Anglican musicians conference offers fellowship, opportunity to share good news about the House

IN JUNE, I attended a church music conference in Richmond, Virginia, sponsored by the Association of Anglican Musicians, a national organization for Episcopal Church musicians.

The conference was attended by over 200 musicians and clergy from across the country and included dynamic worship, lectures on current challenges and opportunities for church musicians, ways to grow and foster better collaboration between musicians and clergy, and fellowship with colleagues and friends.

In 2017-2018, I was the Gerre Hancock Organ Intern, a year-long fellowship partially sponsored by AAM. That year, the conference was hosted at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina. Since then, I have discovered AAM’s important role in supporting musicians and clergy in our shared work of worship and liturgy across The Episcopal Church.

This past summer in Richmond, I shared with some of my colleagues about Nashotah House’s sustained growth and the continued importance that we place on liturgy and formation through worship — something that my colleagues really respected. One musician, who used to work in Chicago, was very surprised upon seeing my name tag. He said he thought that Nashotah had “sort of just died away and folded.” I politely corrected him, and he was thrilled to hear the work that God continues to do at this place.

Next June, the AAM conference will be held in Dallas and is partially hosted by Church of the Incarnation. Nashotah House plans to have an exhibit booth at the conference to tell more people about our work and the growth that God has given us.

Since music and liturgy are such an important part of the House, this will be another good way to forge broader connections with the wider Episcopal Church and to share our story. If you are in Dallas next summer, you should join us — if nothing else, the congregational singing from a few hundred church musicians can’t be beat!

-Dr. Thomas Heidenreich, Organist-in-Residence at Nashotah House