Arts & Entertainment
Montville Teacher Hopes to Heal With Music
Long Valley man's classical albums selling internationally.
teacher Glenn Ericksen is hoping to inspire people who are facing challenging times with the sacred classical songs he has recently released on several leading music download websites, including iTunes and Amazon.
But while customers have to pay to own the songs Ericksen produced with two other musicians on two separate albums, he said he is not spreading his music to the world strictly to make a profit.
"It's the ministry, not the money," Ericksen, a biology and earth science teacher, said.
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The Long Valley resident has been a musician since he was young, picking up his first violin at his home, where his father collected them, when he was about four years old. About two years later, he purchased a trumpet from a garage sale and has been playing both the trumpet and violin, with no particular preference, ever since.
Ericksen studied music for several years at Wheaton College, in Illinois, before focusing on science to become a teacher. He has taught at the Montville high school for 26 years.
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A Born Again Christian, Ericksen worked at Camp-of-the-Woods, a Christian resort in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, in the 1990s and performed several songs for campers and visitors.
"I wanted to record some of those songs because people really enjoyed them being played there," he said.
So he got together with Marjie Brake, a pianist, and recorded his first album, Love Was When. A few years later, he recorded a second album with Rommel Guigon, who plays the organ, called What Wonderous Love is This!
Ericksen said the music of both albums could be best described as gospel, sacred music.
"I think it would appeal to people who like classical music," he said. "The style ranges anywhere from very mellow to very upbeat."
In the '90s, Eriksen said he and Guigon and Brake had trouble distributing their music. But with new technology and through a website called CD Baby, Eriksen has been able to upload all of the tracks to various music downloading websites for purchase over the past five weeks. Some of the tracks have made it to Top 100 lists already, including "The Lord is My Light," a song based on Psalm 27, that was recently on the Top 100 list for classical songs on Amazon.
"We never thought we'd get into a Top 100," Eriksen said.
What has been even more encouraging, Eriksen said, is that his music is being downloaded internationally.
"It's exciting to see someone download your song in Japan," he said.
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