John Rose will retire in December after 40 years as college organist and director of chapel music at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. John Rose’s primary organ teacher was the late Virgil Fox. A graduate of Rutgers University, where Rose also taught for several years, he was appointed at age 20 as organist of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey. There he inaugurated a concert series that is still a major part of the Newark arts community.
As a frequent concert organist he has performed professionally on four continents. He has also performed with several orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony as part of the 1984 American Guild of Organists national convention and on multiple occasions with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His numerous releases on Towerhill Recordings include Star Wars recorded in 1977 within months of the film’s release, and the series entitled The French Romantics.
During his final academic year at Trinity College he had the honor of being named the first John Rose College Organist-and-Directorship Distinguished Chair of Chapel Music. The chair was established and endowed in his honor by Marjorie V. Butcher, Trinity’s first female Professor. (See Here & There, September 2016, p. 8.)
Rose served under seven presidents of Trinity College and six college chaplains. He planned and executed 80 of the school’s popular Christmas Lessons and Carols services. As director of the Chapel Singers, Trinity’s oldest student organization, he led periodic choir tours abroad in Europe and South America. His own students have led distinguished careers in several fields including organ performance and church music.
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