George List has been making music for more than 30 years.Musical avocation ED BURKE/Community News

'If I were a full-time musician, it could be more of a challenge, because you're constantly dealing with people whose opinions are so strong. With music as an avocation, all that subjective evaluation is enjoyable but not of great concern.'
George List

Organist and choir director George List canceled the hymns he was planning to play and sing with the choir and congregation at St. George's Episcopal Church, Clifton Park, for the Sunday after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. He substituted patriotic music in what he described as an attempt to contribute to the healing process, and for the first time in more than 30 years as a church musician he played the non-liturgical national anthem, ''The Star Spangled Banner,'' within the service.

There were few dry eyes as the choir and congregation sang.

During the regular Thursday evening choir rehearsal at the church on Sept. 13, List watched his singers struggle with new meaning the week's acts had given to a different anthem they were preparing, Howell's ''Pray for the People of Jerusalem.''

Church music is closely defined in the Episcopal tradition, and at St. George's List works with the Rev. William Hinrichs, ''to heighten worship in the Church,'' according to the rector.

''In the singing of the anthems, the choir is challenged to offer its very best to the praise and glory of God.'' Hinrichs explained.

List has directed the 30-to 40-voice choir at St. George's since 1995, occasionally recruiting instrumentalists for Christmas and Easter and when offering majorchoral works such as Faure's Requiem or Schubert's Mass. He directs a youth choir at the church, and informally mentors both professional and amateur musicians within the parish.

In another, unrelated profession as department chairman and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, List devoted his time that same historic September week shoring up the confidence of entering freshmen civil engineering students. He told them about the public trust they will shoulder in creating safe facilities, and reassuring them that the profession they are entering does in fact have the tools to create structures that will survive.

Just six days before the collapse World Trade Center List himself was in a meeting on the 81st floor of Tower One. He lost a number of friends and peers when the towers collapsed, including many who were transportation engineers, a specialized field in which List often works as a consultant.

List's academic expertise falls squarely on the subjects that have recently captured the world's attention and fear for safety, including tall buildings, long bridges, tunnels, public works infrastructure, and the transportation of hazardous substances through major population areas.

''It's been said that civil engineers build targets,'' List said flatly, describing his field. ''Their projects become icons for the civilization of society.''

''I'm not a structures professor, so it (the collapse of the World Trade Center) doesn't have a direct bearing on my own teaching,'' he explained, ''But related planning certainly does have an effect, and as a department chair I realize there's incredible value in what we do as civil engineers.''

U.S. News & World Report in September ranked List's civil engineering program among the ''Top 25'' undergraduate engineering specialty schools in the nation. He leads a 14-member faculty in teaching 170 undergraduates and 60 graduate students, who themselves represent the future of civil engineering in this country, if not the world.

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None of List's Rensselaer students or faculty sing in his church choir, and he's not certain that many within the department are even aware of his ''dual life.''

He has two separate areas of expertise and responsibility.

In his teen years List considered attending Juilliard School of Music, but instead chose electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He went on to earn his master's degree at University of Delaware and his Ph.D. in civil engineering at University of Pennsylvania.

He began playing piano at age six, studying with Paul Bartholomew, former organist of the Chapel at Valley Forge, and then with Frederick Graf, former organist at Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, PA.

He was a chorister as boy, and was band conductor and drum major while in the Naval Officer Training Candidate School in Newport, R.I., playing French horn.

''I just decided it might be better to earn a living as an engineer,'' List said logically about his career choice, adding that he has no regrets other than not having enough time to practice. He chose Carnegie Mellon partially because he would be able to study organ with Donald Wilkins in the fine arts department there while majoring in engineering.

List later was coached by Vernon deTar, organ professor at Juilliard, Bernard Lagace, an internationally known organist from Montreal, and Lloyd Cast, former organist for the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, where List served as assistant organist and choir director.

''There's a piece of having musicianship as an avocation that is nice. The musician's world tends to be more subjective, less objective,'' he reflected. ''If I were a full-time musician, it could be more of a challenge, because you're constantly dealing with people whose opinions are so strong. With music as an avocation, all that subjective evaluation is enjoyable but not of great concern.''

It didn't hurt that he had an example within his family: His father, the late Harold List, was both a mechanical engineer and ''semi-professional'' horn player. The father built the pipe organ which is now in the son's Clifton Park home. There was a clear pattern for the younger List's choices, although he admits he tried to ''give it up (organ performance)'' a couple of times.

''It's not cool,'' he says in explanation, using the same analogy referenced on Rensselaer's Civil Engineering website (www.ce.rpi.edu), in which a section titled ''Very Cool'' discusses opportunities for students to see the world's most advanced construction projects, like the Central Artery/Tunnel Project in Boston.

He often uses that same phrase when more than two tenors show up for a Thursday choir rehearsal, before moving quickly through vocal warm-ups and into sight-reading of four or six or eight-art harmonies. He speaks and moves quickly, smiles continuously, and quite probably directs his choir in the same manner he teaches his engineering students. Intense and enthusiastic, he pushes hard for results, seldom pausing along the way.

List is a teacher, possibly first and foremost, using his personality along with his knowledge to achieve the musical sound he wants.

''This is a super and talented guy,'' said Henry Scarton, a mechanical engineering professor specializing in acoustics (the science of sound waves) at Rensselaer, who is a tenor and cantor (soloist who leads psalms) in another church choir.

Is List unusual in being accomplished in two separate areas? Scarton hedged a bit in his reply. ''A lot of technical people, scientists and engineers, have well-developed musical abilities,'' he said, just a touch defensively.

''It's a gift, but still, music is also a science. George has these highly developed gifts, and organizational skills as well: we all have the circuitry, we all have the gifts, but George really has multiple gifts that he's taken further than most people take them,'' says Scarton.

Almost as an afterthought, he added dryly that ''George knows how to schmooze. He's always smiling.''

Scarton also doesn't find it unusual that scientists or engineers like List and himself are active participants in church programs, whether musical or not. ''Religion is quite clearly an act of faith, for scientists as much as for anyone,'' he said.

List replied to the same question very simply: ''I have a hard time arguing this (his life in music and engineering) happened any way but through God.''

''I was brought in contact with all these people, and there must be a reason.''

Dr. George List plays organ and conducts the St. George's Episcopal Church Choir at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday. New members (particularly men singing tenor or bass) are welcome: Rehearsals are at 7:30 p.m. each Thursday at the church: 970 Route 146, Clifton Park. Youth Choir rehearses beginning at 7 p.m.