Dr. Jamie Bartlett, Director of Music

Jamie Bartlett Director Of Music
Music plays many roles in the life of our congregation. Since the beginning, our choir has inspired us with their talent, offering a wide variety of music from many traditions. Since 1996 we have been so fortunate that the direction of our choir has been under the baton of Dr. Jamie Bartlett, Associate Director of Choirs at the College of William and Mary, where she directs the Women’s Chorus and Botetourt Chamber Singers.

Jamie’s enthusiasm and dedication to the WUU choir and music program is unmatched. Twice monthly from September through May, Jamie and the choir offer works from renaissance and baroque choral music to contemporary anthems to African-American spirituals. The choir loves working with Jamie as she challenges them to broader experiences including the opportunity to sing in many foreign languages.

Each year, on the Sunday closest to St. Cecilia’s Day (November 22), the choir celebrates the name day of the patron saint of music and musicians with an all-music service, an event widely anticipated by the congregation. The choir joins forces with an orchestra to perform a larger choral work. Past offerings have included the Mozart Missa Brevis in D [K. 194], the Schubert Mass in G, and the Vivaldi Gloria.

Jamie received her AB in music from Mount Holyoke College, an MM in Choral Conducting from The Eastman School of Music and a DMA in choral conducting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has studied with world-renowned teachers, has taught and held positions at colleges and served as guest conductor around the country.

Jamie’s non-musical life revolves around her two children and her husband, Jamie Armstrong, Director of Choirs at W&M.She went on a sabbatical to Eisenstadt, Austria, where she and her family lived and absorbed Austrian culture for a year of musical and personal renewal. She also spent some time in England working on a research topic involving the British composer, Elizabeth Poston (1905-1985), who will celebrate her centenary in October 2005. Jamie has been invited to England to participate in the celebrations. Jamie, a PK (Congregationalist), has spent quite a bit of time in and around churches. She taught at a Catholic girl’s high school for 4 years, and has held Choir Director positions at Lutheran, UCC-Evangelical and Reform and UCC-Congregationalist churches. Her mother is an organist at an Episcopal Church.

When asked about her hopes for a new minister she responded, “What has appealed to me most in my time here is the love and true appreciation of music and its intangible and often inexplicable power. I would hope that our new minister would share the vision that many of us have which includes music as a source of the spiritual world and a vehicle for many to the Truth for which we all are continually searching.”Looking forward to working with our new minister to insure that the music program continues to enrich the life of our congregation, Jamie extends a warm and musical welcome.