Musical director heading south

Tim Witzel, the musical director for the Church on the Green, has resigned. He is moving to Kentucky.

The musical director of the Church on the Green, Tim Witzel, 35, resigned his position effective April 30 citing the cost of living in New Jersey. He was director for almost 10 years.

“I’m leaving for some opportunity in Kentucky that I simply didn’t have here,” he said last week in the church chapel after his final rehearsal. “It’s a big move and it’s taken a lot of consideration. It’s a sudden move and I didn’t get to say all my farewells.”

He is not sure what sort of employment he will find, but has a church picked out and hopes to work in music. He decided to venture into Kentucky, someplace he has never been, because he has friends there. Any part-time job he finds would be a bonus, he admitted, but that is standard procedure for him. While the musical director, he worked as a shipping manager, at an IT help desk and in Pet Smart retail.

“The past couple of years have been a roller coaster here for me,” he said. “Down there, I’ll be getting the same pay, but the cost of living is one-half as here.”
Although a music director, Witzel, who is from Saddle Brook, did not study music. He attended the Institute for Audio Research, in New York City.

“It doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “But audio engineering is a very competitive field; more of who-you-know. But I’ve always been a piano player. Once I turned my early 20s, I started doing small gigs and getting around a little bit.”

Prior to his Church on the Green tenure, he was the accompanist for the Bloomfield Singing Chorale. But coming to the church, he said he had no idea what he was getting into. He had never played an organ or directed a choir.

“But after two months of subbing, I fell into the groove,” he said. “They like the way I worked and hired me.”

The Rev. Ruth Boling, the church pastor, said Witzal’s musicianship was evident from the first Sunday he played.

“He also had a wonderful rapport with children and our youth,” she said. “They have enjoyed singing with him in youth choir, Vacation Bible Camp and Christmas pageants and recently he started teaching our littlest ones to play glockenspiels.”

Witzal also accompanied and performed at the church’s monthly “Open Mic Night.”

“Singers would arrive and hand Tim sheet music to sightread, everything from Broadway tunes to pop music to Irish ballads,” Boling continued. “Tim’s first love is classical music, so his solo pieces would likely be a Chopin Prelude or Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or a little Mozart. Then he’d switch to 12-bar blues, improvising with a guitarist, then throw in a little Scott Joplin ragtime, then wrap up the evening with a good old-fashioned hymn sing.”

But an enduring contribution to the church was a CD he produced during the Covid lockdown, Boling said. This was a collection of hymns and sacred music he played on the church’s concert grand piano.

“Tim personally burned enough copies of the CD to distribute to the entire congregation as a Christmas gift in 2020,” she said. “As a part-time church musician, he’s played a vital role in providing the soundtrack to our ministry. We are sorry to say goodbye.”

In his interview, Witzel also noted his enjoyment in teaching children to play the glockenspiel, a percussive instrument.

“But the crowning achievement of the choir was performing John Stainer’s ‘Crucifixion,” he said. “It was probably the most difficult piece we did. It’s quite big. We worked hard on it and it came together nicely.”

The composition was performed only once, he said, on Good Friday several years ago.

For Witzel, the Church on the Green was a wonderful learning experience.

“I learned how to be comfortable in front of people and how to be a leader,” he said. “It’s difficult being a young person and getting the respect took some doing and time. But once I got it, it never went away and people loved me a lot.”

Something else was how to offer explanations with different perspectives.

“Not just how I think,” he said, “but how others think, too.”

He said he did everything he wanted to do at the church and then some. And when he had doubts about his musical direction, he said the choir stepped up.
“I’m going to be leaving New Jersey for the first time,” Witzel said. “I assume it’s going to be a big shock when I get down there. But being here at the church has been the most fun in my life. I wouldn’t do it any differently.”