Transformed: New Life for Our Church Music Program

Musically, three wonderful things came our way at Christ Church this year.

Our new music director. We invested several months in composing a detailed survey and collecting responses from parishioners about the type of music program they wanted. We wrote a job description based on our collected data and issued a nationwide call. We received forty applications. Over the next four months, our committee read resumes and CVs, listened to recordings, watched videos, ranked and re-ranked the candidates. We winnowed the field down to the top three—not easy—and brought them in for an interview and audition. We made our hiring recommendation to the rector, and our top choice accepted the position.

Real choir folders! I came from a choir that used performance folders designed for choral singers. At Christ Church we fumbled with the standard Staples-variety three-ring binder, mostly designed to sit on a desk. It was a poor substitute, awkward to hold, and falling apart from constant use. My annual plea for real folders fell on deaf ears. Year sixteen in the group, a new music director, and voila! Real choir folders are ours!

A mirror! And yes, this is a big deal. We sing in a traditional split choir configuration, and those of us on the organ console side couldn’t see our director when he conducted from the console. Anyone who sings in a choir knows that watching the conductor is the lifeline in keeping the ensemble together. We needed a mirror, but requests for one were met with refusals as it wouldn’t be “original to the building’s architecture. What? I pointed to several modifications to the sanctuary not original to the church’s architecture. For heaven’s sake, the building is one hundred years old. New music director, new mirror, no complaints about architectural integrity. Best of all, we can see.