When special services are held throughout the Archdiocese of Louisville during the coming Easter weekend, worshippers will see and hear the results of hundreds of hours of preparation by musicians, choirs and directors of music and worship.

Whether a parish is blessed with the voices of a half-dozen singers or the talents of a 30-member choir and a chamber orchestra, the ministry of music often helps to provide the mood and setting for a significant religious experience. That experience often represents the efforts of those who have devoted their lives to helping provide the inspiration that can arrive on the notes of well-performed religious music.

In the past few months, the Archdiocese of Louisville has become the home for an organization representing those musicians and their leaders.

The Louisville Chapter of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians was formed about a year ago, and it now has about 40 people participating and a lot more who’ve expressed an interest in the organization. The chapter, because of its brief history, is known as a “temporary” chapter. But according to Byron Heil, the chapter vice-president, that designation will soon be dropped.

Heil is director of worship and music at St. Margaret Mary Church. The local chapter president, Elaine Winebrenner, holds a similar position at Our Lady of Lourdes Church. The chapter will be electing new officers later this month, Heil noted, but so far the participation of local musicians, music directors and others has grown steadily.

The national organization is more than a quarter-century old and is based in Washington, D.C. Every two years it holds a national conference that’s attended by about 5,000 people, Heil said.

Its goals, he noted, are “to deepen the spiritual life of each pastoral musician; to encourage social interaction among pastoral musicians; to provide an educational forum on current issues affecting musical practice; and to improve the skills of every pastoral musician.

Heil said he and others from the archdiocese had attended the national conferences — last summer in Indianapolis and two years prior to that in Milwaukee — and often wondered why Louisville didn’t have a local chapter of the national association. So they launched one.

“We had 10 founding members, and we contacted the national office to see what steps we needed to take in starting a local chapter,” he explained last week in an interview at St. Margaret Mary, 7813 Shelbyville Road.

“We’ve gone through our one year as a ‘temporary’ chapter,” he said, “and we’ve done the things we need to do to establish the local program. We always begin with a prayer, and then we have a showcase presentation, something about music that would be of interest to everyone involved.

“Sometimes we’ve focused on Advent and Christmas music and Lenten and Easter music, of course,” he added. “Our next meeting in April (at the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown) will feature choral music.”

One idea behind the formation of such a group, Heil said, is to the let all pastoral music ministers throughout the archdiocese know that somewhere, someone is likely sharing their problems and their joys.

“Sometimes people can feel isolated while they’re doing their job,” he said. “We were always so glad to see each other at the national meetings, and now we can enjoy that fellowship throughout the year.”

The local chapter serves as “kind of a support group,” he added. “It gives us all a chance to get together and provide each other with not just professional support but also personal support. We learn what’s happening in each other’s lives, and we can share our joys and sorrows with each other.”

One goal of the national organization is to have chapters in dioceses throughout the nation “to encompass all of the parishes and to be concerned with liturgical music in every church.”

“It’s a way to help musicians, and clergy, too, to grow” in their knowledge and performance of the musical aspect of worship, he said.

“We’re taking baby steps at this point,” Heil said. “But we’ve had pretty good success. We have 40 registered members and 114 people who’ve expressed interest in the group.”

Heil stressed that the organization isn’t just for directors of music and worship. It’s also for choir members, keyboard players — “anyone involved with worship through music,” he said.

“What we hope to do is be an organization through which people can share knowledge,” he explained. “For instance, we have an instrumental ensemble here (at St. Margaret Mary), but a lot of churches don’t have such a group. We can help explain how you could use an ensemble in your worship services. We could help demonstrate how the sound system should work, what needs to be done to pick up the individual instruments, individual and group voices, that kind of thing.”

Heil has been director of worship and music at St. Margaret Mary for the past seven years. Before that, he was at Transfiguration of Our Lord Church in Oldham County for four years and spent six years at Our Mother of Sorrows Church. He also served as cantor at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church.