Submitted by Nancy Soneson, UCCHH
(September, 10, 2024) — On September 27, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. at the Higganum campus of the United Congregational Church of Haddam and Higganum, 23 Parsonage Road, Organist Brian Parks will perform as the sixteenth artist in the Gladys Burr Peck Memorial Organ Concert Series.
Parks is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists and since 2015 has served as Organist and Associate Director of Music at First United Methodist Church in Marietta, Georgia,, where he plays a pipe organ of new construction by Glatter-Götz Orgelbau. At Marietta, he directs the 1st and 2nd choirs, the youth choir (6-12th grade), the youth orchestra, the Men’s Ensemble, and an adult handbell choir.
As a performer, Mr. Parks has given premieres of new mathematical organ works by Dean Rosenthal, Tom Johnson, Christopher Adler, Michael Winter, Dina Maccabee, and Phillip Schulze, and his own pieces.
Favorite concert venues include: St. Antonius Church in Oberkassel; Basilica of the Holy Apostles and Sankt Peter Kunstation in Köln; American Church in Paris; and First (Scots) Presbyterian in Charleston, South Carolina. He recently completed an eight-day residency at Exeter Cathedral in South England, where he played daily Evensong and two Choral Eucharists and experienced the liturgical rhythm of cathedral life.
Mr. Parks is a recording artist for the TAL Music label of Düsseldorf. With Catherine Moulton, he founded and co-directs Quadratum, an experimental music school for children that teaches self-reliance through the rigors of Ghanaian and South Indian drumming; outdoor expeditions; sung “early” music; and composition. Quadratum is in residence at The Strand Theater in the Marietta Square.
One of the great thrills of his recent past was bringing Marietta First’s youth choir to the Higganum Congregational Church campus for a concert this past May. He shared with the students the place where his sacred music career began and introduced them to the wonderfully kind members of the church who have, for sixteen years, shown him and his family incomparable love, support, and encouragement.
Gladys Burr Peck was a member of the Higganum Congregational Church for 78 years, and Sunday School Teacher and Superintendent for more than 30 years, as well as church clerk for 60 years. Following her death in 2006, her husband, Leslie Raymond Peck, and her daughter, Lindamae Peck, established the Gladys Burr Peck Memorial Organ Concert to acknowledge her long support of the church and to provide a special event for her hometown. Gladys was the seventh generation of Burrs in Higganum.
There will be a reception following the concert. Admission is free; donations are appreciated and will support future musical events.
Photo provided by UCCHH
