Quinte Symphony MasterWorks Concert, May 29, 2010
Featuring William Maddox at the Pipe Organ
William Maddox Biography
William Maddox was born in Picton, Ontario and is a performance graduate of Queen's University and Trinity College of Music, London. Mr. Maddox has served churches in Picton, Belleville and Kingston, and in 1996 succeeded his last teacher, Catherine M. Palmer, as the fourth Organist and Director of Music of Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, Toronto.
Mr. Maddox served as Instructor of Organ in the School of Music at Queen's University where his students were recipients of numerous University and national scholarships and awards.
In June and July of 1995, Mr. Maddox acted as Organist in Residence at the Royal Parish Church of St. Martin-In-The-Fields, London, England. Mr. Maddox holds elected Fellowships in numerous international learned societies for musicians as well as diplomas honoris causa from St. Katherine’s Institute and the London Society for Musicological Research (for his work in the area of performance and registrational practices of orchestral transcriptions on the organ). He also serves as Canadian representative for the Academy of Saint Cecilia.
Most recently, he has become the Founding Registrar of The Honourable Company of Organists, a learned society with international membership. Mr. Maddox maintains a busy schedule as a solo recitalist, and has performed throughout Canada and the northern United States, including appearances at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, the Sao Bento Organ Festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
As well, his recordings and live concerts have been featured on many nationally-broadcast programmes on the CBC, and on American and Brazilian Public Radio. In addition, he has appeared as a soloist with orchestra, performing the Handel and Rheinberger Concerti, the Mozart Epistle Sonatas and the Guilmant Symphony I for Organ and Orchestra. Mr. Maddox plays many dedicatory recitals on new instruments, and is actively involved as consultant to many churches and organbuilders regarding the tonal design and console appointments of their new instruments. Mr. Maddox's organ solo recordings of the Casavant organ at Jack Singer Hall, Calgary, were the first to be recorded on that instrument and his most recent recording is a live, unedited recording of a recent recital on the great Casavant organ at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church.
As a choral accompanist, Mr. Maddox is well known among conductors as an artful partner to their choirs where the chosen literature includes a demanding role for the organ. As a result of his services to their Chapel Choir on their recent tour of Canada, he was named an Honorary Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University, UK in 2006. He has toured the UK, Western Canada and Ireland with the Cantabile Choirs of Kingston, with recitals at York Minster, Coventry, Salisbury, and Southwark Cathedral, St. Alban’s Abbey, Christ Church Dublin, and in Northern
Ontario with the Ontario Youth Choir 2001. In the summer of 2004, Mr. Maddox and the Yorkminster Park Choir toured Scotland, performing at St. Mary’s and St. Giles’ Cathedrals in Edinburgh, as well as Dornoch and Dunkeld Cathedrals, St. Salvator’s Chapel at St. Andrew’s University, and at the Abbey of Iona. In the summer of 2006, Mr Maddox and the Yorkminster Park Choir toured the eastern United States, singing the daily services at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, and at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
In the summer of 2008, Mr. Maddox accompanied the Choir of Central Presbyterian Church, Hamilton during their residencies at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.
