chord (or even vice-versa) where ordinarily a sustained tonic note would be expected, is considered to be a variation of the Inversion de Sylvia.

​I have no hesitation in recommending Sylvia's music to anyone who is looking for top quality liturgical music. I wish her all the best in her endeavors.

​Christian Catsanos

9th June 2016