Wednesday, June 24 at 2:00 PM

Danielle Faucher, Soprano and Scott Vaillancourt, Organ

July 8: Mark Thallander and Friends

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

Mark Thallander is a teacher, arranger, composer, author, free-lance organist; President, The Mark Thallander Foundation; Board of Directors, Deux Voix; and President, Honorary Board, National Children’s Chorus.

During Mark’s 18-year tenure at The Crystal Cathedral, he assisted with playing responsibilities for services, seasonal concerts, recording projects, as well as the pageants. While there, he was Dean of the Orange County Chapter of the American Guild of Organists for three years.

He also served at Menlo Park (Calif.) Presbyterian Church and Lake Avenue Congregational Church, Pasadena, and as Assistant Professor of Music at Vanguard University and Artist-in-Residence at Evangel University.

Mark has produced numerous recordings and many of his organ and choral arrangements have been published by the Fred Bock Music Company.

Following an automobile accident in 2003, Mark has been interviewed on radio and television programs, and also for newspapers, books and national periodicals. A book about Mark's accident and recovery, Champions…Plus, has been a great source of inspiration. He was the recipient of the Life's Not Fair But God Is Good Award at The Crystal Cathedral.

Mark holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanguard University, where he has served as President of the Alumni Association, and where a fully endowed organ scholarship has been established in his honor, and a Master of Arts degree from California State University, Long Beach; with additional graduate study at University of Southern California.

Mark is listed in the 60th Anniversary Diamond Edition of Who's Who in America, Who’s Who in American Education, and Outstanding Young Men in America.

July 15: Ray Cornils

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

Ray Cornils was the Municipal Organist for the City of Portland from 1990 to 2017. For thirty years he served First Parish Church, UCC, Brunswick, Maine as Minister of Music where he led an extensive music program of five vocal and two handbell choirs.

Known for his highly diverse programming, Ray has concertized throughout the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Russia, New Zealand and Ecuador. He has been a featured recitalist for conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society. In addition to his solo work, he has performed often with the Portland Symphony Orchestra.

Ray has been a member of the music faculties of Bowdoin College, the University of Southern Maine, the Young Organists Collaborative and the Portland Conservatory of Music, where he taught organ, harpsichord and related classes.

He has held many leadership roles in the American Guild of Organists, including Convention Coordinator for the 2014 National Convention in Boston.

Mr. Cornils studied at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He has studied organ with Robert Reeves, Fenner Douglas, William Porter, Yuko Hayashi and has done post-graduate studies with Dame Gillian Weir.

Ray divides his time between Maine’s coast and Ecuador’s Andes mountains, has served as interim or substitute musician at various churches, and continues to concertize from time to time.

July 22: Hentus van Rooyen

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

Hentus van Rooyen, a native of South Africa, is of Director of Music Ministries at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Cape Elizabeth, ME. Prior to his recent relocation to Maine, van Rooyen served as Assistant Professor of Music, Sacred Music Coordinator and College Organist at Bethany College in Lindsborg KS, where he taught organ, music history, music theory, aural skills, and directs the Bethany College Handbell Ensemble. He also served as the Director of Music and Organist at Christ Episcopal Cathedral in Salina, KS.

He holds the degrees Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music in organ performance from the University of North Texas. His other degrees in organ performance, pedagogy, and church music were completed at the University of Pretoria and University of South Africa. He studied organ performance with Jesse Eschbach and Wim Viljoen, and baroque repertoire studies with Paul Leenhouts.

His quest for international studies was initiated after winning the prestigious Stephanus Zondagh Overseas Music Study Scholarship at the University of South Africa Overseas Music Scholarship Competition in 2011 while studying with Wim Viljoen. In 2012, he was awarded the Scholarship for Overseas Study from the Southern-African Church Organists Association (SAKOV), and received a generous scholarship from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, which enabled him to begin his studies at the University of North Texas.

