Q1: Would you mind tell me when did you start your work in church?

Barbara Baird: I began in 1970s, when I was a student in university, getting my first degree in organ performance. I began working as a organist and choir director in a Episcopal church in fort worth, Texas.

Q2: Have you ever been to any Catholic or Emerging Church?

B: Yes, I have played in so many different churches and visited churches of all kinds. It sampled a lot of different denominations and different worship services.

Q3: As we know, those churches started from Catholic, then developed. What do you think about the development till 20th Century? Like the new Emerging Church and their new alternative worship?

B: I think the different denominations that have span of the Catholic church, have all been tried to find their own way of understanding faith and spirituality. I think it is very human thing to want to find the relevance and meaning in that. For Emerging church, I don’t know that I agree with them but I understand that they are trying to rich people who did not grow up in the church and don’t understand that church history and don’t understand that background and they don’t relate to it. So they are creating churches that feel more like auditoriums, concert halls. Um, more like concert values rather than a place of worship of the house of God, which is what the Catholic church strives to do with their buildings. Meanwhile, the music for alternative worship is trying to use music that sounds more like popular music and less like traditional music. And their thought is that speaks to people because they can understand it and relate to it.

Q4: Which one do you prefer?

B: Hahahaha, um, because I understand the beauty of the history and where those traditions come from and value them. And I value that the Catholic church has always had a high standard of music and they have not always stayed with that. They have sometimes lost their way. Um, but other churches have picked up that idea that music really…is very import way of…of expressing our faith and understanding our faith. Certainly, Martin Luther was the one who put us on that path just say: music in the church should express who we are as Christians. It should teach people what their faith is about. And emotionally, it ought to be an experience that leaves you out of your everyday world that takes you to an understanding of God and Christ like life. So for me, I…I like music of all styles but I’m very particular about any words that are been said. They should be meaningful words that do express the faith that my Christian community lives. So in my current church…job, I choose music for my choir to sing, I choose the hymns that the congregation sings. And I choose very carefully, what those words are saying. I want those to be true expressions of what we believe.

Q5: Which period of music do you like?

B: I would say that I like music of all styles. And there are composers that I like better than other composers. I always come back to Bach. Because I think there is a incredible depth of compositional skills and musicianship. I find a depth to his writing partly because he thought as a Christian expression that all music that he wrote whether with secular music or sacred music, all music is a gift of God. So, the music of Bach I think is particularly beautiful and meaningful. Because he wrote all of his music dedicated to God. He saw music as a gift from God and it was an expression of…of him as a person of faith. It’s very beautiful music. There are many other composers that have written beautiful music too but if I had to choose only one, it will be Bach.