Guest Artist Interview - Alfred Fedak
Minister of Music and Arts Westminster Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York
Jeannine: Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Mr. Fedak: Whenever I meet someone for the first time, the first question I'm often asked is: "How do you pronounce your last name?" (You'd be amazed at how many different pronunciations I've heard!) So, for the record, my family name is pronounced "FEE-dack." That's the Anglicized pronunciation of a common eastern European surname: all four of my grandparents were from Poland and Austria-Hungary.
With that family background, I was naturally raised as a Roman Catholic. But, thanks as much to chance as to choice, I've spent most of my career as a church musician working in protestant churches and in synagogues. Today I serve as the Minister of Music and Arts at Westminster Presbyterian Church on Capitol Hill in Albany, New York, a position I share with my wife Sue, who is a gifted choral director and mezzo-soprano. Outside the church, Sue and I also maintain busy freelance performing and teaching careers, but your readers are more likely to have recognized my name from my many choral and organ compositions.
Jeannine: You have been called “the finest composer of hymn tunes working today.” How did you find your calling in the composition of hymn tunes?
Mr. Fedak: Yes, that's a very flattering label! Well, as I mentioned, I grew up in the Catholic Church, in the days before and during Vatican II. There wasn't much in the way of congregational singing in the Catholic Church back then. But when I was about 12 years old, I started attending The Pingry School, a private New Jersey prep school for boys (now co-ed). The school had a chapel with a fine pipe organ, and mandatory chapel services at which real hymns were sung: hymns like "All Creatures of Our God and King," "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," and "Once to Every Man and Nation." I still recall the powerful effect those hymns had on me, sung by 550 male voices. It was absolutely thrilling.
A couple years later, when I began taking organ lessons, my teacher, Prudence Curtis, insisted that good hymn-playing was the most important skill any organist could possess, so we worked a lot on hymnody. I came to love the music of hymns to the point where I lived and breathed them. Eventually, years later, when both the Episcopal Church and the Reformed Church in America were assembling new hymnals, I wrote and submitted tunes for some of their "orphan" texts; fortunately, those tunes were accepted - my first published hymn tunes - and I've gone on to compose many more which now appear in scores of hymnals and collections all around the world.
Jeannine: You recently served as a member of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song. Would you speak to your work as a member of the committee in preparing Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal.
Mr. Fedak: Assembling a hymnal is a Herculean task! Our committee, the PCOCS (pronounced "Peacocks") met in Lousville four times a year, for three to four days at a time, over a period of four and a half years. During that period we reviewed and sang through roughly 10,000 hymns and songs, 850 of which were eventually selected for inclusion in the new book. Because hymnody involves so many disciplines - music, theology, literature, history, and so on - our volunteer committee included musicians, ministers, college and seminary professors, a seminary president, a poet, a composer (myself), and even some younger members who were still students when the process began.
David Eicher, the hymnal's editor, and Mary Louise Bringle, the committee's chair, proved to be remarkable leaders, and against all odds, kept the process focused, on track, and on schedule. I'm very proud of the work we did together, and believe that Glory to Godwill be recognized as one of the finest hymnals of this generation. As I said several times to my fellow Peacocks, assembling this hymnal was probably the most important work any of us will do in our lifetimes, because in doing it, we literally put words in the mouths of people that will shape their musical and spiritual lives for an entire generation and beyond. What an awesome responsibility!
Jeannine: What is your church music philosophy?
Mr. Fedak: God deserves our very best. Period. There's no room for a casual or haphazard approach to music in the church. Which is not to say that the church's music need all be difficult or classical or whatever. In fact, there can be excellence in any genre. But working within the resources available in each particular situation, only the most honest, well-crafted, and well-performed music should be allowed. I have a particular aversion to commercial-sounding music in worship. To my way of thinking, a church service should be that rare place of refuge where the sounds of the outside world and its marketplace mentality don't intrude.
Hymns should be congregational; that is, they should be the sort of music that congregations can actually sing successfully, rather than just listen to. All of the church's musical leadership, including the choir if there is one, should be well-trained and well-prepared. And all of this takes planning. I keep remembering something that my hymn-writing mentor Erik Routley used to say, that praising God in song is the only earthly activity in which we will continue to engage after our time on earth is done. So we really ought to learn how to do it right.
Jeannine: Where are you presenting workshops this fall?
Mr. Fedak: This fall and winter I'll be pretty busy: I'll be in Ann Arbor in October; Rochester in early November; Arlington, Texas in January; and Baltimore in February. Thank goodness my church allows me the freedom to do this! Actually, since much of this travel involves promotional work for the new Presbyterian Hymnal, Westminster encourages it.
