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Chapel Music Director Retires

Stepping aside after 29 years as Director of the Duke Chapel Choir at Duke University Rodney Wynkoop shares thoughts and musical highlights.

TRANSCRIPTION:
TRACK
We walk to the front of Duke chapel, dim and empty.

ACTUALITY
So you can adjust this. This is where I sit on Sunday mornings. Is this good?

TRACK
It’s very good. It’s a moment to sit in one of his favorite spots with Director of Chapel Music Rodney Wynkoop, retiring from that position July first.

ACTUALITY
So we are sitting in the chancel of Duke Chapel. I am sitting in my usual place, which is at the front end and a place I’ve sat for 29 years.

TRACK
A few days before he had stood in front of 200 or so members of the Chapel Choir and its alumni, singing together as a farewell. He told them how much he would miss the beauty of the chapel. Each week he would see windows, spires, organ — but of course…

ACTUALITY
And then I always look at the most beautiful thing in this chapel, which is the singers who sit in the chapel choir. I will miss this truly beautiful, wondrous sight, more than anything else. Now let’s get to singing shall we?

[LAUGHTER]

NATSOUND
[SINGING]
Beautiful Savior, lord of the nations….

[UNDER]

TRACK
Though Wynkoop will no longer conduct the choir or serve as Director of Chapel Music, he isn’t leaving Duke; he’ll continue teaching and conducting choirs in Durham. Leaving musicmaking in the chapel, though, means saying goodbye to something very special.

ACTUALITY
Through whatever kind of intentionality each of the singers and I brings to the music to offer an opportunity for people perhaps to think about, be taken to, metaphorically, someplace that may be divine, that may at least be out of the ordinary. That makes music a special kind of language. That it’s really a portal into something finer and more imaginative and perhaps faith filled.

NATSOUND: Music
“Beautiful Savior” up then finish.

NATSOUND
“Hallelujah” instrumental up then under

ACTUALITY
The Chapel Choir has done Messiah in December since the Chapel opened.

NATSOUND: Music
“Hallelujah” voices up then under

ACTUALITY
And it is just brimming with energy and I find myself incredibly moved. But what’s equally exciting to me is after the performance usually at least one new member will come up to me and say something like you had told me, you had told all of us, that we couldn’t possibly imagine what this experience would be like until we actually did it. And with tears in their eyes usually they will say it was unbelievable i cannot believe what we have just lived through.

NATSOUND: Music
“Hallelujah” up then back under

ACTUALITY
But at the very end there is this thunderous chorus, “Worthy is the Lamb that Was Slain.”

NATSOUND: Music
“Worthy is the Lamb” up then under

ACTUALITY
And it’s followed by an “Amen” that to me is one of the most beautifully constructed pieces in the repertoire. It builds and builds and comes in waves and backs up and builds again. And it’s pretty cathartic. One of my favorite moments every year that we do Messiah is hearing that buildup at the end and knowing that this amen is strong enough to be a stamp, a goal, at the end of that three hours of music and that this says, “Yes, it shall be like this.”

NATSOUND: Music
“Amen” up to finish

NATSOUND: Music
“God Be in My Head” up then under

TRACK
At the end of most services the choir processes down the center aisle and then comes back around the sides, surrounding the worshipers and singing to them, to the chapel, to each other. A last moment of embrace of the holy before departing.