Meet Zack von Menchhofen, cago | Choirmaster Zack von Menchhofen

Meet Choirmaster Zack von Menchhofen, cago

My grandmother was an accomplished classical musician. She played multiple instruments (as all choirmasters should) - violin, viola, cello, recorders, harpsichord, piano - and of course, the mighty pipe organ. My grandparent’s house was always filled with music and musicians. Members of various orchestras and ensembles that my grandmother performed with would stop by sometimes with their instruments. They would play, sing and rehearse in my grandmother's studio off the dining room behind the giant mahogany pocket doors. They would play beautiful music - both secular and sacred - by composers known and unknown. My grandmother would take me to concerts in the 'city' in buildings with wonderful architecture and we would maybe sit in the balcony far from the stage - or maybe she would know the performers and be invited to sit in the very front row. We would go to concerts in the park during the spring and summer seasons, sometimes sitting in the chairs in the amphitheater or sometimes on a picnic blanket on the lawn.

Even though I was still very young (around the 2nd grade), I got it in my mind that I wanted to be a composer and write music like the music I was hearing at all these concerts. During music lessons I was given a manuscript book - something that is necessary during music lessons - and I started to scribble melodies in large block notes and my music teachers would play my creations during my lessons. But I was better at "writing" than I was at practicing my lessons. That is when my grandmother informed me that all composers played the organ - because it’s the way composers learn a concept called 'orchestration'. This turned out to be very true. Read the life stories of some of the 'great' composers from the past, and many of them were church organists. The organ allows the performer to differentiate musical lines more than any other instrument. It has the ability to allow the musician to play as if they had an orchestra at their finger-tips. And toe-tips, for that matter, as an organist gets to play using their feet as well as their hands! What could be more fun?

And so, I started to sit at my grandmother' feet, literally, to watch her play the mighty four-manual Austin pipe organ at the church where she played Sunday-after-Sunday. That is the way that I became an organist.

Education & Training

After studying the organ with my grandmother for a number of years, I landed my first church job with my high school music teacher at a large Roman Catholic church that had several masses each weekend. I was one of several musicians and played for just one service every weekend. Soon, other people found out that I was playing at the Catholic church and would ask me to substitute for vacations or special services. It was through one of these invites that I got my first "bench". It was for a small Episcopal/Anglican congregation. I grew up as a Baptist, so the Roman and Episcopal services were a new and exciting to me. Not only did this Episcopal church have a wonderful sounding small pipe organ, but it had artfully crafted stained glass windows and heavy wooden doors, ceiling and beams. I count myself lucky that through my long career as a church organist and choirmaster, I have had the good fortune to sit in some beautiful buildings around the world to work. I played those services through the last two years of high school.

Then, off to college I went, to the Ester Boyer Conservatory of Music at Temple University for voice/opera performance. Even though I loved the organ, I thought I wanted to be an opera singer (more on this later). But needing money for school, I soon found an organ job at the Memorial Chapel of the Holy Communion (Episcopal) in Philadelphia (Sadly, MCHC is no longer there. Through the years, I have seen many churches close).

Life & Career

I held the post at MCHC for five years, until the Pennsylvania Diocese closed the church down. There were not enough congregants to support the church any longer and the church expenses (including my salary) was being supported by a mother-church named Holy Apostles and the Mediator (HAM). HAM at one time supported seven satellite churches throughout Philadelphia, and MCHC was the last church in this situation. After MCHC, I took the post as organist for a small Lutheran church (Trinity Lutheran Church) in the Holmesburg Circle section of Philadelphia. Trinity had a very small, but well-appointed pipe organ that had no pre-sets, and the organist sat in the balcony among the pipes. Six months had passed when I received a phone call from Father Ludwig Gooding of St. Phillip's Memorial Episcopal Church. When I was at MCHC, the organists of St. Phillip's, St. Simon the Syrene (22nd Street Philadelphia) and MCHC would rotate around during the summer months - just to give us all something different to do and a different view of the mass/service at a different institution. The organist at St. Phillip’s was a wonderful older woman who no longer wanted to be responsible for regular Sunday service. So, suddenly St. Phillip's needed a permanent organist. Father Gooding would not take "No" for an answer (literally) and so after being in my current position for only six months, I resigned to go and take the post at St. Phillip's Memorial Episcopal Church (STP) where I would spend the next three years.

There were some really interesting things about STP, much of the congregation was from Barbados and the Caribbean islands. Father Gooding was himself from the islands and had gone to school in Oxford, England. The islands, as well as England, tend to have a more "high" church tradition. The other interesting thing about STP was that their building was in terrible shape, and so the Dioceses of Pennsylvania sold the building (that belonged to MCHC) to STP! I ended up back in the same church building, but with a vastly different congregation!