Jeannine: Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Mr. Fedak: Yes, my website address, in case folks would like any further information. The site includes a complete list of my compositions, as well as reviews and information about upcoming performances. www.alfredfedak.com
Minister of Music and Arts Westminster Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York
Jeannine: Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Mr. Fedak: Whenever I meet someone for the first time, the first question I'm often asked is: "How do you pronounce your last name?" (You'd be amazed at how many different pronunciations I've heard!) So, for the record, my family name is pronounced "FEE-dack." That's the Anglicized pronunciation of a common eastern European surname: all four of my grandparents were from Poland and Austria-Hungary.
With that family background, I was naturally raised as a Roman Catholic. But, thanks as much to chance as to choice, I've spent most of my career as a church musician working in protestant churches and in synagogues. Today I serve as the Minister of Music and Arts at Westminster Presbyterian Church on Capitol Hill in Albany, New York, a position I share with my wife Sue, who is a gifted choral director and mezzo-soprano. Outside the church, Sue and I also maintain busy freelance performing and teaching careers, but your readers are more likely to have recognized my name from my many choral and organ compositions.
Jeannine: You have been called “the finest composer of hymn tunes working today.” How did you find your calling in the composition of hymn tunes?
Mr. Fedak: Yes, that's a very flattering label! Well, as I mentioned, I grew up in the Catholic Church, in the days before and during Vatican II. There wasn't much in the way of congregational singing in the Catholic Church back then. But when I was about 12 years old, I started attending The Pingry School, a private New Jersey prep school for boys (now co-ed). The school had a chapel with a fine pipe organ, and mandatory chapel services at which real hymns were sung: hymns like "All Creatures of Our God and King," "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," and "Once to Every Man and Nation." I still recall the powerful effect those hymns had on me, sung by 550 male voices. It was absolutely thrilling.
A couple years later, when I began taking organ lessons, my teacher, Prudence Curtis, insisted that good hymn-playing was the most important skill any organist could possess, so we worked a lot on hymnody. I came to love the music of hymns to the point where I lived and breathed them. Eventually, years later, when both the Episcopal Church and the Reformed Church in America were assembling new hymnals, I wrote and submitted tunes for some of their "orphan" texts; fortunately, those tunes were accepted - my first published hymn tunes - and I've gone on to compose many more which now appear in scores of hymnals and collections all around the world.
Jeannine: You recently served as a member of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song. Would you speak to your work as a member of the committee in preparing Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal.
Mr. Fedak: Assembling a hymnal is a Herculean task! Our committee, the PCOCS (pronounced "Peacocks") met in Lousville four times a year, for three to four days at a time, over a period of four and a half years. During that period we reviewed and sang through roughly 10,000 hymns and songs, 850 of which were eventually selected for inclusion in the new book. Because hymnody involves so many disciplines - music, theology, literature, history, and so on - our volunteer committee included musicians, ministers, college and seminary professors, a seminary president, a poet, a composer (myself), and even some younger members who were still students when the process began.
David Eicher, the hymnal's editor, and Mary Louise Bringle, the committee's chair, proved to be remarkable leaders, and against all odds, kept the process focused, on track, and on schedule. I'm very proud of the work we did together, and believe that Glory to Godwill be recognized as one of the finest hymnals of this generation. As I said several times to my fellow Peacocks, assembling this hymnal was probably the most important work any of us will do in our lifetimes, because in doing it, we literally put words in the mouths of people that will shape their musical and spiritual lives for an entire generation and beyond. What an awesome responsibility!
Jeannine: What is your church music philosophy?
Mr. Fedak: God deserves our very best. Period. There's no room for a casual or haphazard approach to music in the church. Which is not to say that the church's music need all be difficult or classical or whatever. In fact, there can be excellence in any genre. But working within the resources available in each particular situation, only the most honest, well-crafted, and well-performed music should be allowed. I have a particular aversion to commercial-sounding music in worship. To my way of thinking, a church service should be that rare place of refuge where the sounds of the outside world and its marketplace mentality don't intrude.
Hymns should be congregational; that is, they should be the sort of music that congregations can actually sing successfully, rather than just listen to. All of the church's musical leadership, including the choir if there is one, should be well-trained and well-prepared. And all of this takes planning. I keep remembering something that my hymn-writing mentor Erik Routley used to say, that praising God in song is the only earthly activity in which we will continue to engage after our time on earth is done. So we really ought to learn how to do it right.
Jeannine: Where are you presenting workshops this fall?
Mr. Fedak: This fall and winter I'll be pretty busy: I'll be in Ann Arbor in October; Rochester in early November; Arlington, Texas in January; and Baltimore in February. Thank goodness my church allows me the freedom to do this! Actually, since much of this travel involves promotional work for the new Presbyterian Hymnal, Westminster encourages it.
Jeannine: Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Mr. Fedak: Yes, my website address, in case folks would like any further information. The site includes a complete list of my compositions, as well as reviews and information about upcoming performances. www.alfredfedak.com