Sam Ruiz

Music Director

Email
(203) 264-2407

Sam directs the music ministry at CRC. His service includes leading worship, conducting the choir, coordinating musical events and services, providing musicianship development/training for music ministry participants, and collaborating with the other ministry leaders at CRC. His calling and deepest desire is to use music and the dramatic arts to help people connect to God and to each other.

Sam has been in full-time music ministry since 2009, though he started as a church musician at the age of 12 in Manhattan’s Lower East Side when his congregation needed a pianist. It was there, by God’s grace, he learned to read music and play the Spanish himnos y coros by ear on the fly. He later went on to formally study piano, voice, theater and music for worship (sacred, traditional and contemporary). He holds a Bachelor of Music from Nyack College; a Master of Music Education from the University of New England; and a Certificate in Worship Studies from Columbia Southern University.

Sam moved to Connecticut in 2019 with his wife and daughter, Kristen and Alyssa – along with their bunny and pup, Gracie and Biscuit. They love to kayak, joke around together and quote musicals (randomly bursting into song is nothing unusual for them). Sam loves performing with his wife, looking at historic pictures of NYC and is a raving Superman fan (Christopher Reeve Franchise, of course).