During the years at MCHC and STP, I was performing all around the Philadelphia region, singing and playing - both opera and sacred services. I served as an adjunct organist/choir director for an Orthodox Roman Monastery in Berlin, New Jersey, where I studied chant with Lancelot R. Petrarca. During this time, I also served as an occasional chorister (when I didn't have a service of my own to play) in the professional choirs at St. Mark's Episcopal Church (Locust Street - Philadelphia) under Wesley Parrott and St. Luke and Epiphany (Episcopal) church at 13th and Spruce Streets under Jonathan Bowen. Attending rehearsals with Wesley, Lance and Jonathan was always a learning experience and I got to perform a lot of early music that I normally wouldn't have had the opportunity to perform. Also, during this time, I would travel to Europe during the Summer months to study music in England and Germany at different festivals and seminars. It was at these summer sessions and at rehearsal with Wesley Parrott that I fell in love with the music of the German Baroque composers (from Lance I learned about chant and from Jonathan I learned about English choral music).

A move to Hartford, Connecticut meant that again I needed to find a new organ position. I soon became the organist at Second Congregational Church in Manchester, Connecticut. The organ at 2Congo was a huge Austin pipe organ (very much like my grandmother had played when I was a child). And no wonder 2Congo had an Austin – the Austin Organ Company is based in Hartford, Connecticut! I have always been a member of the American Guild of Organists (AGO). The AGO offers members professional certification through instruction and juried exams. I realized that I had been playing the organ for several years at this point, and decided to show my dedication and skill as an organist by pursuing and acquiring my certification (more on this later). It was in Hartford, that I took several lessons with Edward Clarke of the Hart School of Music. However, I didn't spend long in Hartford, and after about a year, moved back to Philadelphia.

Once I returned to Philadelphia, I took the bench at The Church of the Advent (Episcopal) in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. This was my first church outside of a downtown core, a very suburban church. I loved the rector at Church of the Advent. Rev. Robin Martin was a thoughtful and well-grounded woman. Her sermons were always moving. Advent was also where I re-discovered my love of composition. I returned to Temple University to take a semester of classes in music composition and seriously started to study music theory and 16th-century counterpoint as a compositional device.

Years and years ago, I had performed at All Saints' Church, Torresdale/Philadelphia as a hired chorister ringer. I remember how wonderful the service and organ were. When the position as choirmaster and organist came available at All Saints, I applied. I never thought I'd be offered the position at this very historic church - a history that pre-dated the founding of America. But I was offered the job at All Saints under Fr. Edward Chinn. I was so excited because Fr. Chinn was well-known as an author and priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. Sadly, Fr. Chinn left two weeks into my appointment due to a cancer diagnosis and then died shortly after. So, I never got to work or get to know Fr. Chinn. The next three years was a whirlwind of different guest priests and supply-ministers through the door. It got a little overwhelming and difficult to build a coherent music program with so many unknowns and instability. I longed to find something more grounded and where I could establish myself as a musician. Enter St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Glenmoore, Pennsylvania.

St. Andrew's was off in the country, extremely far from the city. It was a small, quiet country church. Nothing special from the outside. From the inside though there was a group of volunteer musicians that wanted to learn and grow. I didn't really realize that when I applied for the position at St. Andrew's, but it was something I quickly discovered. A group of people - both congregation and choir - that wanted to learn and grow. A job that I thought would be a few months until I "found" something else would grow into a position I would hold for 11 years.

It was at St. Andrew's that I would develop musical programs and services geared to engage people. Its where I learned that if you share ideas and insights about music where people are - out in the community - it will bring those people into the church. St. Andrew's is where I discovered that my love of teaching is reciprocal to a love of learning. That by teaching others, I was able to learn and grow myself. This is where I developed my programs "Beer with the Choirmaster", "Men's Singing with Coffee" and "Twilight Music on the Lawn" as community engagement programs. It was at this church where I also discovered that volunteer choristers do not exist with professional choristers without a strong program and direct engagement. After 11 years, a new administration decided that professional choristers was the way to go. So it was once again time to look for a new position.

I worked as an interim organist for a few different churches, most notably, St. James Episcopal, Downingtown, Pennsylvania and St. Mark's, Honeybrook, Pennsylvania. Eventually, I applied to be the organist at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Quakertown, Pennsylvania. I was extremely excited about taking on this position, as I am huge fan of North German Lutheran Baroque music, as well as a fan of the writings of Martin Luther. I had been at St. John's for only about three months when the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 began, and soon shut everything down (church attendance, choir). I performed virtual services at St. John's for the year. It was odd performing my job for an empty church for video camera and recording equipment only. But still, I feel that I am serving - as my idol J.S. Bach said - a well-regulated church music program to the Glory of God and for the edification and refreshment of my neighbor's soul.

Philosophy of Music