Acclaimed early music specialist Ruben Valenzuela will lead All Souls’ Episcopal Church, Point Loma, music program beginning Feb. 21.
As director of music, Valenzuela will be All Souls’ organist and choir director. He will provide leadership for music within the parish as well as in “music as mission” outreach to the larger community.
He will support and build on All Souls’ tradition of worship and music, including special services such as fourth Sunday Evensongs and Saturday evening Celtic services. In addition, he will be the director of All Souls’ “Music on the Point” concert series. He will also develop an after-school music program for young people.
Valenzuela will play his first services at All Souls’ on Feb. 21 during the 5 p.m. Celtic service and Sunday, Feb. 22 at the 10:15 a.m. service and 5 p.m. Evensong.
“We are thrilled and excited to welcome Ruben Valenzuela as our director of music,” said The Rev. Joseph Dirbas, rector of All Souls’. “And we look forward to the continued growth and development of our music program for the church and for the community.”
Valenzuela will be the third All Souls’ organist since the church commissioned its Fritts-Richards organ. This three-rank instrument was handcrafted with the voice and temperament of German baroque organs from the time of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.
Valenzuela is a noted conductor, keyboardist, musicologist and church music director, most recently at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Del Mar. He is founder and director of the Bach Collegium San Diego, which specializes in providing historically informed performances of repertoire from the Renaissance, baroque and early Classical eras. He regularly collaborates with many of the outstanding musicians working today in early music. As a musicologist his interests include Novo-Hispanic music (1520-1820), which has led him to undertake musical and liturgical research at Mexico City Cathedral. He is excited to begin his music ministry at All Souls’ Church where he will work to develop a comprehensive liturgical music program, and utilize the gifts offered by the notable Fritts-Richards organ Valenzuela lives in San Diego with his wife Anne-Marie Dicce and their two children, Clara and David.
For more information about All Souls’ Episcopal Church, visit www.allsoulspointloma.org.