Dear People of St. James’,
I am so happy to announce to you that Rick Gabrillo will be joining our staff as Music Minister for the 10:30 am service. Rick’s start date will be October 22, and his first Sunday with us will be October 27. Get ready to offer him that warm St. James’ welcome!
Here is some information about Rick:
With over 35 years of experience in choral music, Rick Gabrillo has led a rewarding career as a music director, chorister, voice teacher, accompanist, and composer. Rick grew up in the Dallas area and continued his studies at The New England Conservatory of Music and Boston University School of Music. Returning to Texas, he finished his degrees in Music Education and a masters in Choral Conducting at The University of Texas at Austin.
He has held various public, private, and parochial music teacher and choir director positions throughout Austin. He is also currently a voice teacher at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Westlake.
As a singer, he performs and records regularly with the Grammy-winning Conspirare. He has also been a chorister with the Texas Early Music Ensemble, Inversion, Austin Cantorum, Un/Heard, Spire, and Vox Humana.
With previous choir positions at St. Louis Catholic Church, St. Mary Cathedral, Central Presbyterian, First Presbyterian, First English Lutheran, and most recently at Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, Rick is excited to bring his rich history with sacred music to this new calling at St. James’ Episcopal Church.
As you know, our former Music Minister, HouFei Yang, moved to North Carolina in June, and Sharon Coleman, our pianist, John May, and Kent Burress stepped in to make wonderful music happen during the interim period. I continue to be grateful to them for all that they have done and are doing to make this transitional time work, most especially during my sabbatical. When I returned from sabbatical, we launched a full search and received an impressive amount of interest in the role from many highly qualified musicians. I can say for sure that we have not had such a competitive search for this role in recent memory, and perhaps that goes for distant memory as well. Our search committee, which included Sharon Coleman, John May, Riley Carruthers, Clark Nisbett, Clint Dawson, Jill LaCour, and myself, interviewed six highly qualified applicants at length after screening 23 applications. The time we spent was worth it, and we were all enthusiastic about calling Rick Gabrillo to be our next Music Minister and delighted when he accepted.
Rick Gabrillo is an exceptional musician who brings a deep and rich spirituality and pastoral sense to his work as a church musician who equips and empowers others to bring an expressive voice of joy to worship. As we spoke with Rick and those who have worked with him, we were convinced that he would be someone who would respect and carry on traditions while teaching us some new things. We also got the sense that musicians of all ages will be excited for the opportunity to work with him. If you have been wondering about being a part of the choir at 10:30, you will want to talk to Rick!
This is great news for St. James’. Let us bless the Lord!
Rev. Eileen
