Someone You Should Know: Choral Director Mattie Robertson
(CBS) -- She's been performing music, directing choirs and teaching students for decades.
Mattie Robertson is a music legend in Chicago. CBS 2's Harry Porterfield says she's someone you should know.
Robertson began laying a church organ when she was just 8 years old. It wasn't like the mighty organ she plays at Chicago's First Baptist Congregational Church, but she knew the keyboard, having studied piano at age five.
"My mother thought I was very strange because I wouldn't go out to play. I would just want to play the piano," she says.
She was on the faculty of Whitney Young when the school opened in 1975 and grew the girl's chorus. She taught music for 19 years, inspiring students like Tasha Carroll.
With the Christmas holiday season approaching, rehearsals by the First Baptist Choir are underway for a performance of Handel's "Messiah."
"It's such an honor to do this. It's just a blessing for me, and it's the gift God gave me and I love using it, I love serving him," Robertson says.
The performance is Sunday Dec. 8.