In 2014 van Rooyen won first prize at the William C. (Bill) Hall Organ Competition in San Antonio, TX, and was named ‘Outstanding Graduate Student in Organ Performance’ by the University of North Texas College of Music in 2014 and 2017. As the teaching fellow for organ, he was nominated for the ‘Outstanding Teaching Fellow Award’ in 2018. He was the accompanist and continuo organist for the early music vocal ensemble, the UNT Collegium Singers, and played continuo in the UNT Baroque Orchestra. He also served as Assistant/Associate Organist at Christ the King Catholic Church, Dallas Texas form 2015 to 2018.

During the Sumer of 2019, van Rooyen traveled to Italy to play several Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century organs by Italian builders as part of his research for his dissertation: The Keyboard Toccatas of Michelangelo Rossi (ca. 1602 - 1656): Performance Perspectives for Organists. In January 2020, he was invited by the Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Dietrich Brauer, to perform organ recitals at the Lutheran Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Moscow and at Saint Catherine Lutheran Church in Saint Petersburg.

In September 2021, van Rooyen participated in the semi-final round of the 12th Mikael Tariverdiev International Organ Competition in Kaliningrad, Russia.

July 29: Leo Abbott

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

Leo Abbott is a graduate of the St. Paul Choir School, Cambridge, and the Chaloff School of Music, Boston. His teachers include Theodore Marier, George Faxon, Clarence Watters and Flor Peeters, in organ; Naji Hakim in improvisation, and Julius Chaloff in piano. He holds the Fellowship and ChoirMaster Certificates of the American Guild of Organists, has won first prize in several international and national competitions, and was a finalist at the "Grand Prix de Chartres" in 1984. In 1986 he was appointed Music Director and Organist of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston. After nearly 33 years, Mr. Abbott retired from the Cathedral, and was given the title of Music Director and Organist Emeritus. Mr. Abbott has performed for conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society, and in France, Belgium, Great Britain, Ireland, and across the United States. He is an active member of the American Guild of Organists, and the Organ Historical Society.

Program

Symphonie II, op 20
Louis Vierne
I. Allegro
1870 - 1937

Gregorian Triptych (World Première)
Naji Hakim
Kyrie - Adoro te - Salve Regina
born 1955

Symphonie V, op 42
Charles-Marie Widor
I. Allegro vivace
1844 - 1937

August 5: Randall Mullin

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

Randall Mullin is a freelance musician who lives in Old Orchard Beach. He gained both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. During that time he was Associate Director of Music and Organist at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in that city. Later he held the position of Organist and Choirmaster at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Baltimore for 26 years. After moving to Maine he accompanied the choir at the Cathedral of St. Luke in Portland from 2010 until 2023.

He was a featured performer with ChoralArt for Grand Opera meets the Mighty Kotzschmar in 2016 and for the Maurice Duruflé Requiem in 2019. He has played throughout the country with more recent recitals at Trinity Church, Copley Square, in Boston, Methuen Memorial Music Hall in Methuen, Massachusetts and Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.

Randall Mullin has recorded 128 YouTube videos featuring romantic, modern and contemporary organ music which have received more than 580,000 views.

https://youtube.com/user/RandallMullin

Program

Allegro Moderato (Concerto in F, Opus 4, No. 4) – George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), arr. W. T. Best/Virgil Fox

Méditation – Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)

Rhapsodie sur le nom de LAVOIE – Denis Bédard (1950-)

Suite No. 2 (Homage to W. T. Burleigh) – Daniel Ficarri (1996-)
I. Deep River
II. There Is a Balm in Gilead
III. Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit

August 12: Raymond Hawkins

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

Since beginning his musical training at age ten, Raymond Hawkins has honed his skill at the organ through an active career in both solo performance and sacred music. As a performer, Raymond has given recitals at venues across the United States, including the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco and Adolphus Busch Hall at Harvard University. His performance at the 2015 Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina was praised in The American Organist as being “superbly played and registered.”

Raymond currently serves as Director of Music & Organist at Christ Church of Hamilton & Wenham in northeastern Massachusetts, where he oversees choral and organ music for celebrations of the Holy Eucharist as well as a variety of other sacred occasions. Prior to his appointment at Christ Church, Raymond served 5 years as Director of Music & Organist at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the oldest Episcopal Church in New England still standing on its original site (1714).

