Our Stories
Hi, church family, I’m Alex Innecco, director of music. MUMC for me happened as a wonderful surprise. I never prepared myself to be a church musician. I was raised as a Catholic (went through 1-8 grades in a school taught by nuns in Brazil…) and the first time I actually sat through services in a protestant church was in this very sanctuary, in 1991. The pastor was Carl Schenck, and the music director was Charles Kyriakos, and he hired me as a scholarship singer for Chancel Choir, where I sang for a couple years. My life moved on to Bloomington, Indiana, where I was hired as a singer in the First United Methodist Church – which happened to be the church of organist Charles Webb, the dean of the Indiana University Music School, and one of the editors of our hymnal. I sang there also for a couple years. I moved back to Columbia in 2001 to do my master’s in choral conducting, I had absolutely no idea that I was going to be conducting the choir in which had sung 13 years before. The position of music director was open and I applied, despite of the fact that I had been accepted for a doctorate in Michigan State University. When I got the job, I had to decide between a doctorate or a church job. It was hard. I called my parents, who were enchanted with the possibility of me setting hands-on conducting right away. We decided that it would be best for me to stay. Well… that’s been more than four years. I have had the best time of my life. I am surrounded by loving people. The staff is a wonderful team that works hard and is proud of the church. The congregation supports me in my crazy ideas about a concert series, and I feel that music has been getting better and better. I feel that we have the best team we have ever had in the music area now. But I have to be honest… the time I like the most is when I receive or give communion. It is such a wonderful feeling for me, especially coming from a different church, where communion is a closed privilege. I often can’t help but to cry… I feel so completely surrounded by love, so involved in goodness and kind-heartedness… For that I thank each and everyone of you. I am proud of working here. This is a church that does a lot, and a church that wants to be alive and participating in the world out there.
Alex
