(by Roving Reporting Marcia)
On Sunday September 20, our altar flowers were donated in honor of our very talented musicians! Since I first attended PB UMC, I’ve become more and more impressed with the talent of our musicians. I decided I really wanted to get to know them and then share what I get to know about them with you in Beach Breeze articles. I chose to start with Sidney Yin. I hope you enjoy getting to know Sidney as much as I did.
Sidney told me he started playing the piano 28 years ago. When he was 5, he and his mom were in a toy store and he saw a toy grand piano and begged his mom to buy it for him. “Because I was so taken with the toy piano, she got me started taking piano lessons at a local piano store. I excelled quickly and she finally rented me a piano. It was clear soon, that I am to be a piano player.”
Sidney is currently the Artistic Administrator for the San Diego Youth Symphony and has been for the 3 years he’s lived in San Diego (he moved here from Baltimore, and has lived in many places). He told me, “I do miss my family who live in Canada. They were just visiting, in fact, last week, from Vancouver and I was able to spend time with my brother, sister-in-law, my two-year-old niece, and both my parents.” In addition to playing the piano for us at PBUMC, he plays the piano for Music Director Ron Jessee’s choir class at Cal State San Marcos.
When I ask Sidney, how long he’d been part of PB UMC and how he found out about us, he told me, “In 2013, one of the church rotating pianists was rotating off the roster and a replacement was needed. That’s how I got started, but I didn’t attend services at first. I was, in fact, looking for a church to call my own. And, it was quickly evident that PB UMC was my church.” When I asked Sidney about his education, he told me “My undergraduate and graduate work was at Juilliard School in New York. My doctorate was completed at Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. My degrees were in piano performance.”
Sidney told me, “I was born and raised in Hong Kong, with an agnostic/Buddhist upbringing, but went to a Methodist Primary School, then emigrated to Canada where I attended a Catholic middle school and junior high, before going to a public high school. I was also baptized in a Presbyterian Church in Baltimore! As you can see, it doesn’t matter to me what denomination people belong to, as long as we love God and people!
Like I said, I had a lot of fun getting to know Sidney, and I hope all of you did, too.
