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Music Director - Saunder Choi
 
Saunder Choi is a Los Angeles based Filipino composer who has composed and conducted a variety of instrumental, vocal and choral works to jazz charts and popular music arrangements. His compositions have been performed in a wide variety of concert halls including Lincoln Center, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the world famous Teatro Colon Opera House in Buenos Aires, the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. He currently serves as teaching artist for the Los Angeles Master Chorale Voices Within and the Oratorio Project and the Pacific Chorale Academy. 
 
You can reach Saunder at music@uusm.org
Music Director - Saunder Choi
Saunder is a Los Angeles based Filipino composer who has composed and conducted a variety of instrumental, vocal and choral works to jazz charts and popular music arrangements. His compositions have been performed in a wide variety of concert halls including Lincoln Center, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the world famous Teatro Colon Opera House in Buenos Aires, the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. He currently serves as teaching artist for the Los Angeles Master Chorale Voices Within and the Oratorio Project and the Pacific Chorale Academy.  You can reach Saunder at music@uusm.org

 
Music Event (TBA)
Music Fundraiser - Leslie Beauvais and Friends in Concert

Please join us for Leslie Beauvais & Friends in Concert!

Annual Music Fundraiser with Leslie Beauvais & Friends: Sun, Nov 12, 7:30pm. (after Second Sunday Supper). Sanctuary.
 
Please join us for this important annual Music Fundraiser Concert, featuring the talents of Leslie Beauvais and Friends. The evening will feature everything from Broadway and Jazz Standards to original Singer-Songwriter music, to Blues, Pop, Folk and Classical selections. Something for everyone to love!
 
Performers include: Leslie Beauvais, Marty Axelrod, Jaynee Thorne, Thomas Ahern, Teri Bond, Rebecca Erskine, Betsy Grant, Kai Landauer, Kerry Thorne and even a few surprises.
 
Suggested donation $15.00 (but anything will do!). Contact: Cynthia Kelly, mokipup@aol.com.
 
Music Library Work Party
Music Library Work Party

We’re updating the church music library. We could use your help (and your laptop if you have one), so please join us for the Choir Library Work Party at the church on Saturday, May 14 from 10 am until we’re all worn out. It’s easy and fun! Library is located in classroom 2 upstairs.
Music Library Work Party
Music Meeting - De Reau
Music News & Events
Music News for August, 2012

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
Music News for October, 2012

Introducing Our New Director of Music, DeReau K. Farrar

On Ingathering Sunday, September 9, UUCCSM's new Director of Music ("DofM"), DeReau Farrar, was introduced at both services, and our choir sang for the first time in the fall after two Thursday evening rehearsals together.

DeReau introduced himself to the DofM Search Committee last May with this message: "My experience in church and sacred music for the past 10 years has been extremely rich and diverse, and I look forward to expanding that knowledge further." A tryout rehearsal with DeReau and our choir was publicly announced for August 23, and the unanimously positive feedback convinced the Search Committee and Rev. Bijur to offer him the position.

DeReau was born in West Covina and grew up splitting time between parents there and in Pasadena. His early
religious life centered in the generally fundamentalist Church of Christ, and later on he carefully examined Christian and Jewish scriptures in his own journey. As an adult he has spent time at the Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, and most recently All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. At this point he feels entirely compatible with and supportive of Unitarian Universalism as he continues his spiritual development.

In music, DeReau has sung professionally off Broadway and with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles
Opera, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers. He has appeared in recitals and
concerts throughout the U.S. and also in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Spain. Back in California he has been associated with the Verdi Chorus in Santa Monica since 2003 and became their Assistant Conductor in 2005. He was appointed Artistic Director of the Selah Gospel Choir of Pasadena in 2007 and has led local productions of “The Wiz,“ “Ragtime,” “The Laramie Project,” and music projects at many public and private high schools. In addition to conducting, DeReau plays the piano and is a published arranger of music.

DeReau welcomes everyone's input on music at our church and he plans to spend time on Sunday mornings getting to know as many people as possible. As chair of the DofM Search Committee, I want to say this: DeReau is a remarkable individual with maturity, perspective, and presence way beyond his years. His musicianship is stellar, but his style is casual and collaborative. Hiring him was a unique opportunity and I hope everyone will work with him to maximize the possibilities. There are new roads to travel and it's exciting for us to have an impact on DeReau at this stage in his life. UUCCSM's music program was conducted at a very high level for a decade under Steve Wight, followed by a year of seeking and transition under Seth Houston. I'm confident that music at UUCCSM will evolve further under DeReau's leadership, and enrich our lives in new ways.

— Rob Briner
Music of Resistance