Thank you for visiting my website of my musical compositions, arrangements and blog. My educational background in music began around the age of 10 with clarinet lessons in elementary school and with private piano lessons with Edna Peters of Nescopeck, PA. My mother was a church organist at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Mifflinville, PA, our hometown and church home, and I often accompanied her to an empty church while she practiced. The organ was a five-rank Mudler-Hunter pipe organ, built in Philadelphia, PA. According to https://pipeorgandatabase.org, “Albert G. and John P. Hunter formed a company named A.G. & J.P. Hunter which traded in Philadelphia in the 1860’s and 1870’s. By 1880 this had morphed into J.P. Hunter & Sons. Bernard Mudler was also active as an organ builder in Philadelphia from about 1870 onwards. The Mudler-Hunter firm was incorporated in 1921 and seems to have resulted from a merger of these two previous firms.” The irony of this is that my mother was born in 1921! Though only a small, five-rank organ, it could make the rafters ring! So, I had been bitten by the pipe organ bug. 

I also sang in the Junior Choir at St. John’s, and I began playing the piano for our Sunday School worship around that time. I moved from the Junior Choir to the Adult Choir and began to play the organ for church. I soon decided that I wanted to study organ and secure a BA Degree in Church Music at Susquehanna University (SU), Selinsgrove, PA. Although I ended up switching majors at the end of my freshman year, I continued studying organ with Dr. James Boeringer and expanded my love and performance of choral music as a member of the University Choir under the direction of now Professor Emeritus of Music Cyril Stretansky. It was in my freshman year that I was hired as a professional organist and choir director at St. John Lutheran Church in Espy, PA.

I graduated cum laude from SU in 1974 with a degree in Music Education and continued private organ study with the late Dr. Leonard Raver of the Juilliard School, and sang and studied choral music throughout the years with choral professionals as Robert Shaw, Robert Page and Alice Parker.

As a professional church musician, I have served as both organist and choir director in seven churches over a 44-year period: Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Episcopal, small and large. 

I began composing about two years after graduating from Susquehanna, and I was encouraged to continue to write by Professor Stretansky; several of my works were included on recordings of the University Choir throughout his tenure there. 

I was and continue to be inspired by the works of composers such as Bach, Bernstein, Bloch, Brahms, Britten, Copland, Duruflé, Franck, Hanson, Hindemith, Langlais, Messiaen, Pinkham, Ravel, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Thompson, and Vaughan Williams. 

My compositions and arrangements have been what centuries ago was referred to as “Gebrauchsmusik,” a German term meaning “music for use,” or “utility music,” music that exists not only for its own sake, but which was composed for some specific, identifiable purpose. The church music of Johann Sebastian Bach sometimes is considered one of the earliest examples. Much of my music was written as an offering to be made during a liturgical service or mass, intended to focus on a specific scriptural text or idea within the church’s liturgical year. I also have written for individual choral organizations who primarily perform sacred choral music, both a cappella and accompanied. Currently, I am both a member of and Composer-in-Residence for Caritas Chamber Chorale based in Far Hills, NJ.

Writers of texts that address the human challenges of living lives of faith, hope and love amid life’s joys, pain and sorrows touch me in ways that move me to compose and arrange. The texts range from ancient to contemporary. 

My writing and arranging tends toward the neo-classical and the chromaticism of the romantics, with throwbacks to chant and modal tonalities. Most importantly, when I write, I always have in mind the members of the group for which I am composing.