George Clark

George Clark, a native of South Carolina, was awarded a music scholarship to Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, from which he received the B.A. Music degree and studied organ with Dr. W. Lindsay Smith. He received the Master of Sacred Music degree from the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he studied organ with Searle Wright and Vernon de Tar, head of the Organ Department at Juilliard School of Music.

After serving in the U.S. Army Transportation Corps as a captain, George was appointed organist-choirmaster of Court Street United Methodist Church in Lynchburg, where he oversaw the installation of the new Schantz pipe organ in 1981. He is an Associate in the American Guild of Organists (A.G.O.) and is a former dean of the organization’s Lynchburg chapter.

From 1972 to 1984, George served as Director of the Lynchburg Fine Arts Center Chorus, which performed many of the great masterworks of choral music, often with orchestra, including the B minor Mass of J.S. Bach. In 1975, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Music at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg.

While an adjunct professor of organ at Liberty University, one of George’s students, John Lowe, won the regional competition of the A.G.O. George has been heard in recital throughout the east coast, including at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and has participated in music workshops throughout the east. In 1991, he was given a stipend by the church to attend the International Music Academy in Paris on the organ works of Franck, Alain, and Messiaen.

George has composed several anthems, one of which, “Draw Nigh to Thy Jerusalem,” published by H. W. Gray, has achieved wide distribution and was featured in the Journal of Church Music in Philadelphia. He has performed with the Lynchburg Symphony as organist as well as harpsichordist, when he improvised a movement in one of Bach’s Suites.

For several years ending with a Christmas program in 2016, George joined forces with Elaine St. Vincent, the retired Chair of the Music Department of Randolph College and long-time resident of Westminster Canterbury, in performing Piano four-hand programs of largely popular music, spirituals, and Broadway tunes.