Raymond has also won prizes in a number of regional and national competitions. As a high school junior, he received First Prize and the Hymn-Playing Prize in the 2014 UNCSA/Salem College High School Organ Competition as well as Third Place and the Hymn-Playing Prize in the American Guild of Organists Greater Columbia Chapter Young Organist Competition; the following year he earned Second Place in the same competition. In 2014, he won Second Place in the Senior Division of the Peter Perret Youth Talent Search and consequently performed with the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra.

In 2019, Raymond completed his undergraduate degree in organ performance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he studied as a Kenan Organ Scholar under Dr. Timothy Olsen and had previously received his high school diploma. Earlier on, he studied organ with Donna Swanson, Angela Kraft Cross, and Porter Remington. Raymond has also studied abroad in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, advancing his skills as both musician and language aficionado.

August 19: Mark Laubach

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

Since January 1986 Mark Laubach has served as Organist and Choirmaster of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wilkes-Barre, the Pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Bethlehem, where he administers an active liturgical and choral music program, concert series, and Music from St. Stephen’s, a radio broadcast heard weekly on WVIA 89.9 FM Public Radio. In 2008 Bishop Paul Marshall made Mark Honorary Canon Precentor of the Diocese in recognition of his accomplishments and contributions to the musical and liturgical life of the Diocese of Bethlehem.

Mark Laubach received a Bachelor’s Degree in Church Music from Westminster Choir College in 1982 and a Master’s Degree in Organ Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in 1984. He served for one year as Fellow in Church Music at Washington National Cathedral. His organ teachers have included Clinton Miller, George Markey, Donald McDonald, and David Craighead. Since winning first prize in the 1984 American Guild of Organists (AGO) National Young Artists’ Competition in Organ Performance, Mark has performed in many of the most prominent churches and concert halls in the USA and in Great Britain and Germany. Notable UK recitals have included appearances at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, and cathedrals in Bristol, Chichester, Gloucester, Lincoln, Norwich, Wells, and Winchester. He is a frequent recitalist, clinician, presenter of hymn festivals, and competition adjudicator for National and Regional Conventions of the American Guild of Organists (AGO) and National and Regional Conferences of the Association of Anglican Musicians (AAM). He has recorded three critically acclaimed compact discs on the Pro Organo label: Teutonic Titanics, French Fest, and Mosaics in Sound. Canon Laubach teaches organ students privately and at Marywood University in Scranton. He is represented by the Concert Artists Cooperative, based in Sebastopol, California.

Recent performances by Canon Laubach have included recitals at First Lutheran Church of Brockton, Massachusetts, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, The First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Trinity Episcopal Church in Moorestown, New Jersey, St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Marblehead, Massachusetts, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and a featured recital for the 2017 Region III AGO Convention in Richmond, Virginia.

In 1993 and 1994, Mark started his involvement with the Royal School of Church Music in America when he served as an organist for the Valley Forge Course, which moved to Wilkes-Barre in 1995 and became the King’s College Course. He served as Course Manager in the late 1990s in Wilkes-Barre, and has served as an organist for the Course in the years since. He also served as organist for the Atlanta Girls’ Course at St. Philip’s Cathedral in 1998.

In August 2018 Mark served as a co-organist for a weeklong residency at Lincoln Cathedral in England by the Choir of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Harleysville, PA. In the following week he served as organist for another residency at Ely Cathedral by the combined Choirs of Immanuel Episcopal Church on the Green in New Castle, DE, and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Lewes, DE.

in Harleysville, PA. In the following week he served as organist for another residency at Ely Cathedral by the combined Choirs of Immanuel Episcopal Church on the Green in New Castle, DE, and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Lewes, DE.

Program

Choral I in E Major – Cesar Franck

Priere in C# Minor– Cesar Franck

Final in B-flat Major– Cesar Franck

Other Concerts

Wednesday, June 24 at 2:00 PM

Danielle Faucher, Soprano and Scott Vaillancourt, Organ

Sunday, September 20 at 3:00 PM

Hector Olivera
Sponsored by the Thallander Foundation

Fall TBD