“I just love bringing musicians together to a place where they make time stop for the audience,” said Fernando Schirmer Martins, Union’s new assistant professor of music. “I tell students that’s our goal: to make the audience hold their breath, lose their sense of time and not even feel their seats anymore. That’s what I really love — creating an environment where students can actually experience the warmth, this sense of connection to the music and through the music with the audience.”
From a young age, the thrill of such transcendent musical moments inspired Schirmer Martins to dream of becoming a concert violinist. When he received a scholarship to leave his home in Brazil and study violin performance in the United States, he jumped at the chance. Having earned a bachelor’s from DePaul University in Chicago and a master’s from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in violin performance, he is now working to complete a Ph.D. in music education from Liberty University.
Along the way, he realized there was something he valued more than performing to a packed concert hall: the Sabbath. “In an orchestra, you have a lot of problems with the Sabbath,” he explained. “There are rehearsals and performances on Friday nights, and recording sessions on Saturday afternoon many times. It came to a point that I said, ‘Lord, what should I do?’ And then God pushed me into teaching. It’s been great.” At an Adventist university like Union or his previous employer, Weimar University in California, he can have both the Sabbath and the concerts.
When he’s not performing music, Schirmer Martins loves to run, and was even training for a 72-mile ultramarathon before a recent injury forced him to cut back. His wife, Emily, works as a fundraiser for non-profit organizations, though she is also a talented violist with experience teaching and directing music at the high school level. The couple have two children, Julia (age 9) and Jonas (age 7). A miniature Australian shepherd, Rosie, and a calico Manx cat named Lily round out their family.
In addition to leading band and orchestra, Schirmer Martins will continue building on the success of the Music Program’s digital recording studio begun by his predecessor, Steven Hutchinson. Schirmer Martins has recorded and edited a number of music videos, some of which can be seen on the YouTube channel for his music ministry.
Reflecting on the coming year, he enumerated two goals for his students. “Whenever they need to talk to someone, I want to be there for them,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what the topic is, ultimately, I want to point them to Christ. That’s number one. Number two, I want them to not need me as soon as possible. As a teacher, I want to teach them how to acquire knowledge … I want to help them achieve excellence and avoid the same pains that I had to go through while becoming their own teachers. That’s how they will continue growing.”