Blessed with a dad who joyously filled our home with his “by-ear” piano tunes and a mom who was always exposing us to the great composers through her large record collection, I was well on my way to LOVING music before I entered  nursery school.

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At age 8 piano lessons began— what a delight! — but it was attending church services as a teenager at First Church of Christ, Congregational in West Hartford which exposed me to an exceptionally superb music program and a mentor, Dr. Gordon W. Stearns, Sr., whose ministry of music inspired my whole career.  Singing in his amazing choirs (over 300 people — 150 in the high school choir alone...) touched my young soul in very deep places.  I marveled at the beautiful and sensitive way that he enabled choristers to bring out the best within themselves while singing their faith through the musical texts.

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At age 16, piano lessons changed to organ lessons and after graduation led to a music major at Middlebury College with a deepening conviction that music ministry was the path to making sense of my life.  The deeper I immersed myself in music, the more it became a basic need for my spirit — a way to express what words cannot — and a vehicle for our hearts to understand what our minds cannot ...

 

Frederick Buechner said that —

        

The place to which God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet ...

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Music in a faith setting connects us to the Divine as we sing or play or listen — and ministers to others as God speaks through the music we share.

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What a privilege and JOY it is to help make that happen!