Photos courtesy of Emma Patrimonio

By Steve Sears

When Emma Patrimonio, Director of Music and Worship Arts at First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains, lists the musical instruments she has learned and played during her lifetime, you run out of fingers keeping count. 

In fact, you really want to ask her what instruments she hasn’t played.

For Patrimonio, who went to Montclair State University to pursue a degree in music education with an instrumental focus, her primary instrument to this day is the flute. But, as a music education major, she’s had to learn many more. “I did take strings classes, where I learned violin, viola, cello, bass, and I did take woodwind classes, brass classes, and did have some background in percussion from high school when I did marching band,” Patrimonio says. “My mom had an old guitar that I still use actually in church to this day, so I had dabbled in that on my own, and also piano.”

It was the guitar which, after seeing her playing it often, Laurie Patrimonio gifted to her one Christmas, and it’s also part of the reason her daughter got the job at First Reformed Church

Patrimonio claims she was a little late to the game picking a band instrument. “Usually in fourth grade students will pick up an instrument,” she says. “I didn’t. I was with my friend in sixth grade, and her locker was right across from the band room, and she was in band and she played the flute. The band director had come out of the band room and just talked to her really quickly before we were heading to lunch, and he looked at me and said, “Why aren’t you in my band?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He told me to pick an instrument, and I actually originally picked clarinet just because I liked the look of it. And he said, ‘We have too many of those, pick another one.’ I did the next best thing any sixth grader would do, and I picked the instrument that my friend played. I picked the flute.”

She’s now on her third. The first (she named it Zoey after her first student) got her through high school, her second (Phil, short for “Philharmonic”) she carried to and from the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University during her four and a half years there, and her current one accompanies her often along with that older guitar to Pompton Plains and First Reformed Church. 

Post-Montclair State, Patrimonio expected to be teaching music in a classroom, but she graduated in January 2020, right in the middle of the school year, and a month later the COVID-19 lockdown happened. During that transitionary period, she saw an email from the Director of the John J. Cali School of Music about a job opening at First Reformed Church looking for a Music Director. “I saw they were looking for somebody who would be able to lead choir, do song leading – which is where the guitar would come in – and handbell choir, which is something that I actually had done since second grade at the previous church that I used to go to.” She felt a bit of a rush. “That was very exciting to me. I felt that I was very qualified for the position. It was a part time job that was in a church that reminded me a lot of my own.” Patrimonio applied, got a call back, then interviewed and auditioned for the position one week right before the national lockdown.

Though Patrimonio, who one day would like to open her own music school, got the job and did have to learn how to do the job virtually at first, she’s successfully forged forward the past two years. She lauds the staff she works with, the very musically talented folks who perform, and those in the congregation. “One of the wonderful things about working at a church – and this church specifically – is I have such a wonderful support system here,” Patrimonio exclaims. “The moments in rehearsals, or the moments getting to learn about my choir members or supporting them in other concerts that they have. Also, the congregation is incredibly friendly and welcoming, they welcomed me with open arms from the very beginning, the staff is wonderful and patient and have been doing their best on top of all of the things that they have to worry about to sort of guide me through this process. I’d be lying if I said that half of the success that I’ve had isn’t because I have a great support system here, too, because it really is a collaborative effort. And that’s also part of the reason I really love working at a church, it’s for that sense of community.”

Patrimonio also thanks her parents, Richard and Laurie, for their support. “They’ve been incredibly supportive. They’ll attend services and they’ll always just sort of be sitting in the front row with smiles on their faces.” She also credits her grandparents, Richard and Helen Polese, who aided her financially with instrument purchases and school funding.

Patrimonio occasionally revisits that day in her Woodbridge elementary school, where for her it really all started with being on-the-spot tasked with selecting an instrument. “I chose the flute,” she says again, “and honestly, thank goodness I did, because I really did fall in love with the musicality of it. It’s a beautiful instrument.”