St. Peter’s welcomes new music director to Morristown

Darryl Roland, new music director at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Morristown. Sharon Sheridan photo
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By Sharon Sheridan

The “tagline” at the Cathedral Choir School of Delaware is “Harmonizing Life and Learning.”

It’s a philosophy the school’s former artistic director hopes to bring to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown as the church’s new director of music.

Darryl Roland, new music director at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Morristown. Sharon Sheridan photo

“I was very interested in exploring St. Peter’s, first and foremost, because they’ve had a long tradition of training boys and girls in the English choral tradition. That’s my passion,” said Darryl Roland, who officially began work in Morristown Aug. 1. “I’m also very interested in exploring how we can reach out in the community.”

“I’m definitely wanting to build relationships with the community and tap into the diversity that’s out there, socio-economically and racially,” he said. “And regarding the program itself, I would hope that we could build on the choral tradition here and go from there so that we could offer a significant academic mentoring component as well as piano lessons.”

It’s a model he practiced successfully at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of Saint John in Wilmington, Del., where he was canon precentor as well as school artistic director, and before that in Evansville, Ind.

During his 16-year tenure in Delaware, the school received the Coming up Taller Award for outstanding after-school programs for children and youth from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and its partner agencies. The choir performed at the awards ceremony at the White House, where then-First Lady Laura Bush served as honorary chair of the committee. In January, Roland will travel to England to receive an Honorary Fellowship Diploma from the international Guild of Church Musicians for his work at the choir school.

Beyond singing in the intergenerational cathedral choir that helped lead worship each Sunday, the school’s 35 students, ages 7 to 18, could take piano and voice lessons, be paired with an adult mentor and receive tutoring and homework assistance. Roland found that pairing disciplined choral training and instruction with academic support “can be an incredible combination of programming that can help children succeed in many ways.”

“What we do here musically lends itself to music education, but also lends itself to spiritual formation in the church in an intergenerational context,” he said. “You have academic formation and you have social formation, all of this in an intergenerational context.”

New Music Director Darryl Roland looks forward to leading the intergenerational music program at St. Peter's. Here, he and the Rev. Melissa Hall observe the start of a new intergenerational program at the church, the planting of a Children's Garden. Sharon Sheridan photo

In Delaware, 18 to 20 adults sang with the children and youth in the choir. More than 50 volunteers – choir members, parishioners, members of the diocese, people from other churches in town – helped run the program, which also employed a three-quarters-time administrator.

“I really believe financial support follows vision,” Roland noted. Most of the program’s $300,000 annual budget came from outside the cathedral. It cost about $5,000 per child, which was presented as a merit scholarship, underscoring the level of commitment required. The young choristers attended rehearsals two weeknights plus sang Sundays and could sign up for any of the other academic and musical activities available. When needed, a van driver transported children after school to the choir school.

Roland, 51, discovered that the Anglican choral tradition is very “viable and alive today,” he said. “We had students from all necks of the woods who were passionate about singing what we could call a classical repertoire” – but who also knew and sang other genres of music, from pop to rap.

“The greatest gift we could give them was that they could enjoy all of it,” Roland said. “What I find personally so rewarding is that you can achieve high professional musical results in the context of community.”

Building such a program takes time, he said. In Morristown, he will be assisted by his partner Matt Boatmon, also a musician, with whom he has worked on such programs for 20 years. For now, Boatmon will split his time between Delaware, where he works full-time as a financial adviser with Amerprise, and Morristown.

The Rev. Janet Broderick, rector at St. Peter's, looks forward to working with new Music Director Darryl Roland. Sharon Sheridan photo

The Rev. Janet Broderick, St. Peter’s rector, observed Roland’s program in Delaware and spoke enthusiastically about his arrival.

“He’s a tremendous talent,” she said. “He’s able to make real, with music, the grace of God. I think he’s thoughtful in his interpretation of music. I think he’s passionate and he’s entirely, heart and soul, committed to the work of creating great choirs and doing liturgy that evokes deep feeling in the people who hear it.

“He also has a passion for outreach,” she said. “What he accomplished in Delaware in working with highly at-risk children over many years … he changed lives forever. He intends to offer here at St. Peter’s an opportunity for all children to grow in music. But not just music – here’s what’s so great – also leadership, self confidence, integration, responsibility, joy, mutual respect for a group, the experience … that a group can do more together than any one person can do themselves. And also, he’s good looking! I’m so excited that he’s here.”

Roland expressed equal excitement in working with Broderick and the rest of the church’s staff, who he said he’d found helpful and engaging. “I sense energy here.”

“People are engaged Sunday morning,” he added. “I’m very excited to be in a place that seems alive. My overall feeling here is that you’ve got a group of people that are looking forward, and I’m excited to be a part of that. And Morristown is a beautiful, beautiful town.”

Darryl Roland tries out the historic Skinner organ at St. Peter's. Sharon Sheridan photo

Anyone interested in singing at St. Peter’s or assisting with the program can contact Roland at droland@stpetersmorristown.org. Young instrumentalists also are invited to participate in the church’s youth orchestra, which will play at 9 a.m. Sunday services beginning this fall.

Children entering second through eighth grade may participate in choir camp at St. Peter’s, led by Roland and the outgoing interim director of the children’s choir program, Anne Yardley. The camp runs from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Aug. 15-19 for boys, Aug. 22-26 for girls) and includes music and liturgy instruction, arts and crafts, and swimming at the nearby Kellogg Club. Cost is $150. Choristers needing scholarship assistance can contact Broderick at jbroderick@stpetersmorristown.org.

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