Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Spring 2014

ALUMNI association by Karen Halvorsen Schreck ’84 WITH MUSICIAN FRIENDS IN MIND Ed Childs ’65 began composing before he could read music and has returned to the art, drawing on the talents of many alumni musicians for his recordings. Ed has produced four CDs and volumes of sacred and secular choral, vocal, keyboard, and instrumental works. WAS A LITTLE BOY he often drifted to sleep listening as his grandmother, a church pianist and organist, played hymns and spirituals on the piano. Ed’s childhood was ﬁlled with music, and with musical instruments. WHEN EDWIN T CHILDS ’ “Music seemed inseparable from life,” he recalls. By day, Ed’s father, Stephen Childs ’35, B.Mus. ’37, an itinerant music teacher and pastor, transported instruments from one small New England schoolhouse to the next. These always returned home in the evening. Long before Ed considered himself a musician, he explored the musical possibilities of the brass, wind, string, and percussion instruments that lay about the house. Before Ed even knew how to read the notes on a page, he was composing. By the time Ed reached high school, he felt called to pursue music for life. Following his father’s lead, Ed sent a reel-to-reel audition tape to Wheaton. “The music department didn’t quite know what to do with me because I played so many different things,” Ed recalls, smiling. There was a time of indecision: which instrument to choose? Then Ed heard a theater organ at a local roller-skating rink, and with the encouragement of professor Gladys Christensen, claimed organ as his primary focus. It was professor Ellen Thompson who, after some months of “turning theory papers red” with her inked corrections, encouraged Ed to study composition. In his ﬁnal years at Wheaton, Ed studied with Jack Goode, Frederick Shulze, and Dennis Moffat, and upon graduation received a full scholarship to REGIONAL EVENTS A CHRISTMAS CAROL “MY WHOLE FAMILY HAD A WONDERFUL TIME ” “Wheaton goes out of its way to make these events appropriate and good.” FIND OUT ABOUT REGIONAL EVENTS IN YOUR AREA AT ALUMNI WHEATON EDU/ REGIONALEVENTS WHAT’S ALL THE BUZZ ABOUT? These comments came from alumni, parents, and friends of the College who gathered for regional events in Dallas, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, on December 13 –14, 2013. A er a few words from Dr. Michael Wilder, dean of the Conservatory, Arts, and Communication, they watched a local performance of A Christmas Carol. 36 141833_33-55.indd 36 SPRING 2014 3/19/14 8:19 PM

Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Spring 2014 | Page 38