Nurturing the Next Generations of Orthodox Church Musicians — Valerie Yova
As part of a continued effort in this column to explore the topic of beauty as it relates to Orthodox liturgical worship, I reached out to conductor Juliana Woodill and asked her a few questions on this subject. I will share more thoughts from Juliana in a future issue of Orthodox Church Music because she had lots to say on this topic.
As I write this, Juliana is preparing to move from Virginia to Pennsylvania to serve as the new director of the music program at St Tikhon’s Monastery. She will be stepping into her new role just as St Tikhon’s prepares to receive a new group of students in its one-year Music Residency Program. Given that, I wanted to highlight the training program at St Tikhon’s and Juliana’s role as its new head.
Below are Juliana’s answers to three questions that give us a glimpse of her perspective, vision, and priorities for training the next generations of liturgical musicians.
Beauty and Dedication
VY: How do you define or recognize beauty in Orthodox worship?
JW: You know it when you hear it, and you definitely know when it is absent! I think some of the beauty of our liturgical music is that we are giving back to God using only the bodies and gifts He gave us. Instruments were made by man, but voices were made by God. As we are called in so many ways to give our first fruits, we should also be reminded that our first fruits are the sweetest and most beautiful—and therefore require the full dedication of our time, effort, practice, and growth as musicians. It does require “work” outside of the liturgy: regular practice, musical development, etc. But when this work and preparation are done consistently, with love, joy, and training, somehow the music of the liturgy can transform singers and all who are present. <…>
