CHOIR RETREATS
with
KHRYSSO


Jump Start Your Choral Ensemble
Increase Members’ Confidence
Develop Members’ Improvisational Abilities
Build Commitment to Your Congregation’s Music Program
Turn Your Entire Congregation into a “Singing Congregation”


Khrysso has helped congregations do all of these things.

Khrysso has been both a choral and solo singer since he joined his first boychoir in 1968 and is intimately acquainted with the dynamics of choirs and the conventions of choral harmony.

Combining reflective dialogue, solo performance, spontaneous a capella singing in unison and harmony, “partner music” (quodlibet singing), motivational lectures, hymnbook exercises, and laughter, Khrysso weaves a sense of unity and adventure among singers and helps choral ensemble members to develop a stronger sense of location within their congregations’ community ministries.

Since 1992 Khrysso has worked as a professional folksinger, workshop leader, church music director, songwriter, recording artist, and choral composer/arranger, and understands music at many levels and from many perspectives.

In 2002 he will be awarded a Master of Theological Studies degree from the Iliff School of Theology in Denver—an ecumenical denominational school with over a hundred years of history—with coursework focused primarily on pastoral care, counseling, spiritual healing, and liturgical arts, all of which help him to bring with his musical work a sensibility to the deeper effects of music as a healing modality for both performers and hearers.

While in seminary he earned two liturgical arts awards—one of them a substantial scholarship—for his commitment to innovative ecumenical worship. Though he is not Christian himself, he has a deep appreciation for Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish hymn traditions and for the developing musical traditions of “alternative” spiritualities as well. He maintains a personal library of 300 denominational and commercial hymnals and considers congregational repertoire one of his strongest suits as a liturgical musician.

He has been leading all-music services at Unitarian Universalist congregations all over the US since 1996. Before that he served three years as Music Director for a small UU congregation that had no music budget, no keyboards to speak of, and no choir—a situation crying out for a bard and minstrel. Three years later that congregation had all three of these things and was prepared to hire an experienced choir director with formal training and experience.

Khrysso has a pleasing, mellow voice himself, and what he describes as a “very average” vocal range, an advantage, he says, in leading groups because his range is accessible to most singers. His voice can be heard on these recordings:

Covenant of UU Pagans, Singing the Promise
Mary E. Grigolia, Grigolian Chants
Mary E. Grigolia, Voices from the Path
Khrysso (f.k.a. Chris Wagner), I’ll Have My Chants This Time A Round

He has presented music workshops at these annual convocations:

General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Covenant of UU Pagans
Interweave
Ohio Meadville District of the UUA
Southeast UU Summer Institute (SUUSI)

He has led all-music services and/or choir retreats at congregations in these places:

Augusta, Georgia
Berkeley, California
Columbus, Ohio
Denver, Colorado
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Greenville, South Carolina
Muskegon, Michigan
Perrysville, Ohio
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Trenton, New Jersey
Wheeling, West Virginia

Khrysso encourages liberal religionists to band together in promoting broader music ministry within congregations. If you don’t think that you can afford to bring in a music leader on your own congregation’s budget—base rate is usually that of a visiting UU minister for Sunday preaching plus travel fares and accommodations (home hospitality, preferably)—you may be able to do a combined program with other congregations in your area, both within and without your denomination. Expanding your music ministry requires thinking outside the box...

Here’s how to reach Khrysso to discuss possibilities and terms for concerts, all-music services, workshops, and retreats. He will also provide consultation by phone at a reasonable fee.

Khrysso Heart LeFey
897 Moon Road
Columbus, Ohio 43224
614-784-8723
khrysso@syracusenet.net