JOHN HOOK, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Message from John
Our Music Director, John Hook, founded the BuxMont Choir in 1990. John recently retired from his ’day job’ as a chemist with The Dow Chemical Company (formerly Rohm and Haas) where he developed new products which helped significantly lower the environmental impact of latex paints and other coatings while enhancing performance. John became interested in folk music at a Methodist youth camp, traded a never-well-played trombone for a guitar, and found his true musical love: helping groups make music together. In college he was inspired by Bryan Bowers to learn melodic-style autoharp. John joined BuxMont in the early 1980s and helped its Religious Education program as a teacher, song leader, and youth advisor. At one youth “Con” he met a visiting youth who also played melodic autoharp; that youth grew up and is now our minister, the Rev. Dan Schatz. At the national level, John served on the board of the Unitarian Universalist Musicians’ Network (UUMN) and helped to develop the UUA’s Music Leadership Credentialing Program. John has studied voice with Robert Wallace and John Kennedy at the Settlement Music School.