Wayne Dietterick, Bass

Wayne Dietterick is the marketing and communications coordinator for the UMDNJ-School of Public Health in Piscataway. A native of Mifflinville, PA, and a New Jersey resident for the past 34 years, Wayne is Director of Music at Emanuel Lutheran Church, ELCA, in New Brunswick. His previous organist/choir director positions in New Jersey ELCA Lutheran churches include Advent, Warren; St. John’s, Summit; and Faith, Murray Hill. He also served at St. John’s in Bloomsburg (Espy), PA as well as at his home congregation, St. John’s, Mifflinville, PA.

Composer-in-Residence for Caritas, and a composer and arranger of over 150 works, Wayne’s music has been widely performed by church, high school and community choral organizations both nationally and internationally. In December 2006, the Rutgers University-Newark Chorus premiered his original work written for them, O Love That Lights the Eastern Sky, which also was part of their spring 2007 program for their tour of Scotland. In 2008, Wayne’s choral/orchestral arrangement of the Gustav Holst/Michael Perry hymn, O God Beyond All Praising, written for the Susquehanna University Choir, was the closing work for a concert performance of the University’s Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York City in celebration of the 150th year of the 1858 founding of Susquehanna University.

Caritas has premiered three of Wayne’s choral works written for them -- his arrangement of Here I Am, Lord, written for the first concert season in 2005, an original composition, Nowell Sing We, written for the 2006 concert season, and an original work, Though the Fig Tree Does Not Blossom, which was premiered in 2008 by the combined Metuchen Diocesan Chamber Choir and Caritas Chamber Chorale at the National Pastoral Musicians Eastern Region Convention in New Brunswick, NJ. This year, Caritas will premiere another original work of his titled "Peace Be With You." Also, two of Wayne’s works, Meditation on Praise to the Lord and Lord of all Hopefulness (for organ), and From Psalm 143- A Prayer (for choir/piano) have been accepted for publication in "Metropolitan Measures," to be published by the Metropolitan New Jersey Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, with an emphasis in choral directing and organ performance. Additionally, he studied organ privately with the late Dr. Leonard Raver of the Julliard School.

Wayne expresses his thanks and appreciation to Barbara Sanderman and to all members of Caritas for the opportunity to be a part of this volunteer choral group devoted to the beauty of a cappella choral singing and to helping others in need.