The Spirit Within Music that focuses on satisfying the soul

Adam Duquette and Evan Cyr, two 19-year-old sophomores from Auburn, were exactly who the Rev. William Friederich hoped would show up at his first Sunday night program at the Wilson Center. They came for the music, not the ministry.

Hawk Henries of East Sullivan, an American Indian flute player and flute builder, was playing. Duquette and Cyr had learned to make the instruments with help from a social studies teacher, and taught themselves how to play. “It really is a song of the soul,” Cyr said Sunday night after Henries’ appearance. “You can’t learn to play by listening to someone else. It evolves as you play, then, it just stays with you.”

Henries was the first in a series of performers Friederich had scheduled through May. Sunday night Henries attracted nearly 30 people to the center – students, Wilson Center directors and local clergy. Henries talked about the way his music and spirituality are intertwined, demonstrating a variety of his compositions.

“Music for me has been and continues to be a prayer,” he said. “When we recognize our divinity, our own holiness, we will be able to look at each other and see the divine holiness in each other and that will create space for peace.”

Friederich, 50, wants to reach more students like Duquette and Cyr, who seek the sound of the soul. That is why the new University of Maine chaplain has scheduled concerts, performances, lectures, prayer sessions and worship services. He wants to build as many bridges as he can to students and help them on their spiritual journeys.

Friederich was hired to head the Protestant Wilson Center in October after the Rev. Dana Reed, his predecessor, left to lead a UCC church in southern Maine. He is a gifted percussionist well known for merging alternative musical styles with traditional worship. At Bangor Theological Seminary he was director of admissions, but is best remembered by students for his sense of rhythm.

Friederich, who lives in Penobscot, announced in August that he would resign from BTS as soon as he found a new position, but then turned down a job in northwestern Colorado because he could not leave behind his musical connections in Maine.

“For me, the deciding factor really was about how my night job is more of a ministry than I ever realized,” he said. “What I do with Paul Sullivan and Friends is as much about ministry as any position I’ve ever held in a church. I have realized that my musical skills are such a gift that I continue to share them.”

The minister wants music and the performing arts to lead university students and community members to the A-frame building on College Avenue.

Nearly 200 students regularly attended Sunday Protestant services at UM, nearly 50 years ago. In the mid-1960s attendance peaked at more than 300 and services were held in the Memorial Union’s Hauck Auditorium.

Construction of the Wilson Center at 67 College Ave. began in the fall of 1963 and was completed in 1964. But as the Vietnam War escalated and protests of the 1970 invasion of Cambodia exploded on college campuses, church attendance plummeted and never recovered.

Friederich intends to change that. “I see the focus and mission of the Wilson Center as being a place of alternative exploration for spirituality. … a diverse worship experience – traditional and contemporary – as well as lecture presentations on ethics, religion and spirituality or musical events or interactive theater.

“A lot of students go to the church they’re affiliated with and we encourage them to go. We’re not a church and we’re not trying to be a church,” he said. “We are here to lift up an ecumenical Christian experience, but we’re also a place to experience new kinds of spirituality and growth. We have to offer a global spiritual experience. We have to be in tune with Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, pagans and all the others. This center is about being as broad and inclusive as possible.”

Bates College in Lewiston and the University of Southern Maine in Portland have held well-attended programs about religion and spirituality, but UM students have not yet expressed as much enthusiasm for the topic. That may change. Jeffrey Churchill, president of the center’s board of directors, said that Friederich could kindle and feed students’ interests.

“Bill seems to have a lot of good ideas and a vision for what the future can be here,” he said as Sunday’s concert began. “He also has a lot of energy.”

Friederich is a drummer, as were his father and grandfather. The first time the rhythm of the drums stirred him, he was 4 years old. His father, Phil, a professional drummer, lifted his young son into his lap and Friederich felt the beat flow into his fingers. As an adult, he found that rhythm to be inseparable from spirituality.

Born and raised in central Illinois, Friederich spent his school days playing in marching, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll bands, and symphony orchestras. He attended St. Paul United Church of Christ in his hometown of Pekin, Ill., where his father often played the drums, and he spent the Vietnam War playing in the United States Army Band.

After the war, Friederich was ordained by a charismatic Assemblies of God Church independent of the national denomination. He served as youth pastor, worship leader and assistant pastor of a large church in Illinois before leaving for a quieter life and smaller churches in the Colorado Rockies. There, his UCC tradition beckoned and he moved to Maine to attend BTS.

His graduation coincided with the arrival of the Rev. Dr. Ansley Coe Throckmorton as BTS president who asked Friederich to be director of admissions.

For more information on programs at the Wilson Center, call 866-4227.