Scott Turkington
Scott Turkington is Organist and Choirmaster for St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Stamford, Connecticut, where he conducts a choir in a program of weekly polyphonic Mass settings and Gregorian chant. He is also on the board of the Church Music Association of America and directs the Gregorian schola at the annual Colloquium on Sacred Music.
Before accepting the position at St. John's in 1998, he was Assistant Organist and Conductor at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. While at the National Shrine, he played for over 500 services each year, and appeared on live national television dozens of times.
He has been the director of the annual workshop in sacred music sponsored by the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum. He has been Music Director at the Church of the Covenant in Boston; Music Teacher and Organist at the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School (Cambridge, Massachusetts), under Theodore Marier. A native of Minneapolis, he studied music at the University of Minnesota, the Boston Conservatory of Music and the Catholic University of America. His former teachers include Heinrich Fleischer, Phillip Steinhaus, and George Faxon.
In frequent demand as an organ recitalist, he has played innumerable recitals in the Northeast, having made his New York debut at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He has performed for a national convention of the Organ Historical Society, and is a featured performer on the Organ Historical Society's compact disc, Organs of Baltimore. In 1994, his choir performed for Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Along with the nuns of the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, CT, he is editor of the Gregorian Chant Masterclass by Theodore Marier, published by the the same abbey. This book with its companion CD feature the Stamford Schola Gregoriana and the nuns of Regina Laudis, both conducted by Mr. Turkington.