St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Indianola now has a familiar face behind the piano.
Emma Lynch, a Des Moines native, has landed her first post-grad job straight out of college at the church that gave her real-world experience directing music while she was still in school.
The devout Catholic, now 22, has been playing piano and participating in her local church choir since before she hit double digits in age. It was this passion and natural talent for music and worship that led her to pursue a degree in sacred music at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.
While there, Lynch was a member of the school’s Cappella choir, the university’s chapel choir that provides music for weekly campus liturgies and special events. The group is unique in that it offers scholarships akin to athletic scholarships at other universities, where the college pays for some or all of a student’s tuition for them to perform.
As she climbed the ranks in Cappella, eventually becoming assistant conductor, Lynch was contacted in the summer of 2024 to help out St. Thomas Aquinas, which was looking for part-time music interns as it did not have a full-time music director.
Because of this, Lynch was able to take on some music director responsibilities as an intern, like helping the church figure out what it was doing well in its music program and continue to excel in those areas.
“It was a really bizarre thing that probably a lot of parish music interns at other places would not get, that kind of leadership opportunity, but it was great,” Lynch said.
That next May, Lynch came back to intern with St. Thomas Aquinas again. Then, just a few months later during her senior year in fall 2025, the church offered her the job as its full-time music director.
Having that previous experience with the church helped her and the rest of the parish acclimate to her new role, which she started on June 1.
“A lot of music directors, especially new ones that are really ambitious, have lofty goals and all those things, it just doesn’t work well, or it doesn’t gel, or it takes a long time to get settled in,” Lynch said. “But I already feel so comfortable, so welcomed by everybody, and I’ve had a lot of fun doing great things already.”
Lynch said her goal as director is to build up the music program at St. Thomas Aquinas by recruiting musicians and giving music lessons.
Lynch said she also wants to encourage parishioners everywhere to keep up the important tradition of music in church services as it is one of the most intimate ways to worship.
“You don’t have to be good at it to sing. Maybe the parish choir isn’t for you, but you can still sing in the congregation,” Lynch said. “It really is very important, and the fact that it’s a physical thing that’s sort of bringing you into the spiritual reality of what’s going on in the church.”
Isabelle Foland is a communities reporter for the Register. Reach her at ifoland@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines native looks to bolster Indianola church music program
Reporting by Isabelle Foland, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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By Isabelle Foland, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
