MICHAEL BODNYK '01

Perform or teach—it’s a common decision facing many career musicians. Succeeding in both has afforded Michael Bodnyk ’01 a life that he sums up in one word: blessed.

 

Bodnyk admits that when he set off to study vocal performance at Mannes School of Music, The New School in New York City, he didn’t have a clear vision of what job would await him after graduation. Then, everything fell into place.

 

“I happened to go to church one day at this big cathedral near Rockefeller Center [iconic Saint Patrick’s Cathedral] and there was a bulletin board in the front and it said that they were auditioning for members of the choir,” he remembers.

 

As luck would have it, there was an opening in the tenor section as a section leader and the choir director happened to be a graduate of Mannes. “We had an instant connection and I got the job,” he says.

 

Then, through his work with The Cathedral of St. Patrick Young Singers, Bodnyk met the principal of a school on the Lower East Side who was seeking a music teacher. When Bodnyk assumed his first teaching position at Saint Brigid School he entered a music room equipped with a keyboard missing half its keys and a slew of old photocopied rock ‘n’ roll sheet music. It wasn’t long before Bodnyk arranged two full-scale musicals a year, took the handbell choir on tour, and landed the students a performance at Carnegie Hall.

 

Both challenging and rewarding, Bodnyk found his stride in sharing the transformative benefits of music and mentoring students, much like he experienced at Moravian Academy.

 

While today, Bodnyk can effortlessly sing a solo during the Cathedral’s nationally televised masses or at one of their many high profile concerts for popes, presidents, and dignitaries, as a teenager Bodnyk had to develop his confidence on stage.

 

Bodnyk still remembers the nerves surrounding auditions for his sophomore year musical, “Once Upon a Mattress,” and how his mother and father helped him to prepare by finding him a vocal coach. Landing the lead role of Prince Dauntless not only inspired Bodnyk to join the Chamber Singers (under the tutelage of Mr. Robert Riker and Mrs. Linda Himic), but it also brought his future plans into focus.

 

“Mr. Riker and Mrs. Himic are two of the most influential teachers in my life. They were so encouraging, so supportive, and I learned so much from them. There wasn’t really a question in my mind after junior year that music was what I wanted to do,” he says.

 

He also credits his time at Moravian Academy for his drive to constantly pursue new knowledge and skills “to add to his tool belt.”

 

After earning a master’s degree in vocal performance from the City University of New York-Hunter College and a Master of Church Music, Choral Conducting from Concordia University-Wisconsin, Bodnyk realized that if he wanted to expand his opportunities in teaching he needed to pursue a degree in education.

 

Last fall, Bodnyk enrolled in Boston University’s Doctor of Musical Arts program and has since dived headfirst into research centered on public schools’ inclusion of the arts in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) curriculum.

 

On the heels of starting another chapter in his education, Bodnyk also left his position at Saint Brigid School to join the music department at the Academy of Saint Joseph in Greenwich Village, a Catholic academy within the Archdiocese of New York that he affectionately describes as “a sort of Moravian Academy of Catholic schools.”

 

And while the school serves a more privileged population of Manhattan students, Bodnyk hasn’t forgotten the many students who have limited or no access to the arts. For the last three years, Bodnyk has also acted as Co-Executive Director and Director of Arts for the non-profit Camp Rhythmo, a youth organization developed to promote health and wellness through music, movement, and visual arts that serves low-income students entering grades one through eight in Manhattan, Yonkers, NY, Whitehall, PA, and Vero Beach, FL.

 

This labor of love also inadvertently brought Bodnyk back to his alma mater in October 2014 when he and his Camp Rhythmo colleague, Dr. Ciaran Grant, brought Maestro Dr. Gearoid Grant’s peace-promoting youth orchestra, Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland, to the Athletic and Wellness Center for a joint Moravian Academy/Cross Border concert on their way to a performance at Carnegie Hall.

 

“Music helps me to connect to people,” Bodnyk says. Whether it’s helping Saint Patrick’s parishioners “pray deeper during mass” or building a child’s confidence on stage, Bodnyk couldn’t ask for anything more.

 

“I truly consider myself blessed for being able to do everything that I love to do and make a living out of it. If I could keep doing exactly what I’m doing now I would be totally thrilled.”

Photo credit: Joshua South Photography