Staff Bio
Rev. Colin Andrade
Colin Andrade, B.A., M.Div.
Pastor Colin Andrade was born in the Cayman Islands to a Jamaican father and an American mother. He moved to the United States when he was five, and grew up in sunny South Florida. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an MDiv. from Covenant Theological Seminary. He is an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America, and he recently accepted a call to serve as our interim pastor after spending the last five years ministering at a PCA church in rural Iowa. He and his wife Melanie have four children, and they are excited about this opportunity to return home and serve the Lord and His church in Lake Worth.
Reverend Dr. Erikson Rojas (Music Ministor and Organist)
Hailed as “an impressive performer in his own right … impassioned, hypnotic, insightful … superb tonal control” by the New York Concert Review, and as a “prodigy … Rojas, the piano and the music become one” by the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Erikson Rojas, has given numerous solo and chamber performances in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America, including eight appearances at Carnegie Hall. In each case he has also been featured as soloist with orchestra. His recordings have obtained critical acclaim, and as a teacher, lecturer, and church musician, he continues to gain distinction amidst high demand.
Dr. Rojas is honored to have been one of five Americans and the only Hispanic in 30 pianists selected world-wide to participate at the Cleveland International Piano Competition. He has won the Ambler Symphony Orchestra Competition, the Outstanding Young Christian Artists Competition, Cuba’s Amadeo Roldán and UNEAC Competitions, among others. A pupil of the legendary Leon Fleisher (5 years), Dr. Rojas is a graduate of Peabody Institute (M.M., G.P.D.), where he also studied conducting privately with the eminent conductor Gustav Meier. Prior to Peabody he studied piano with Madame Eleanor Sokoloff at Curtis Institute of Music, and with Distinguished Professor Samuel Hsu at Cairn University (B.M., B.S.), where he also learned organ under Robert Carwithen. Other lessons and masterclasses in piano were with Claude Frank, Gary Graffman, Seymour Lipkin, John Perry, Nelson Delle-Vigne Fabbri, Ilana Vered, Sasha Starcevich, Pavlina Dokovska, Susan Starr, and Jorge Luis Prats. As a scholarship student of Min Kwon and Juilliard’s Martin Canin, Dr. Rojas earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. He is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda.
Performing frequently in the U.S. and abroad, Dr. Rojas is often invited as guest artist in music festivals and competitions. He teaches piano privately, with students having received top prizes and honors in local, national and international piano festivals and competitions, including Dublin International Piano Festival and Summer Academy, Steinway’s 165th Anniversary Celebration, Pennsylvania’s “Young Classical Virtuosos of Tomorrow”, Csehy ChamberFest and Concerto Performance, Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Concerto Competition (Preparatory Division), and Eastern University Piano Festival and Competition, wherein four of Rojas’s students won top-five prizes. Pupils he has taught and coached have also gone on to study at institutions such as The Juilliard School, Peabody Institute, Cleveland Institute, Shenandoah Conservatory, Temple University, Rutgers University, among others. He is on faculty at Palm Beach Atlantic University and Csehy Summer School of Music. He also serves as Pianist of the Choral Society of the Palm Beaches and as Music Minister at Royal Palm Presbyterian Church in Southeast Florida, where he resides with his beloved wife Diandra.
If you have any questions or prayer needs, contact us at:
phone: 561-448-2350
email: RoyalPalmAPC@gmail.com
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