David Keith Jefcoat, a native of Laurel, Mississippi, has served the Gainesville, GA First United Methodist Church as principal organist and handbell director for thirty years.
Mr. Jefcoat has reached fifty years of service in church music. He earned the Bachelor’s Degree in piano performance from Brenau College in 1978 and the Master of Music in piano performance from the University of Georgia in 1983. His teachers have included Spanish pianist Carlos Kussrow-Corma, Austrian-American concert artist Walter Hautzig in New York, and Russian pianist Eugeny Rivkin at UGA.
Mr. Jefcoat directed Preparatory Music, Inc. on the Brenau University campus before retiring from that program. As a private piano teacher since 1975, he was an active member of and adjudicator for the Georgia Music Teachers Association, Georgia Federated Music Clubs, and National Guild of Piano Teachers. He has consistently produced winners and alternates throughout Georgia.
Mr. Jefcoat and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Jefcoat, recently celebrated 40 years of four-hand piano concerts. They have performed throughout the Southeast and recorded two CDs.
Through the years, Mr. Jefcoat served as pianist and/or musical director for many musicals and operas for community theatre and for the Florida State University Summer Stock Theatre.
Since 1975 he has collaborated extensively with numerous choral groups, chamber ensembles, instrumentalists and vocalists in the Gainesville area, and in January of 2001 Mr. Jefcoat served as collaborative pianist with the Georgia Music Educators All-College Chorus conducted by Sir Anthony Goodchild of London.
In 1986, Mr. Jefcoat organized the first annual North Georgia Presbyterian Handbell Festival and from 1991-1992 served as the Georgia Chair of the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers. In 1991, along with Dr. Lee Bratton, he was co-founder of the Lanier Chamber Singers, who have performed in Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, and the 2006 and 2010 American Choral Directors Association Regional Conference in Charleston, West Virginia and Memphis, respectively.
Lisa Stover is Worship Arts Coordinator at Gainesville First United Methodist Church, where she leads children’s music, directs the acolyte ministry and serves as concert producer.
Prior to joining the GFUMC staff in 2021, she served as Music Associate at Roswell United Methodist Church for 23 years. While at RUMC, she led adult and children’s vocal and handbell choirs, was concert producer, accompanied soloists and ensembles, and helped create and sustain an adult drama ministry. She sang with The Michael O’Neal Singers and was a member of The Michael O’Neal Chamber Singers for several years.
Lisa taught middle school and high school choirs in the Gainesville area for 10 years before moving to Roswell. She studied piano from 3rd grade through college and frequently accompanied church choirs, honor and festival choruses, and her high school’s choruses (beginning in her 8th grade year and through 12th grade). She loves teaching beginning piano students.
