Music

 

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!”
 

For further information, please contact the church office
weekdays during business hours at 216-791-5200.