Nick Litterski brings a diverse musical background to music ministry at St. Julian’s. His first professional work was playing organ in the choir loft in his small hometown in southern WI. After high school Nick earned a BaMus from North Central College in Naperville, IL. Following this was graduate-level study in the piano pedagogy program at UT Austin from 2002-2004. In addition to learning the art of teaching piano, he dove deeply into practicing the keyboard music of J.S. Bach, his favorite composer.
While at the University of Texas Nick switched the focus of his study to jazz, studying with pianist Jeff Hellmer and John Mills. This led to work playing with a large number of musical ensembles, Latin Jazz, big-band, blues, variety, original, and cover bands (for instance “Simon Says”, playing music of Paul Simon). Nick continues to be active in the local music community, balancing these activities with teaching piano and tuning and repairing pianos with his own business, Austin Piano Tex.
A classically trained pianist with a jazz background, Nick finds ways to bring new energy into the established forms of traditional hymns. Any given Sunday may find secular songs re-imagined as expressions of universal love, showing liturgical relevance in Dylan, Cohen, Cash, and contemporary songwriters such as David Ramirez, Glen Hansard, and Jason Isbell.
A regular meditation practice, study of Eastern and Western mystics (St Julian of Norwich for one), and travels to Nepal and Central America have expanded the compass of his intention to bring peace to others through music. The use of instruments including voice, guitar, bass, ukulele, trumpet, drums, and diatonic flute (Bansuri) serve this larger purpose. He finds the community experience at St. Julians rewarding and enriching, and hopes to provide an inclusive atmosphere that strikes a note somewhere on the scale that runs from reverence to joy.