The soul-stirring music of Charlie Frost
Sea Island Presbyterian Church music director loves
Handel, Beaufort and the
Dallas Cowboys
story by jeff whitten photography by john wollwerth
Would-be concert goers had to be turned away the last time Charlie
Frost directed a performance of Handel’s Messiah Part 1 at the Center
for the Arts on the campus of USCB.
We had people begging for tickets and we couldn’t get them in,”
said Frost, who is Minister of Music at Sea Island Presbyterian
Church. “We sold out and still had enough demand we could’ve had
another performance.”
That much anticipated second performance will come December 5,
and so will a third, as the Sea Island Chamber Singers and its guests
will give two performances of the baroque masterpiece that day at
USCB’s 460-seat Center for the Arts.
The program will feature the voices of both Sea Island
Presbyterian Church’s 28-member auditioned choir and 17 guests, and
include soloists Jordan Plair and Katie McAllister, both sopranos;
Jenifer Luiken, alto; Alan Lathan, a tenor; and baritone Kurt Ollmann.
The orchestra will be 12 professional instrumentalists, some of them
from the Beaufort Symphony Orchestra, Savannah Philharmonic and the
Hilton Head Symphony, Frost said.
The shows are the end result of some eight weeks of preparation,
a process that included auditions, practice and more practice for
Messiah’s Handel Part 1, which lasts about an hour and 10 minutes and
includes the Hallelujah chorus as a finale. Handel’s Messiah, Part 1
has become almost synonymous with Christmas for some, including Frost.
“ I love the music, I love the message it has, it starts with the
prophecy of the birth of Christ and continues through the
resurrection, and I love the way the music presents the story, it’s
very dramatic,” he said. “I listen to it every Christmas and at Easter
time I listen to parts 2 and 3. It’s part of my soul, part of my inner
being.”
Frost said directing Handel’s Messiah is about more than putting
on a good show. “It’s really a strong expression of my faith, it’s an
expression of what I believe theologically and biblically.”
As for why Handel’s Messiah Part 1 seems to resonate so much with
a public that generally turns a deaf ear to classical – in this case,
baroque – music, he said it’s easy for all levels of people who are
musical or not to listen to and enjoy.
“It’s just the way it was composed, its listening appeal,” Frost
said. “You don’t have to be a musician to appreciate it. And the
Hallelujah chorus, I think that’s what’s most popular with people.
They connect that with Christmas.”
Music, Beaufort and Football
The biography on the Sea Island Presbyterian Church website puts
Frost’s background and career to date in a nutshell. During the
interview, he adds some nuance, noting he grew up in a “Black Baptist
church,” and fell in love with church music from the outset. By the
time Frost was a high school sophomore he was playing the organ and
directing choirs in churches and on his way to a career.
“My parents never had to force me to practice,” he said. “I loved
hearing it and wanted to do this from the first time I heard church
music.”
Frost went on to study at Westminster Choir College in Princeton,
N.J., where he earned his Bachelor and Master of Music Degrees in
Church Music. Before coming to Beaufort in 2002, Frost, who joined the
Presbyterian Church when he graduated, served churches in New Jersey,
New York, California, Washington and Michigan before coming to
Beaufort to interview at Sea Island Presbyterian.
Frost was looking for a change in scenery. Sea Island
Presbyterian was looking for a Minster of Music. It worked.
“They wanted to build the music program, and when I came down to
interview I liked what I heard. There was a lot of creativity. I felt
a calling to come here by God,” Frost said.
It was his first foray into the deep South and he fell in love
with the place in general and Beaufort in particular, and has no
intention of living elsewhere once he retires. The growing arts scene,
the splendid scenery, the friendliness of the people, the warmth of
the weather, the church’s traditional but open approach to music, all
were reasons to put down roots, he said. All remain reasons to stay.
“I loved it as soon as I got here for my first interview,” Frost
said. “It’s like something out of a history book. I love the old
homes, the way things have been preserved. I love the area. I love
what it has to offer as far as scenery, culture and people.”
An avid cyclist who loves to cook and entertain, Frost is single
and a big traveler who recently drove 3,000 miles around the U.S. and
has made 10 trips to Europe. He’s also a self-professed fan of both
the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees.
The Yankees might be understandable for someone from New Jersey,
but Dallas? The team America loves to hate? The Cowboys?
“I’ve been rooting for them since 1974,” Frost said. “I liked
what the organization stood for as well as the team, Coach Tom Landry
and Roger Staubach and that whole thing.”
The most important thing he’s ever done
It’s called Glory to God and it’s 883 pages long and is used in
churches around the country. Frost was one of 15 people who helped
shape it.
The Presbyterian Church updates its hymnal every quarter century.
The last time that had happened was in 1990, and the church in 2008
began the process of preparing a new one. Among the preparations was
wading through the applications from some 220 people who hoped to have
a hand in the next update. Only 15 were chosen, including Frost.
“They didn’t want it to be any larger than 15 although there were
many, many more people qualified to be on the committee,” he said. The
commitment was for five years, and committee members made four trips
annually to the Presbyterian Church denominational headquarters in
Louisville, KY, to meet.
“But most of the work was done between meetings,” Frost said.
“The hymnal was finished in 2012 and made available in 2013.”
There are 853 songs in the hymnal, and 33 pages of liturgical
material. It’s larger than the previous hymnal, but no heavier due to
a new style of paper and some editing and rearranging of material.
The importance of the work is in its effort to stay current, and
through currency remain relevant.
“A lot has happened in hymnody since 1990,” Frost noted. “This
hymnal presents a broader spectrum of music. There’s contemporary
music, and traditional hymns in it, as well as music from other
countries. Language has been updated, where possible, without changing
the meaning of the text.”
“We did not change the language of those hymns people know by
heart and are a part of people’s memory banks. Nor was the language
changed where it could not be made more gender-friendly without
changing the theology,” Frost said. “It’s made a major, major impact
on not only our denomination, but also on church music as a whole.
It’s definitely the most important project I’ve ever been involved in.
I’ve been involved in others, but this one has the largest and the
widest impact.”
More about Frost
While still a graduate student at Westminster, Frost was a
teaching assistant who taught all organ minors. He studied organ with
Dr. Joan Lippincott, the former head of the organ department and a
world-renowned recitalist and recording artist. Frost’s studied
conducting with Dr. Joseph Flummerfelt, retired Head of Choral
Activities and Director of the famed Westminister Choir.
Frost has served an an organ recitalist in churches across the
country and serves as a clinician for workshops and choir retreats.
He serves as both organist and choir director at Sea Island
Presbyterian. The program consists of children, adult and handbell
choirs. In addition to his work at the church, Frost is on the Board
of Directors of the Beaufort Symphony Orchestra, and serves as
keyboardist for the orchestra. He is also on the Advisory Board for
the Center for the Arts in Beufort.
He is a member of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), American
Choral Directors’ Association (ACDA), the Presbyterian Association of
Musicians (PAM), American Guild of English Handbell Ringers (AGEHR)
and The Hymn Society.
