OUR COMPOSERS
Randolph Currie
Randolph Currie brings to his music making an extensive interest in the history of chant, polyphony, and American folk tunes. He also cultivates a fascination with architectural concepts in which limitations of material and space are important. Combining these elements of scholarly awareness and spatial relationships, this interesting mix of elements yields a compositional style that is tightly organized and accesible to most performers. He writes, "When I write, I try to produce music which is serviceable and well crafted like good antique furniture. I also consider it a challenge to write music which is not difficult to perform, but is interesting enough to bear repeated performances."The theory is an elevated one, but it is based on solid music performance and composition.
For example, in addition to his music activity as the organist at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Sylvania, Ohio, he teaches music theory and organ at Lourdes College. He received a bachelor of music in organ performance from Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama where he was a student of Sam Batt Owens. In 1967 he obtained a master of music degree from Ohio State University. It was around that time he started to compose music and made his entry into the publishing world in 1973 with his first anthem. He has been developing and refining his style ever since. His compositional tasks are usually inspired by concrete situations. His compositions for children were written to provide worthy music for children's celebrations rather than the "cutesy" pop stuff that was popular for a while.
Practical situations produce practical music. Our church has been enjoying the fruit of those labors ever since the first chanter intoned the first versicle through Johann Sebastian Bach and his successors. There is strong evidence that the tradition continues and is being aided by the works of Randy Currie.