Genre: Inspirational / Spiritual
Music Style:Worship
Location: California-Orange County
URL: http://audiogig.com/bridgetwillard.agg
Website: www.moreofjesus.com
Telephone : (949) 248-9255
Email: bridget@moreofjesus.com
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Bridget’s love of music originates from her first listen to the great jazz singers: Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, and Ella Fitzgerald. She grew up with her mother singing the songs of Billie Holiday, Bonnie Raitt, and Barbara Streisand. Her influences vary from those jazz greats to Eric Clapton and James Taylor. Bridget loves a good melody and is evident in her songs with strong melodic lines.
While taking a voice class at San Diego State University just for fun, her teacher had commented that he would pay to hear her sing. That class in 1995 stirred up in Bridget a desire to study music. She realized that it wasn’t too late to develop her gift.
It was in 1996 that she began to seriously pursue the development of her craft in music by taking private piano lessons. She began to write songs during that time and began to take guitar lessons as well as piano lessons. After a serious shoulder injury in 2002, she was unable to continue playing the guitar, but still plays piano at a weekly home fellowship.
Aside from being a help mate to her husband of twelve years, Mercier Willard, a pastor and head of Pardoned Prodigals, Bridget's main gifting and calling is for leading worship. She has lead worship with children, teens, and women as well as in prayer meetings, retreats, and small group Bible studies since 1996.
Bridget is also a gifted teacher and has taught children, teens, and women's Bible studies. She has organized, facilitate, taught, and lead worship for several women's retreats. She focuses her time on exhorting and encouraging believers to be active with their gifts and callings from the Lord.
She has either participated as a keyboardist and or vocalist on worship teams with her mentor Chris Falson, as well as with Gary Arthur of The Way and Chariya Bissonette.
Mercier and Bridget's home church is Calvary Chapel San Juan Capistrano where most of her songs were written and where she blossomed into a worship leader in Children's and Women's Ministry.
She is part of an outreach called Pardoned Prodigals that has been reaching out to the community of Anaheim for the past few years at the Friday Night Motel Outreach through song, prayer, and Bible class for children.
She is also an author and her essays and poems are posted on her site www.moreofjesus.com along with chord charts, song lyrics, mp3 samples, and song stories from her debut CD.
Bridget is also working on a devotional journey for worship leaders entitled ON THE MOUNTAIN.
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