Rebecca Kleintop Lepore '95
Director of Music and Organist, Central Moravian Church
For Rebecca Kleintop Lepore ’95, music and faith are inextricably woven. “Music is a way to celebrate and share faith,” she says. “It is a means to building a community where people care for each other and become a second family.”
The daughter of a Moravian bishop, Lepore started piano lessons when she was 5. Her father, the Rt. Rev. Douglas H. Kleintop (Moravian College ’71, Moravian Theological Seminary ’75), encouraged her to take organ lessons in high school. She entered Moravian College as a student of piano and switched to organ in her junior year.
After graduating magna cum laude, Lepore was accepted into the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned an artist diploma. The accomplished musician served as senior organist at the internationally televised Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and assistant Grand Court organist of the Wanamaker Organ—the world’s largest organ—in Philadelphia. In 2002, she returned to Bethlehem to become director of music and organist at Central Moravian Church.
“Music is a way to celebrate and share faith. It is a means to building a community where people care for each other and become a second family.”
Lepore has recorded nine CDs, including three with Tim Zimmerman and the King’s Brass, and she has published several organ works. This year, the Moravian Music Foundation awarded her its prestigious Moramus Award, which honors those whose activities and achievements have resulted in outstanding contributions to American Moravian music.
As a member of Moravian College’s music faculty, Lepore makes outstanding contributions to music education, teaching organ performance, sacred music, and musicianship classes. “What I love about teaching is helping students find who they are,” Lepore says. “Help them discover and cultivate their God-given gifts and use those gifts to bless, encourage, and inspire others."