INTRODUCING ALCEE CHRISS
III, EACC MINISTER OF
MUSIC
If
you have attended an EACC worship service during the last
Sundays of October, you have probably already met Alcee Chriss,
our new Minister of Music, who joined us officially on October
16.
Alcee is currently a fulltime student at the Oberlin
Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, where he is pursuing a
Bachelor of Music in organ performance, a Bachelor of Arts in
philosophy and a Master of Music in conducting. When asked how
he can manage also to serve as Minister of Music to a
congregation a 40-minute drive away, he answers that he’s been
doing that sort of thing almost all his life, back in Ft. Worth
and Dallas, Texas, where he was born and raised.
He began studying the piano, both
classical and jazz, when he was 7 or 8, and while his parents
did have to make him practice sometimes, he knew from the start
that he would make music his life’s work. His mother, now
deceased, was a musician as well as an assistant dean at a
community college and his “producer and manager.” His father is
the pastor of a nondenominational congregational church, where
Alcee and his younger brother, a drummer, were the church band
for 6 years.
Alcee has also served as musician in
various capacities at a number of other churches, however, and
has learned to both assist and lead in almost every worship
style, from traditional to contemporary. His favorite composers
are Ravel, Stravinsky, and Bach (not Wagner, he adds firmly) but
he also appreciates Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane, James Blake
and Billy Preston. Because he’s been directing choirs since he
was 12, he is accustomed to working with people who are older
than he is. Almost everyone has always been older that he is!
He has adjusted well to living in
Ohio, even though he finds the culture – as well as the weather
– to be “different.” If he had any spare time, he would like to
spend it reading and arguing about religion, philosophy and
politics. He hopes to grow EACC’s music department, to increase
our community involvement, and to enlarge our canon of music.
With his characteristic wide smile he adds, “Be prepared for new
and great things!”
