Bucks
Richard Nice
Dear friends,
Good morning. If you’re a high school athletic star, you’re the cat’s meow. If you’re a star in academics or the performing or non performing arts world, you’re not.
I thought about that as I visited Richard Nice, one of my Quakertown classmates. Richard Nice is a professional organist with impressive credentials. As a child, he was not an athlete. Quiet and reserved, he practiced on the piano and sang in the church choir instead of bloodying noses on the football field.
Richard was not like the other boys. But he had skills that few of us understood at the time. Here’s what I should have known about him during these 65 years that we’ve lived in Quakertown.
Today, you see him at Boyers Market in downtown Quakertown. That’s where he works when he’s not playing the organ. Richard Nice is a very accomplished organist…but it’s difficult making a living as a full time organist. He practices on the St. John’s Lutheran Church pipe organ in Quakertown.
After Richard graduated from Quakertown High School in 1953, he joined the Army, served in Korea, and became a Chaplain’s assistant until his enlistment ended in 1954. Officers encouraged him to try for an appointment at the famous Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. And he was successful. A second tenor, he sang with Westminster until his graduation in 1961.
He was a member of Westminster’s symphonic chorus and the touring choir, a group of 40 unusually talented singers. During those four years, the touring choir gave concerts in nearly all the lower 48 states.
During his days at Westminster, he sang with the New York Philharmonic and the Trenton Symphony. He remembers singing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis under Leonard Bernstein. “The maestro lost his temper at rehearsal,” Richard began. That’s no wonder. Beethoven wrote the score in unusually high registers for every voice part. Maintaining pitch with its fierce intervals and rhythms ranks among the most difficult in the choral repertoire.
“Bernstein scared us to death,” Richard laughed.
But it wasn’t a laughing matter then, I’m certain.
Richard remembers singing Beethoven’s famous “Choral Fantasy” with the New York Philharmonic and pianist Rudolph Serkin. It’s one of my favorites. It begins with solo piano for several minutes; followed by the orchestra; followed by four vocal soloists; followed by full chorus and orchestra.
The first time that I heard it, I thought I was listening to one of Beethoven’s sonatas…not so. When the orchestra joined in, I thought it was a concerto…not so. When a soprano, alto, tenor, and bass vocalists were added, I was surprised again. And when Beethoven threw in a full chorus, it was mind-boggling.
But I stray.
What were Richard’s thoughts about his four years at Westminster Choir College? “I was blessed to have that opportunity,” he told me.
After graduation, he became the organist and choir director of the Wicomico Presbyterian Church in Salisbury, Maryland where he served for 21 years. He ran six choirs and taught 30 students in piano and organ…it was a huge job and it wore him down.
After returning to Quakertown in 1982, he became the organist and choir director of Solomon’s United Church of Christ in Bedminster. Last July, he celebrated his 25th year there.
Richard Nice praises Henrietta Landis Jahnsen for his sight reading skills. I agree. I was lucky to have her too. She was our music teacher throughout our years at the Quakertown schools. Today, Henrietta is 92 and her mind is still sharp as a tack. She knew how to harness my energy. Richard didn’t need that much attention. He had self-discipline, I did not.
Richard’s father, Roland, was a scoutmaster. “He could play the mandolin and the harmonica by ear,” Richard told me. He credits his father for that talent, although his dad could not sight read. Richard’s mother, Beatrice played piano and sang in the church choir. His sister, Barbara Nice Appold lives in East Greenville and is a singer as well.
For 17 years, Richard has worked at Boyers Market and played the keyboard for shoppers during the Christmas and Easter seasons. Richard continues to entertain. He plays each month at the Richland Phoebe Home and the Bread of Life.
A year ago, Richard suffered a heart attack that required six bypasses to repair. He also has an implanted defibulator. I claim that with his new equipment, he’ll be playing for another 50 years.
Richard remembers teaching an eleven-year-old budding organist in Salisbury who matriculated at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. And speaking of Curtis, Richard studied there as well. He also left his mark at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
We’re fortunate to have Richard Nice in our community. I’ll try to remember to give you advance notice when he presents a concert at an area church.
And that takes me back to this column’s beginning.
If you’re a high school athletic star, you’re the cat’s meow. If you’re a star in academics or the performing or non performing arts world, you’re not. It hardly seems fair. We can thank parents for this. Children don’t learn prejudice and unkindness on their own.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith