Music Notes

Welcome to Music Notes, a new weekly blog discussing the music in support of our weekly worship services! Music Notes will be included in Field Notes and available on our website. Each week, we will explore the history, context, and relationship to liturgy which our service music has. We will learn fun facts about composers’ lives and their output, as well as diving into context and the important relationships between music and liturgy.
Read the latest editions of Music Notes below:
MUSIC NOTES THE FEAST OF BLESSED ABSALOM JONES FEBRUARY 12, 2023
MUSIC NOTES FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY – FEBRUARY 5, 2023
Music Notes: Fourth Sunday after Epiphany January 29th, 2023
MUSIC NOTES THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY - JAN 22, 2023
Music Notes Second Sunday after Epiphany - January 18th, 2023
Tyrone Whiting
Director of Music & Arts
412 587 0178
As Director of Music & Arts at St. Martin's, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (he/him) oversees all our music and arts ministries, outreach, and education. Tyrone says: "With a robed adult choir supported by four professional section leaders, a children’s choir Chorister program, and a robust series of concerts throughout the year, St. Martin’s is an incredibly musically active church, whose mission and outreach are at the heart of the music program. I am proud and grateful to all who participate and support our music ministries."
Winner of multiple prizes, organist, pianist, and conductor, Tyrone Whiting began his formal studies as a teenager with Nigel McClintock at Croydon Parish Church (now Croydon Minster) in London, UK. Five years later, in the summer of 2011, he was awarded the Associateship diploma of the Royal College of Organists (ARCO).
Tyrone previously graduated from the Royal College of Music (RCM) as a scholar from the Postgraduate Diploma in Performance Science course, where he was generously funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Studentship and supported by the Douglas and Hilda Simmonds Award. Returning to the RCM in 2016, Tyrone received a distinction in the one-year fast-track Master of Music degree course, achieving an ‘excellent’ category distinction grade in his final organ recital, and receiving the renowned Harold Darke Prize in 2017. Tyrone studied organ with both David Graham and Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, conducting with Peter Stark and Howard Williams, and has also undertaken historical performance projects with Jane Chapman and Lawrence Zazzo.
Graduating in 2012 with a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he studied organ performance with William Whitehead, Daniel Moult, and Ann Elise Smoot, Tyrone was three times winner of the Geoffrey Singleton Prize for Organ Performance (2010, 2011 & 2012), and twice winner of the Cardnell Organ Prize for ‘talents as an organist’ (2011 & 2012). Throughout the degree, Tyrone trained as a pianist under the direction of the renowned Phillip Fowke and continues to perform piano alongside his organ work. Tyrone also studied at Trinity’s Junior Department where he was awarded the Hambourg Award for Improvisation.
In September 2017, Tyrone was appointed Director of Music at Grace Church in Newark, New Jersey, USA and began working there in February 2018. At Grace Church, Tyrone extended the Chorister Choir School program, developed and expanded the adult choir, and founded a brand-new adult chamber choir, Brick City Chorus, as well as significantly raising the profile of music at Grace Church and the Arts in Newark, NJ.
Prior to Tyrone’s arrival in the USA, he was Director of Music at St. Mary’s Parish Church, Battersea from 2012 to early 2018. At St. Mary’s, Tyrone established a biennial recital series as well as a new fully-funded choral scholarship program, and conducted several large-scale concerts including Mozart and Fauré’s requiems, J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion, and Stainer’s Crucifixion. Collaborative work included conducting a recent commission by prominent British composer Simon Bainbridge written for the Choir of St. Mary’s, as well as working as accompanist for the Philharmonia Chorus under conductors Stefan Bevier and Yaron Traub.
Passionate about teaching, Tyrone was awarded the Licentiateship diploma of Trinity College, London (LTCL) in Instrumental/Vocal Teaching with a high distinction and worked in and around London as a teacher of organ, piano, and theory. He was formerly Head of Music at Elmhurst Independent School for Boys for many years and worked as an animateur in London schools and with the London Mozart Players.
Music
Music is an integral fundamental part of the worship and life of St. Martin’s. A typical Sunday Eucharist will include two anthems, and a psalm sung by the choir, as well a congregational mass setting (sometimes choral settings are used) and hymns. Congregational singing is an important part of our worship; music adds heightened meaning to texts and scripture and is a wonderful medium for expressing the inexpressible in times of joy and gladness, or in time of difficulty and sadness.