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Laura Weiss
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Laura was called as Director of Music, Organist, and Director of Youth Choirs at South Church in April of 2011. She plays the unique Bozeman tracker organ, op. 38, 1986, a refurbished original turn-of-the-century Hall organ, originally constructed for Phillips Academy. She supervises the church’s extensive music program, with includes the Sanctuary choir, Handbell choir, Treble choir, Carol choir, and numerous holiday’s and special concerts throughout the year. Laura has served as Director of Music or organist for Methodist (North Adams, MA), Episcopal (Bennington, VT and Boston, MA), and Presbyterian (Baltimore, MD) churches. Locally, Laura has also worked as an educator and Performing Arts director for the Lynn Public School system, pianist, instructor, and chamber choir conductor for Bennington College, and Music Director for the SMARTS Collaborative on the South shore. Laura is also teaching for the Kittredge School in North Andover, and an accomplished pianist and educator.
When asked about her ministry here at South Church, Laura states, “South Church is a dream position for me and my family. Not only do I feel that South Church is a spiritual, heart-home for me, I also feel that everything I’ve experienced in my life thus far has prepared me for the musical requirements of this incredible community of faith. Through weekly worship at South Church, I feel that we can explore the glory of high Anglican church music, blended with a little Appalacian folk-flare, European and Hebrew musical traditions, mixed with some Lutheran music, and perhaps bring in some African spice (we might just surprise you with some Jazz, Contemporary, Pop, or Broadway as well!) I believe that all of these ingredients can come together to make a feast of music for our ears in this glorious worship space in Andover!”
Laura was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a BA in music, an MAT in music from the Center for Creative Teaching in Bennington, Vermont, and is currently pursing a second graduate degree in counseling from Boston College. She has studied with such musical greats as composers Allen Shawn, Nick Brooke, and Kitty Brazelton, great jazz contemporaries such as Milford Graves and Bruce Williamson, award winning vocalist and Bessie winner, Tom Bogdan, world renowned pianists Daniel Epstein and Janet Landreth, and pianist and composer Paul Wyse. In addition to her years of experience as a keyboard artist, organist, composer, and educator, she has also staged numerous musical theater productions for all ages in many east coast cities.
In her spare time, Laura enjoys spending time with her new daughter Adia and her husband Josiah. She also loves the great art of organic cooking, running, and she lives to fish. Laura strives to create art that is expertly crafted, intimately performed, and conducted in safe spaces for all musicians and non-musicians to experience God through creativity. She sincerely believes that music is a tool through which the deepest parts of our humanness and faith can be understood and shared:
Deck, thyself, my soul, with gladness, leave the gloomy haunts of sadness,
Come into the daylight’s splendor, there with joy thy praises render
unto him whose grace unbounded
hath this wondrous banquet founded;
high o’er all the heavens he reigneth, yet to dwell with thee he deigneth.
Sun, who all my life dost brighten; Light, who dost my soul enlighten;
Joy, the best that any knoweth; Fount, whence all my being floweth:
at thy feet I cry, my Maker, let me be a fit partaker of this blessed food from heaven,
for our good, thy glory, given.