Harvest Gospel Concert Series Artistic Director Maryanne McElroy has passed the baton after leading the community choir since its first performance in 1986.
Each year, the choir brings together a diverse group of residents who, under McElroy’s leadership and guidance during just three intense rehearsal sessions, are transformed into a choir that delights the community with uplifting music to celebrate the start of the holiday season.
McElroy, a graduate of the Julliard School of Music and an accomplished musician, choir director and instructor in voice and piano over a long and distinguished career, is also an ordained minister and currently serves full-time as pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Flanders. Prior to being called to serve as pastor, following her late husband, the Rev. A. Charles McElroy to the pulpit, she served her church as minister of music.
She said in an interview Wednesday she felt the time was right for a transition in the choir’s leadership.
“It’s been a long, good trek, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” McElroy said.
The concerts this year were directed by Byron Preston, who is no stranger to the Harvest Gospel Concert Series. He has performed with the choir since he was a youth, a drummer who performed alongside his father, the original organist accompanying the choir. Preston serves in the music ministry at Galilee Church of God Christ in Riverside, a church founded by his grandparents.
Preston knows the tradition of the choir, McElroy said. He knows not only the musical tradition, but having performed with the choir most of his life, he understands what it takes to make the concert series come together each year, she said.
“The singers aren’t professional singers,” McElroy said. “These are just your ordinary church-going choir members. So you kind of have to know how to handle them. You can’t treat them like they’re educated musicians. You have to know how to break it down and teach it to them,” she said. Preston handled it wonderfully, McElroy said. But whether he replaces her as the choir director will ultimately be the decision of the East End Arts Council, which created the concert series and has sponsored it since its inception.
That’s the intention of the council, East End Arts Executive Director Wendy Weiss said in an interview this week.
The concerts were, once again, very successful, well-attended events, she said. The concerts filled the pews at Friendship Baptist Church on Nov. 22 and 23.
“This was a very special concert, because Reverend McElroy actually announced that she was stepping down from her role as the choir director, and she handed it over to Byron Preston, and she actually sat front row instead of standing at the podium all night,” Weiss said. “It was a really heartfelt and touching performance because of that, she said.
“It’s so obvious how many people she’s impacted in the community,” Weiss said.
Preston’s admiration for McElroy is obvious and his mission is clear.
“My end goal is to continue the legacy of what Mother McElroy has set before us and continue spreading the good news,” Preston said. “That is the mission.”
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Emil Breitenbach Jr.
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