May 6, 2022
Dear Pastor Celeste and ACC:
It has been a privilege being your music director, I think 1992 , as that is when I moved to El Cerrito. I had been directing or playing the organ in churches all my life and had an undergraduate degree in music from Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam '75 and a Masters in Organ performance from SF State University '81. I am putting down my thoughts of those 30 years, the programs I started here at ACC, the major chorale works we performed and the various performing groups within the church and within the community that made ACC unique. It's been fun and satisfying to work with the loving community of ACCers, and it helped me grow in ways I never would have imagined. Thank you for continually being the supportive and a progressive church. I have enjoyed working with.
My job as music director allowed me to be creative and follow my instincts. My first priority was creating an accepting relationship with our in-church musicians, so they felt appreciated, challenged and satisfied with their accomplishments. That was my job to bring people together. I extended that welcome to many community musicians, music students from UC Berkeley, and even some of my personal piano/music students and friends. My vision was to be a community church connected to Bay area musicians. Over the years we (the church) develop long standing relationships with many outstanding musicians including Andrew Chung (Bass soloist/ BACH), Shira Kammen (Early music director/harpist & viol), Mara Plotkin (PHD Clarinetist) and many other soloists.
I started a Mini Concert Series , with monthly concerts bringing in local artists to perform. I created the schedule, connected with the artists, made the tickets on my computer, sold the tickets, worked at the door, did reception ( later Jaime and others helped there) and introduced the artists. This went on for 7 years.
My work with children began, first with the bell choir (90's) and later with Arlington Children's choir (2001), followed with summer programs performing Peace Child co-directed with Michael Mansfield. I directed a stunning opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors (Menotti) around 2005 with the young Amahl (Matthew Fox) being one of my children's choir singers and piano student. That was pretty amazing for his first production.
Over the years the choir with community singers have sung many major chorale masses: Vivaldi's Mass is G, Faure's Mass, Duruffle's Mass, John Rutter's Requiem and Mass for Children, Brahms's Requiem, Rossini's Mass and a few more. We created special end of the year concerts featuring Choir, Children and Hand Bells.
My duties, in general, would include choosing anthems, bell music, children's music; for the whole year and rehearsing these groups weekly. There was also the advent and Christmas Eve programs and extra performances for Christmas Bazaar and such. At Lent, we had extra services and often a Major work, like one of the Requiems (John Rutter was a favorite) and I would ask people to remember a loved one and have the name listed in the program. If one was able, they would donate $25.00 to help offset the cost of hiring musicians. In the summer we used our talented ACCer musicians and our music friends from the Bay area to provide special music for the summer months. The regular music groups took off at this time. Occasionally, I would play then organ when Oscar was away.
Also, I want to thank Arlington Church for allowing me to pursue one of my passions: Person of the Planet. You allowed me to share my ideas and shape the concept and allow me to bring many diverse speakers, movies and programs about the environment to the church. It is still a passion for me, but COVID put the brakes on these activities. I was even able to write many columns for our Person of the Planet website and the Parish Scope. These were not my music duties and they took considerable time, but I found a lot of satisfaction doing this.
I am happy that even during Covid, I could record many of the hymns that we used during that time for our video services. It allowed me to learn about more advanced recording techniques and a chance to sing solo. The choir also had a chance to sing their parts as a solo and allow Tim to digitally put it together. I chose music that was not too complicated. Another big accomplishment during Covic was the renovation of the choir room using the memorial funds from Edie Rodman. Sara was the best partner for working on the many details of this project, first with California Closets and later with Ikia. Sara and I spend hours shopping and going through and weeding out older choir music so we could trim-up the number of file cabinets we were using. The choir room now looks beautiful and we should watch that it stays inviting and doesn't become a store room for other stuff.
So, there you have it, a short reminiscing of my time at ACC. There is more, of course, but that's what floated up today.
My husband, Lachu, retired in 2015 from his work at his Indian restaurant Ajanta. That was seven years ago. He just turned 80 in December. Last month, his brother-in-law (Haresh) passed away at age 78. Time goes by and I can hardly believe I will be 70 myself next March! We are both aging and we both love to travel and visit many places including Indian where most of his family live. We figure there's a few more years to get away, but as Haresh's death pointed out, you never know what's ahead. Best to go while you are healthy. As much as I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the folks of ACC,.....it is time for me to join Lachu in retirement!
As of September 2022, I would like to retire from my position at ACC! I hope this gives you ample time to find the exact right person to replace me and to move forward with the excellent music of the church. Pastor Celeste has beautiful visions of the church and community coming together to share music. I can offer my help in this transition.
I am still a member of the church and I am not planning on moving away so I hope to still see your lovely faces in the future.
Blessings and Peace to you ALL,
Leslie-Shanti Moorjani
