Whitney Head developed a love for making music at an early age, and she’s been at it full-throttle ever since. For the past nine years, Head has been sharing her musical gifts with people around Alabama and the world through the music programs of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
She is the first person to participate in all four audition choirs sponsored by the SBOM. Head began by auditioning for the children’s honor choir when she was in the fourth grade and continued to return each year, moving on to NewSong in seventh and eighth grades and OneVoice in high school. She even made the cut for the selective youth ensemble RockSolid.
During the summers, Head has attended the SBOM’s Older Children’s Music Week (now called ReMix) at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center in Talladega, first as a camper and now as a counselor and worship leader.
“Musically she never misses a note,” said Keith Hibbs, director of the SBOM office of worship leadership and church music, who worked with her in each of the choirs.
“She’s very exact, very professional, and she’s always prepared,” he added.
In addition to Head’s choir involvement, she still made time to play clarinet in the marching band at Oak Mountain High School in Birmingham and bass guitar in the school’s jazz band and praise band at Double Oak Community Church, Birmingham, in Shelby Baptist Association. She also sings with the praise band.
The 2008 high school graduate will attend Samford University in Birmingham in the fall as a music education major.
Head’s affinity for all things musical comes naturally. Her entire family is musical, from her pianist mother to her music minister father.
“She showed a lot of interest in music at an early age,” said her father, Robby Head, minister of music at First Baptist Church, Indian Springs, in Shelby Association, who remembers her singing in the children’s choir in church even before her first audition in the fourth grade.
Whitney said one of her favorite experiences with the SBOM choirs came this past year when she sang with RockSolid at Jessie’s Place, a shelter for women and children in downtown Birmingham.
“They really appreciated it and you could tell they needed the uplifting music,” she said. “It was one of our smallest audiences but also the most meaningful.”
She said she made some great friends in the SBOM choirs, many of whom want to go into music ministry as she does.
“It’s cool to know I’ll be working with them later on,” she said.
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