Greetings,

I am very pleased to be joining you as your new music director.   Everyone has been warm and welcoming, from my first meetings with Dick Gregory, Janet Couch, and Ray Howe, to my later meeting with the search committee, to others of the congregation.  I very much enjoyed my first Sunday, November 20th, as organist.  I had to be away on the 27th (to play at First Congregational Church in Hadley), but I am back on December 4th with a clear road ahead.  I know that Dick Gregory has worked long and hard, with dedication and skill, as your organist and choir director.

Initially I was very much drawn to the classic Hook & Hastings pipe organ.  Although it is quite old, it is voiced beautifully, and it is built to last.  I am especially fond of the warm principals and the bright three rank mixture.  There are several other colorful stops as well.  Throughout the process of meeting various church members, I became even more excited at the prospect of devoting my musical energy to St. Philip's.

Although my graduate degree is in Computer Science, and I am a member of the Computer Science Faculty at the University, my undergraduate degree is a bachelor of music in pipe organ (from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music).  In more recent years, I have studied harpsichord with Margaret Irwin-Brandon.  With my last daughter off to college this Fall, I found myself wanting a regular music director position.  Coming to St. Philip's is a homecoming of another kind, as
I was `raised' in the Episcopal Church.  In my youth, this included my singing in the choir at Christ Church, Stratford Connecticut, where many years earlier my grandfather was an ordained minister.  Later I attended St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Milton, Massachusetts.

I look forward with great enthusiasm to working with Ray, members of the choir including Dick, and others too, to add to the musical aspects of our worship.  If you enjoy singing hymns (or other forms), perhaps you will consider joining the choir.  If you are an instrumentalist, please let me know.  If you have thoughts or suggestions more generally, please feel free to talk with me about them at any time.  If any of the music opens your heart, please tell your friends.

  Paul Utgoff