Dwight Edwards

When Dwight Edwards first enrolled in the University of Iowa to study piano, he was certain he was on track to become a professional musician.

He’d grown up in a musical household near Arcata during the Great Depression, with his father singing and mother playing piano. He started piano lessons at age 7, then sang in junior high and high school choirs.

He was practicing four to six hours a day when he started college. “I soon discovered if you wanted to be serious, you had to practice eight to 12 hours a day,” he says. “I immediately became a history major.”

He transferred to UC Berkeley, where he studied Byzantine history, then went on to seminary school at Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

“Three out of those four years I was on probation. I had become a party boy,” Edwards says. But he went from party boy to student pastor, then pastor to priest.

Edwards celebrates 60 years of ordination Dec. 12 at St. Mary’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Pacific Grove, but instead of winding down, he’s ramping up for something new – while also fulfilling a childhood dream at age 85.

Edwards will sing at Carnegie Hall’s famed Isaac Stern Auditorium next month.

“When you get to be 85 you do not expect this enormous thing to show up in your life,” says his wife, Rosi. “Dwight’s got everything, he’s been everywhere, he’s lived a very full life. And all of the sudden, he gets this letter that we’re going to New York.”

Edwards has been singing in church choirs all these years, and three years ago, started taking voice lessons with Robin McKee Williams, to “keep his chops” while the choir was on a summer break. He then joined Williams’ Hartnell Community Choir in 2013, becoming the oldest member of the 18-singer ensemble.

Three months ago, the choir got the invitation from Carnegie Hall to join a 200-person Distinguished Concerts Singers International group. and perform composer Dan Forrest’s “Requiem for the Living” on Jan. 19, at Carnegie Hall. Edwards shared his thoughts about music and life advice at his Pacific Grove home.

Weekly: How did you feel when you found out your choir was to sing at Carnegie Hall?

Edwards: We both laughed and thought, you know, I’m an 85-year-old tenor for godsakes! Do they know what they’re doing?

Describe your experience with Robin McKee Williams, your vocal coach and choir instructor. Have you evolved as a singer since working with her?

There are all kinds of funny vocal exercises to loosen the jaw, like “lonesome puppy” [Rosi, sitting next to him, demonstrates the whimpering sound]. You do vocal exercises like coughing and panting like a dog. It’s broadened my range [by three octaves] in a couple of years.

Do you find any differences between singers and non-singers?

It depends whether or not a person really doesn’t appreciate music. I find them different. Whether they sing, play or do nothing except listen, that’s all good.

Do you have a go-to karaoke song?

“Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim. I like it because it’s slightly melancholic. It’s tuneful and heartfelt.

What would life be like without music?

Drab.

Give me your best life advice.

It’s usually not about you. Most of us are concerned about how we look and how we act, what’s our persona going to do for us? So when you hear a negative you think, what have I done? Most of the time it has to do with the fact the person you’re talking to has not gotten enough sleep, has an alcoholic husband, is constipated… it could be a thousand things. It very seldom has anything to do with you, so you could say, “Oh I’m sorry,” and all of a sudden you get somewhere.

What is your life philosophy?

Because I’m a pastor, to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. I spent a lot of years not thinking myself had any worth, but I knew that other people did and I knew that God loved them and it took me a while before I understood God loved me, too.

THE HARTNELL COMMUNITY CHOIR performs their 2015 Winter Concert at 3pm Sunday, Dec. 6 at the Church of the Wayfarer, Lincoln and Seventh, Carmel. $20 suggested donation. 649-0992, www.hartnellcommunitychoir.com.