Daryel Nance is the Director of Music Ministry at St.Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in the Diocese of Galveston-Houston, Houston, Texas.  He is a member of the Director of Music Ministries Division of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians and is involved in the reorganization of the local NPM Galvestion-Houston chapter.  Daryel is a member of the Houston Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Daryel as a veteran church musician, has for the past 35 years has worked as a director of music ministry within the Roman Catholic Church, at two parishes, a university, and two seminaries.  Adjunctly, in his current parish employment, he was previously responsible for the computer network systems administration for 12 years on Unix, Novell and Microsoft based networks.  His responsibilities continue to include digital telephone and audio networks.
 

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Music Ministry at St.Vincent's   St. Vincent de Paul is a Roman Catholic parish community of 3,500 families, located in Houston, Texas (Diocese of Galveston - Houston).  Daryel has been the Director of Music Ministry at St. Vincent's from 1975 to the present.  St. Vincent's parish music ministry typically involves around 70 volunteer musicians, in five music ensembles at six of the seven weekend Sunday Masses.  Click on the following to go to pages for:  Rieger pipe organ (54 ranks/1974) ,  Petit and Fritsen 14 bell chime , or the renovated church (November of 2000).
 
 
 

Dom Paul Benoit, O.S.B.  Dom Paul Benoit (1893-1979) was an organist, a composer, and a  Roman Catholic Priest,  who lived as a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of St. Maurice et St. Maur, at Clervaux, in Luxembourg.  Dom Paul's compositions are somewhat unique for the organ in bearing a pervasive imprint of French impressionism. In addition to being excellent liturgical music, his organ works form a unique and worthy contribution to the literature for the instrument.
 
 

www.Church-Organist.com  Church-Organist.com is an internet resource for church organists, synthesists, and keyboardists.  Contains a listing of service music collections assembled from an organist's survey, free staff paper page, reference links and access to ordering music from online sources.
 
 
 
 
 

Music Skills Resource links    Contains:  Miriam Duncan's Hymn Playing lecture given at Oberlin in 1992;  How to Practice Sight-Reading at the Keyboard - D. Nance;  an article on singer's breathing by Dr. Lloyd Hanson addressing the popular "vocal hocus-pocus" about what one's diaphragm is incapable of doing;  and Choral America's recent survey "America's Performing Art: A Study of Choruses, Choral Singers, and Their Impact" declaring that the "choir" is America's leading music ensemble.  Resource pages are posted on the www.church-organist.com website.
 
 

MISCELLANIA MISCELLANIA MISCELLANIA MISCELLANIA MISCELLANIA MISCELLANIA:

The "Pedal Synthesizer"The need for a portable multi-keyboard instrument, capable of supporting music for liturgy and other occasions, gave birth to the "pedal synthesizer". The concept of a personal portable "organ like" multi-keyboard  synthesizer has been a reoccurring interest.  The actual motivation to assemble one was St.Vincent's church renovation.  The criteria for this portable alternative was that it needed to be assembled from off-the-shelf state of the art music hardware, be reasonably portable, be able to be serviced through commercial music retailers, and be as cost effective as possible.

Parish Music Appreciation Class notes   An eight session course - intuitively based - to improve one's ability to see and appreciate the aural art of music. Used in St. Vincent's Senior Activities course offerings.  Pages under construction.

Compositions pageComposition list includes music for Congregation, music for Choir, and keyboard music for Organ, Piano, or Synthesizer.  Page "perpetually" under construction.

Biographical pageDaryel Nance has worked full time as a Director of Music Ministry in two Roman Catholic parishes, a university, and two seminaries from 1968 to the present.  He has also been adjunctly responsible for various systems administration (computer network, phone network, and audio systems).

Toolbox of music hardwareToolbox of personal music instruments and hardware.
 

Nance Family, etc   Photo gallery of the curent nest of "nance-lings".