Although Richard Gladwell died last October, the show has continued nationally in reruns, while Peter DuBois has hosted the local version of the program in Rochester, New York.
Peter DuBois grew up in
Methodist churches around the state of West Virginia. His father’s
work as a Methodist minister led them from the Wheeling area, to Parkersburg, Morgantown,
Huntington, and Charleston. DuBois was drawn
into church life as well -- not to the life of a minister, but to the
instrument that is a fixture in so many churches – the organ.
“My earliest memories of
being interested in the organ and organ music date back to when I was about 3
or 4, and we would vacation in New York City and going to the big churches there, and I
was always captivated by the sound of the instruments, and remember meeting
Virgil Fox, who was a legendary player of that time, when we were visiting
Riverside church in the mid-60s. He
actually sat me and my brother down at the huge instrument that’s at Riverside church and just let us play, and that was a crystallizing moment in
some ways.”
After studying music at the Eastman School in Rochester, DuBois returned to Charleston as the music director of Christ Church United
Methodist for 10 years. He then moved to Rochester, where he has been music director and organist for Third
Presbyterian Church and teaches at
his alma mater. While in Rochester, DuBois met Richard Gladwell – the host of the choral
and organ music public radio program With
Heart and Voice.
"I remember
as a student, waking up on Sunday mornings and hearing Richard’s voice and the
program and the theme music and all that. And then when I moved away and went
to grad school, I didn’t have that any more.
"But then when I was serving at Christ Church, in Charleston, it was during the time that Richard began the
nationally syndicated version, and so I got reacquainted with him and the
program then, until we moved to Rochester in 1991 and we met him face to face.”
DuBois and Gladwell formed a
bond over their shared love of sacred choral and organ music. DuBois recalls, “I
had been a guest on Richard’s version of With
Heart and Voice a couple times over the past few years, and enjoyed the
kind of conversation that we had and he seemed to feel good about the sort of
things that we would talk about.
"It just evolved from there that he talked to
me about doing the program on a regular basis, when he was no longer able
to. And so that, sort of developed last
year as he became ill. Since the
beginning of July 2009 I’ve done the local version of the show here in Rochester, which is a two-hour program on Sunday mornings.”
This weekend, radio stations around the country will air DuBois’s first nationally syndicated episode of With Heart and Voice. It will be heard on West Virginia Public RadioSunday morning at six.
"It’s a real
honor to be asked to continue this wonderful tradition that Richard Gladwell
established over the past thirty five years.
It’s a humbling experience to be able to follow in his footsteps, but
it’s also a fun challenge to not only continue that, but also to sort of move
it in some directions that I have particular interest in as well, in terms of
particularly some of the wonderful American choirs that are now singing and
wonderful music by American composers. So, finding a nice balance between what has been and moving forward as
well is a real joy.”