He’s got some pretty big shoes to fill but Alfred V. Fedak is up for the challenge. Fedak will succeed Suzanne Lake as Mohawk Valley Chorus’ accompanist this fall.

He is well experienced, having accompanied the Burnt Hills Oratorio Society and the Schenectady Choral Society for years; serving as minister of music at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Albany, organist at St. Casimir’s Church, Albany, and organist and choir director at Congregation Beth Emeth, also in Albany.

Five years ago, the BH Oratorio Society commissioned and presented the first performance of Fedak’s The Web of Life: Litanies for the Earth, which was called “inspiring” and “impressive” by Gazette classical music reviewer Bill Rice.

It is not his only composition. In May 2000, Invocation and Dance was premiered by Welsh organist Huw Lewis at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Albany, and the Schenectady Choral Society presented his A Different Season – Music for the Millennium.

Most of his compositions have been sacred music, written for voice, organ and handbells. Many organ and choral works have been printed in hymnals and catalogs in both the United States and Canada and two anthologies, The Alfred V. Fedak Hymnary and Sing to the Lord No Threadbare Song, have been published.

Fedak, a native of Elizabeth, N.J., holds degrees from Hope College in Michigan and Montclair State College in New Jersey. He’s also studied at Westminster Choir College and at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, Austria. While there, he sang in the St. Stephen’s Cathedral choir.

In 1985, Fedak and his wife, mezzo-soprano Susan Hermance Fedak, took part in the first Cambridge Choral Studies Seminar in England, where they worked with a number of composers, including John Rutter.

We welcome him to MVC, which includes in its membership two of his sisters-in-law, president Gay O’Brien and Melanie Lee. His wife has been an MVC soloist and his in-laws, Myron and Alecia Hermance, are former members.