Robert W.
Parker
(1960 - 2020)

obert W. Parker is a prize-winning, critically acclaimed composer and performer with over thirty years' experience as a liturgical musician. Described as "one of the finest young American composers" at his latest premiere, and called "a delight" by the press from Connecticut to California, he has performed for Presidential inaugurations, appeared on stages throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and Japan, and has been seen (and heard) on both national and international television.

He began his musical career in the black-cassocked Boy Choir of Pasadena Presbyterian Church, but his first job as an organist was playing a Hammond organ for a small church that met in the YMCA. He studied choral conducting from Jon Bailey at the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University, where he also studied percussion from Metropolitan Opera timpanist Fred Hinger, and composition from Tony-award winning composer Maury Yeston. He earned a Bachelor's degree from Yale College and a Master's degree from the Yale School of Music.

After sojourning briefly in the field of Information Technology as a technical writer and as a speaker for international conferences on technical communications, he left the fields of industry and went back to school. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Claremount Graduate University, where he studied performance practice with Roland Jackson and musicology with Nancy van Deusen, and served as conductor of the Collegium Musicum and assistant conductor of the Pomona College Band. He has presented papers before the College Music Society and the California Association of Independent Schools, and has written articles for The American Organist.

As an organist and conductor, Dr. Parker performed for a wide range of denominations: Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, and others. His most recent position was as the organist at the Cathedral Center of Saint Paul in Los Angeles, where he was commissioned to compose Behold My Servant, the ordination anthem for The Very Reverend Jon Bruno as the sixth Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles, also serving as organist for the ordination. He was much in demand throughout the Southern California area as a composer, most recently creating choral and instrumental works for Saint Andrew' Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, and incidental music for the Theater Arts program at the California Institute of Technology. He was on the faculty of Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada Flintridge, California.

Dr. Parker passed away April 13, 2020 after a long battle with MS.

CanticaNOVA Publications is pleased to offer the music of Robert Parker in our catalog:

• Behold My Servant CNP Catalog #5158