Report from Music Director Search Committee

After Seth Houston, our 2011-12 Director of Music, announced that he would be moving out of state after completing his contract in mid-June, I was asked to chair the search committee for a Director of Music, who will begin next fall. I said I would, after happily singing in our choir for the first time last fall, but only if a committee was established before the Rev. Rebecca Benefiel Bijur's then upcoming family leave in April, May, and June. We recruited Bronwen Jones, a former music committee chair and president; Denise Helton, chair of our personnel committee; and current choir member Alice Jankowiak. A job description was posted on the UU Musician's Network and forwarded to other sites and individuals, and a month later we had received 25 applications from a nearly equal number of men and women. The applicants ranged from 20-something to 60-something, with musical interests and backgrounds from  classical to folk to gospel. Prior church experience was UU, Baptist, Jewish, Lutheran, and other denominations. Applicants’ education varied from no college degree to a Ph.D. In June members of the search committee met, agreed on a list of eight finalists, and began to check references.

As of the writing of this update it's been more than a week since the July 8 town hall meeting on the music program, and some additional discussions have occurred with interested members of the congregation and with Rev. Bijur. I'm honored to be a part of this process, and appreciate being introduced to some long-term options for how music at UUCCSM could be expanded — even within the same budget. There are different models that I had never thought of, and I look forward to further congregational consensus building. Rev. Bijur will conduct telephone interviews of all eight finalists, call in four to six for face-to-face interviews with the entire search committee, and continue to seek input from everyone interested in the music program — including past and present choir members — before making a decision.

This process is another example of "Everything is a moving target, and everything is constantly evolving." My feeling is that music at UUCCSM is the third leg of a three-legged stool (ministry and religious education being the others). We should be able to hire someone extraordinary, and I can't wait to meet that person at the first choir rehearsal in late August. The congregation as a whole will meet him or her at In-gathering Sunday, on September 9.

— Rob Briner