Meet our Choir Director

Today, your blogger is turning this space over to our choir director Cassie, who submitted a short bio so that you can get to know a bit more about her:

Cassie began her musical journies from the cradle immersed in the beautiful intricacies of Byzantine chant at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Warren, OH. At the age of 13, she began learning to play piano, intensively studying performance, music theory, and composition. She attended the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music, focusing on piano and harpsichord performance, composition, and theory under the tutelage of their esteemed faculty. Though, after meeting her husband James, a man deeply passionate about sacred music, she was overwhelmingly convinced that the secular music path was not the only path for her.

Cassie has been accompanying for and singing in choirs since the 8th grade. Before being hired at Bethany, she was the vocal assistant for the Vermillion High School and Middle School choirs and was the Music Director and Organist at Wakeman UCC. She now directs our Sunday School (1st - 3rd grade), Wittenberg (4th grade and up), Chancel (Adult), and Handbell choirs. Often marked as a tradtionalist, she simply supports truly sacred music and good liturgy.

She and her husband James live in Berea with their 6-month old daughter Gia. They advocate natural family living and love to travel. Cassie's favorite color is green.

Tintinnabulation

Isn't that a glorious word for the sound of bells? The poetry of the English language occasionally provides just the perfect word to describe something, and tintinnabulation perfectly conjures up the music of bells for me.

For Transfiguration Sunday, the short prelude was played by the Bethany Bell Choir, whom you can see pictured here. When they play, it gives me a rare opportunity to clear my mind before the service begins. It reminded me how wonderful it can be simply to stop creating and working and striving, so that we can listen and hear God's word.

I hope you enjoyed their playing as much as I did, and even more I hope that you tell them about it! Also, I know they'd be glad to have people joining them in making their beautiful music.

Meet the (primary) blogger

Welcome to the music ministry blog of Bethany English Lutheran Church in Cleveland! We'll be writing more soon about a variety of topics, including the purpose and aim of this blog, but it seems to make sense to start off with an introduction of our primary blogger.

Tom has been the organist at Bethany for nearly one year now. He is a relatively recent transplant to Ohio, having grown up in the small town of Melrose, Minnesota. He has played the piano since age 5 and organ since age 15, when he began playing part-time at his home church. Tom studied piano and voice (though without majoring in music) at St. Olaf College, which is perhaps best known for their annual Christmas concerts.

After college, Tom taught high school choir and drama, while working with a number of amateur and professional theatre troupes as music director and/or keyboardist. His favorite productions during that time include Les Miserables (student edition) and Children of Eden. Among his major performances, Tom has performed the Beethoven Chorale Fantasia, the Grieg piano concerto, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Tom's philosophy of church music can be nearly summed up in one word: balance. By that, he means a balance of old and new, familiar and unfamiliar, simple and complex, community and individual, law and gospel, bombastic and peaceful, praiseful and penitent. He'll be bringing that same variety and balance to the pages of this blog. We hope you enjoy reading and participating in the dialogue!