Heart's desire wins over parental expectations for director
By IMANI TATE, Staff Writer
When William McIntosh told his parents he wanted to major in music in college, they said "You must be out of your mind." Ironically, his mother sang in the church choir and her new husband is a church choir director. But music is a pastime, not a job, his parents thought.
McIntosh, one of the men putting Mt. San Antonio College's choral programs on the national map of high standards, temporarily backed away from his heart's desire to satisfy parental purpose for his life.
But there's a bachelor degree in psychology collecting dust on a wall in his Placentia home.
It took him seven years to get two undergraduate degrees from Biola University the totally unused one in psychology and another in music education practically and joyously applied to McIntosh's and his students' lives.
He directs Fermata Nowhere, Mt. SAC's all-male a cappella choral ensemble mixing gospel, classical, jazz, pop, rock, rap and even nonsense songs; Frontline, the second jazz choir at the community college; the 65-voice concert choir singing classical and contemporary music; and the women's ensemble, an all-female classical choral group.
It's inconceivable that McIntosh didn't join a school choir until he was a junior at Redlands High School. His natural vocal skills and some experience singing at church prompted teacher Roger Duffer to immediately give him a seat in the school's concert choir. McIntosh added his baritone voice to Redlands High Chamber Singers as a senior.
"For some reason I just connected with music," he recalled. "I enjoyed the challenge of memorizing parts, the excitement of being part of a group committed to doing its best, the standing ovations we got at concerts and competitions."
Admittedly disappointed in the parental putdown of music as a lucrative career, McIntosh went to Crafton Hills Community College in Yucaipa. He joined the choir there and was instantly turned off.
"It was horrible," he said, frowning. "There were only 12 people in the choir and they were horrible. I was so depressed. This left me with the impression that this is choral music at the community-college level."
The experience prompted him to turn his back on music and conform to his parents' expectations. He majored in psychology at Biola University, but music still stayed in his heart.
Three must be a motivating number for McIntosh.
He was a junior when he joined the Biola Chorale directed by Loren Wiebe, the man he credits for "bringing life into the music, making performing it a time for worship and creating an aesthetically amazing ensemble. "I went back to my mom and said I need to change my major and switch to music education," McIntosh continued. "I've got that bachelor degree in psychology on my wall not doing anything, but I've also got a bachelor degree in music."
He hasn't regretted choosing music as the best path for his feet, head and heart.
Three teachers played pivotal roles in his choice.
Duffer mentored him during the fledgling years in the high school program. Wiebe exposed him to the full spectrum of choral music and connected him to music as an art form. Lynn Bielefelt, his choral director while he earned a master's in choral conducting from Cal State Long Beach, applied textures of emotion and spirituality to his musical palette.
"She was fighting cancer the whole time I was working on my master's degree, but she daily inspired her students," McIntosh said, marveling at her personal perseverance and professional commitment to her students. "She started each day thanking God for an amazing day.
"She taught me more than any other person about bringing meaning out of the text of a song," he said. "Something magical happens when the singers are feeling the emotions of the words they're singing. The audience feels it at the same time and it shoots all around the room.
"In order for any art form to have meaning, it must have an emotional response," McIntosh mused. "If you're looking at a painting or sculpture, attending a play or listening to a choir sing and there's no emotion, no response, why is it there?" he asked. "If music is merely an academic exercise," he reasoned, "the performance can be perfect. But people walk out thinking it was technically executed well, but it had no emotion or responsive feeling."
That definitely isn't the case when any Mt. SAC choral or instrumental group performs. Eliciting emotions, stirring evocative responses and making magic are the not-so-hidden goals of the teacher/conductors and the performing students, McIntosh said.
His teachers served as role models and helped him develop his own teaching and conducting styles.
"I love what I do," he said, smiling. "I wake up in the morning and think I get to be a conductor, arranger, music teacher; work with kids who love music and inspire them. I love my job. If it wasn't my job, it'd be my hob." McIntosh, 43, was born in Riverside and raised there and in Forest Falls east of Yucaipa.
He is the only son of Caltrans engineer John McIntosh and kindergarten teacher Marie McIntosh. His older sister, Elizabeth Sevey of Brea, is a nurse. McIntosh, his wife Gina and their children, Dana, Nathan and Andy, all sing in choirs at Fullerton's Evangelical Free Church.
In 1988, McIntosh began his music educational career at Maranatha High School in Sierra Madre, directing three choirs and teaching world history and algebra. He joined the faculty of Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1991, a year after the school's jazz choir won the Fullerton College Jazz Festival and performed at Playboy Jazz Festival.
During his years in Long Beach, he conducted traditional Chamber Singers and the vocal jazz ensemble. The latter group won two Downbeat magazine awards for best high school vocal jazz choirs and one for outstanding performance during his tenure.
Bruce Rogers, Mt. SAC's choral activities director and an internationally renowned choral conductor, asked McIntosh to join the faculty when he decided to expand the college's choral programs in 1998-99.
"I knew Bruce, of course, because of his reputation, but I'd also carpooled with him to American Choral Directors Association music camps," McIntosh said. "During those long rides, I'd picked his brain because I knew he'd started at Upland High. I used his ideas about recruitment, literature and sight-reading. He was my mentor."
McIntosh approves of arts education for elementary to college-age students, noting the arts help them develop personally, spiritually, emotionally and mentally. He leaped at the chance to work with Rogers and help build college music programs.
Coming up against groups from USC, Notre Dame, Harvard and other leading American universities, Fermata Nowhere took second-place honors at the 2004 international collegiate championships for classical, contemporary and a cappella choirs held at New York City's Town Hall Center.
Someone saw a Chronicle of Higher Education feature praising Fermata Nowhere and invited the group to the 11th annual A Cappella Festivella at the University of Alaska. Anchorage publications heaped more praise and attention on the group in followup features.
Frontline placed second in 2004 at Reno Jazz Festival, the largest high school and college music festival in the western United States. Fermata Nowhere took a second-place award in the International Championship Collegiate A Cappella Finals in 2003-04 and was taped MTV. The concert choirs and women's ensemble have performed at festivals throughout California.