Music Interns Bring Talent, Energy to Congregations

Many of us are familiar with ministerial interns — students who come into our congregations for a year or two to learn about ministry while they work alongside us. The First Religious Society, Carlisle, MA, has gone a step further: a music intern.

Alison Reid, a recent graduate of the music program at the University of Chicago, who anticipates a career as a church musician, will begin her second year this fall as the society's music intern.

She assists Music Director Marguerite Shaw with all aspects of the music program, including training a children's choir; assisting Shaw with selecting repertoire and conducting the adult choir; accompanying instrumental music groups; helping lead congregation singing (new hymns, rounds, in gathering music), and helping with a handbell choir. She is also being trained to conduct the choir from the organ and piano. She also sometimes runs sectional rehearsals for the choir and she organized a workshop in basic musicianship for members of the congregation.

Reid also has a business composing music for television shows and films and she is a Web designer. She works at the society six to eight hours per week and is paid a stipend of $3,000 a year.

The goal of the internship is to train Reid to apply for a music director's position with a UU congregation, says Shaw. "It benefits us here at Carlisle because we have an active music program. The broader idea is to train a music professional who can then go on to another UU congregation. We need to be on the lookout for these kinds of people. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have someone like Alison. We know of no other music interns currently in UU congregations."

Nor does Ken Herman, music director at First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, and president of the UU Musicians Network. San Diego is considering a music intern program, he says.

First Unitarian, Portland, OR has had music interns in the past, but not presently, says Music Director Mark Slegers. Their pay was about $1,600 for nine months, but the program was discontinued because of a lack of interest among local college students. "The money may not have been good enough and there was also the factor that many students are not comfortable with us. One student started with us but dropped out because he was brought up in a conservative church. The bottom line is that the local universities just could not feed us candidates on a regular basis."

Several interns did work out, Slegers says. One continues to sing for the congregation as a paid tenor soloist. "The congregation benefited from being a teaching church, helping a person grow and being reassured that a new generation of church music leaders was coming up. And we benefited from the young energy of the interns. We received much the same benefits as we do from ministerial interns."

Reid's internship at Carlisle developed gradually. "She came into our program as a singer and composer who was also interested in doing some conducting," said Shaw. "It's been a very valuable experience," says Reid, at Carlisle. "It's the best way to learn how to be a church musician, by getting the whole picture. I could have picked up any of the individual pieces — conducting, accompanying, in other ways, but instead I got it all in one big piece.

"And I know that on Sept. 11 I was doing three things — my music business, designing Web sites, and working at Carlisle. The only one that felt meaningful was the church music."