Rodeheaver Series Presents Organist Marilyn Sexton Mason
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The Rodeheaver Series for the Performing Arts will present Marilyn Sexton Mason, organist, in concert Sunday at 2 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church of Warsaw.
Mason is a professional keyboardist, church musician and music educator. She holds a bachelor's degree in choral music, piano and voice from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan., and a master's degree in organ and harpsichord performance from the Chicago College of the Performing Arts - Music Conservatory at Roosevelt University in Chicago, where she studied with Dr. David Schrader.
Mason began her piano and organ studies growing up in Kansas. She started service playing for her church when she was in junior high school, and now has more than 25 years of experience as a professional church musician. While Mason lived in the Chicago area, she served as organist at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, Naperville, Ill., the largest Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation in the state. She has served as organist for both District and National Conferences of the Church of the Brethren, and was organist and children's choir director on the Church of the Brethren's nationally televised CBS Christmas Eve Special in December 2004.
Mason has performed with groups such as the Elgin Choral Union in Elgin, Ill.; Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Symphony Orchestra and Manchester Choral Society. She has accompanied a principal mezzo soprano with the Chicago Lyric Opera and solo instrumentalists from the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Boy Choir and the Warsaw Community Choir.
In addition to 15 years of teaching choral music in Kansas, Illinois and Indiana public and private schools, Mason has been a member of the keyboard faculty of the Chicago College of the Performing Arts - Music Conservatory at Roosevelt University in Chicago and a music theory and keyboard instructor at Elgin Community College in Elgin, Ill. Mason has served as the college organist for Manchester College in North Manchester, where she taught private organ and harpsichord lessons.
Mason presently freelances as a keyboardist and recitalist. She is in her third year as the choral music director at Manchester Junior-Senior High School and as bell choir director at the Manchester Church of the Brethren. She also spends a great deal of time directing musical theatre for young people. In the last three years she has directed 13 plays and musicals with the youth of the North Manchester community.
Mason lives in North Manchester with her husband Steve.
Her program for the Rodeheaver Series will consist of a mixture of secular and sacred organ pieces ranging in style from baroque to contemporary, including a suite of very depictive pieces by John Leavitt called "Scenes of Childhood," based on selected poems of Robert Louis Stevenson. The pipe organ upon which she will perform was created by Goulding and Wood Inc., Indianapolis, and completed in 1990 (their Opus 17). It contains 40 ranks of pipes including parade trumpets, and an oboe stop from the church's original 1915 Moeller organ, as well as a zimblestern (jingle bells) and and orchestra bird whistle.
The concert is free and the public is invited. A goodwill offering will be accepted. For more information, call First United Methodist Church of Warsaw at 574-267-6933 or visit online at www.warsawfumc.org
