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Church Music
Thank you again
for making our holiday observances so special. People were healed and
galvanized and inspired and all sorts of other good emotions flowed. We'll
do it again! —Geoffrey A. Petersen,
NJ
Thanks for
your musicality, for your energy, for your creativity, your ability to do
anything on the spot (and do it beautifully!). Your talent is great and we
are fortunate to be the recipients of your wonderful music. —Susan Krech, Christ Church, Denver,
CO
The
soundhole on my first dulcimer, Shadrach.
(photo by Lucille Reilly)
During my freshman year at Westminster Choir College, word got around about my recorder playing,
particularly that I could improvise and extemporize. It wasn't long before the Church Music
Department at the College found out, and soon I was invited to improvise to the hymns
sung during one of
Westminster's Saturday Seminars for church musicians. The attendees, from a wide
geographical area
surrounding the campus in Princeton, New Jersey, were pleasantly surprised,
although several approached me afterwards asking: "Where am I going to find
someone in my area who does this kind of thing?" I suggested I could do it, and
I've been serving as a church resource musician ever since. for further information.
The point of this kind of music-making is to enhance the worship
experience for everyone. Through recorders of various sizes, hammered dulcimer and autoharp, I breathe new
life into "old" tunes at a time when
praise music challenges the role of the organ and hymns in the Church. (I can
improvise to praise music but enjoy the intricacies of harmonizing to "the great
hymns of the Church" far more.) And I never require applause; in fact,
I've been known to ask congregations to hold off and let the last note trail at the end of a musical
selection. It's all "soli Deo gloria!" (I am currently
preparing a workshop for chapters of the American Guild of Organists on how to
create "improvised" written parts for guest instrumentalists;
for information in bringing this workshop to your chapter. To hear a sample
hymn improvisation, click
here.)
Offerings for church services
include:
-
prelude, offertory, special music, postlude (see my solo
repertoire lists for dulcimer and autoharp and the Christmas/Advent list—one day soon I would like to delve
back into the wonderful four-movement recorder sonatas I played in college).
-
improvising to hymns played by the organ and sung by the
congregation (all instruments; recorder and Bach chorales go together
especially well!).
-
participate in choral anthems, either as the sole
accompanist or as a supporting musician (see my choral
music list).
Geographical distance is
not an obstacle. Some of the churches I've brought music to include:
St. John's Cathedral, Denver CO (where I served as Music Associate under the
leadership of Donald Pearson); Christ Church Cranbrook, Bloomfield Hills MI; St.
Timothy Lutheran Church, Wayne NJ; First Presbyterian Church, West Chester PA;
All Saints Episcopal Church, Birmingham AL; St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Ann
Arbor MI; Fairfax United Methodist Church, Fairfax, VA; Montview Presbyterian
Church, Denver CO; Moorestown (NJ) United Methodist Church; Port Charlotte and Edgewater United
Methodist Churches, both in Port Charlotte FL; Pennington (NJ) Presbyterian
Church; Christ Episcopal Church, Denver CO; Grace and First United Methodist
Churches, Winfield KS; Church of the Ascension, Frankfort, KY; St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Denver CO; and for
church services held in Yellowstone National Park, WY. Additionally, I
participated in a church bicentennial program for the United Methodist Council of Bishops
convocation in Madison NJ,
and provided special music during the monthly chapel service for the
employees of Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, CO. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury celebrated the Eucharist while I played hymns on diatonic autoharp!
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