For the sisters at Marymount Convent in Tarrytown, Vince Peterson is not only the musician who enhances our liturgies through carefully selected music, but one who creates a deeply spiritual shared experience. However, it is perhaps only when you learn about the scope of Vince’s work as pianist, organist, conductor, and composer that you realize what a blessing it is for us to have him in our lives.
Vince’s passion for music began at age 6 in San Francisco when he took piano lessons from BVM Sister Gladys Richmond. In kindergarten, he loved watching her hands and asked her to teach him, which she did three times a week once he was in first grade. In 4th grade, Vince taught himself to play the Joe Wise song “You Fill the Day.” When he was in 6th grade, Sister Gladys asked him to meet her at the organ loft of the parish church, beginning his career as an organist, even though he could not reach the pedals. And then one day she told him, “You will play for First Friday Mass next week.” After Sister Gladys retired, Vince stayed in touch with her until she died in 2004.
In successive years, Vince became the music director of his parish at age 14, played the organ in the Vatican and sang at an audience for Pope John Paul II at age 15. He received his Bachelor of Music (BMus) degree in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and completed two master’s degrees in composition and choral conducting at Mannes College of Music in New York City. At age 27, he founded Choral Chameleon, which began as a small group in his kitchen and is now a nationally recognized NYC vocal ensemble. Vince has also been engaged in teaching at the high school and college levels.
If you research Vince Peterson, you will also learn that over the years, he has been responsible for presenting over 400 premieres of new choral and theater music, and has been featured in The New York Times, The San Francisco Classical Voice, and The New York Concert Review, among other publications. He is a recipient of the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming and the Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal by Chorus America, an award he shares with only 20 other choral musicians in the United States. An extraordinary arranger, Vince has also received commissions from the Grammy Award-winning ensemble Chanticleer, with over half a million views of his work on YouTube.
In the years following 2019, a variety of circumstances, coupled with the pandemic, brought new dimensions to Vince’s life and career. He began substituting for our previous organist, Chris Reilly, and when Chris left for another position, Vince became full-time, feeling very strongly that God was calling him to us. He also received a call from Maryknoll, and now provides music for their liturgies, managing to juggle it all, even during busy days such as the Paschal Triduum. On the professional level, he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in choral music from Shenandoah University in Virginia, writing his dissertation on Conrad Susa, who was his composition teacher in San Francisco and another of his mentors.
Vince is a musician par excellence, but to him, “Music is the vehicle of how I minister. Even in the secular world, I view everything I do as ministry.” Not surprisingly, The Brooklyn Eagle has called Vince’s music “a stunning symphony of the spiritual and secular.” And from his first day with us in January 2020, Vince found it natural to develop personal relationships with the sisters, even accompanying them on their journey towards death. And each Sunday, “It feels like I’mgoing to visit family, to all my aunts to check on them.” Vince had the piano in our chapel moved to its current place because “Mass is conversational between me and the sisters.” And we are so grateful to be part of that conversation!