Dr. Marcia Heirman Mervin

As Director of Music Ministries and Organist, the year 2025 finds Dr. Marcia Heirman Mervin busy designing and leading a full musical year to celebrate the 225th Anniversary of First Presbyterian Church of Fayetteville, North Carolina.  The church underwent a complete sanctuary renovation in 2024, creating a vibrant acoustic with new marble flooring throughout the chancel so that the 63 rank Moeller organ resounds in the space.  The anniversary celebration began with the church hosting the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra in a Chamber French Music Concert in January.  In May, the adult choir will join with Cumberland Choral Arts Choir to sing Lauridsen’s “Lux Aeterna”.  In October, the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra will return for Dan Forrest’s “Jubilate Deo”, and the church will end the choral season with Vivaldi’s “Gloria” in December.   Inspired by her first organ teacher, Dr. Roberta Bitgood, Dr. Mervin began serving in church music at age 15.  A reluctant musician who never dreamed of working in this field full-time, Marcia continued to study organ for two years during her undergraduate education under Dr. Albert Bolitho at Albion College in Michigan and then quit.   After leaving college, she married a Dutch citizen with a wandering soul and moved to the Netherlands for several years before returning to the United States.  No longer able to resist the call to become more competent in church music, she finally returned to finish undergraduate work twenty years later, when her children were in school.   Dr. Mervin completed her education in organ music at the University of Michigan, earning both the Master of Music (Church Music) and Doctorate of Musical Arts (Liturgical, Church, and Synagogue Music: Organ Performance), where she studied with Dr. Marilyn Mason, Dr. Michelle Johns, and Dr. James Kibbie.  Marica’s greatest joy and desire is to create worship focused solely on glorifying God, in full agreement with the great organist J. S. Bach – “Soli Deo Gloria”.