faith! - Ronnie Dale Wise

For Ronnie, sacred music provides a space that transcends the everyday.

Growing up in Asheville, Ronnie Wise, St. Martin’s new director of music ministries, didn’t come from a particularly churchy family.

In fact, when he was a middle schooler, he started playing the piano for an Episcopal church’s Sunday school program and his parents would drop him off and pick him up afterwards each Sunday.

As Ronnie grew older, the work and life of the church continued to speak to him – especially where music was involved.

“I met some amazing clergy whom I just adored and they drew me in,” Wise said. After taking organ lessons in high school, he began playing the organ for a small Presbyterian church.

And after graduating from Appalachian State University in Boone and attending summers at both the Westminster Choir College in Princeton and the Juilliard Choral program in New York, Ronnie knew that church music would be his life’s work.

Ronnie, who is now 47, credits the early support he received from those clergy and several musicians with steering him along the church music path.

He remembers in particular a female Methodist minister in Asheville who let him practice the organ in her church during his teen and college years.

“If not for her, I probably would not be in church music,” he said.

Another organist surprised him with a gift upon her death – two boxes of her sheet music left specifically for him.

“I didn’t think she liked me at all,” he said. But after receiving her gift, he decided, “Well, maybe she did like me after all.”

He still uses that music and thinks of her every time he sees her name on the well-worn sheets.

The pastoral care shown to him throughout his career is something that Ronnie strives to emulate in his own work. He knows that when choir members show up for choir practice, they bring their daily lives with them, a fact that was impressed upon him by one of his organ professors: “If you are going to be a church musician, you have to first be a pastor, second a musician and third a performer,” the professor said.

He also knows that for people new to a parish who may want to join the choir, he is often their first contact with the congregation. He wants to be sure that experience is a welcoming one.

“Hopefully our time together transcends whatever is going on in the world.”

Choir practices under Ronnie’s direction are focused, but not without a bit of humor or camaraderie.

“It’s a community of its own and I want it to be a safe and happy place to be.”

Before coming to St. Martin’s in May, Ronnie directed the music program at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Wilmington, a town that was familiar to him because of the many summers he spent at his grandparents’ beach house in nearby Wrightsville Beach. He applied for the position at St. Martin’s as he began to sense that his work at St. Paul’s was done. That had been the case as well after his 11 years at Boone United Methodist Church before moving to St. Paul’s.

“In both places, it just felt it was time to make a change,” he said.

As he was considering the job at St. Martin’s, he loved what he learned about the community. He also appreciated the reputation of the work of English Morris, the retiring music director, and how the parish is located between two important places in his life – Wilmington (because of both his work at St. Paul’s and

his childhood summers), and Asheville, where he grew up and his mother still lives. (Fortunately, his mother’s home was not damaged by Hurricane Helene beyond losing power for several weeks.)

At St. Martin’s, Ronnie would love to see the organ renovated. He also looks forward to creating a concert series and expanding the involvement of the parish’s children’s choir.

At St. Paul’s, part of his work involved directing the Wilmington Boys Choir. He thinks children find their way to the choir when they see their friends involved. He would love to see St. Martin’s youth taking part in every service.

As far as a concert series, he isn’t quite sure what shape that might take, but he believes the parish’s location and ample parking make it a perfect spot for weekly midday concerts in organ, piano, vocal or chamber music.

He also sees potential for growth at the 5 p.m. service where the “SayLove” band’s work has been a strong addition.

“The band they have is absolutely wonderful,” he said.

He also envisions offering periodic Evensong services, a personal favorite of his because of the service’s ancient connection to the work of the Church.

As Ronnie contemplates all these possibilities, he’s finding comfort in his new church home. He loves hearing the church bell when it rings at noon, and he loves the spirit of choir practices on Wednesday evenings.

“Each congregation has its own life, and I’m just trying to figure out what that is for St. Martin’s,” he said.