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The American organist, Robert Cameron Clark, 85, began piano lessons in the fourth grade with Margaret Dietrich and attended Kansas City public schools whose music department was led by noted music educator, Maybell Glenn. At age 14, he held his first church job where he played an Estey reed organ. In 1952, he graduated from Central Methodist College (Fayette, Missouri), where he studied organ with Orpha Ochse and Luther Spade and piano with Opal Hayes and Nannie Lou Wright. In 1954, he completed his graduate studies in New York City at Union Theological Seminary’s School of Sacred Music, where in addition to organ study with Clarence Dickinson (1952) and Ernest White (1953), he studied Baroque performance practice and harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt. His dissertation on Olivier Messiaen included a translation of the composer’s Technique de mon langage musical.
After holding positions at Baker University (Baldwin City, Kansas), Christ United Presbyterian Church (Canton, Ohio), and Cornell College (Mount Vernon, Iowa), Robert Clark taught at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) for 17 years (1964-1981). A Rackham School of Graduate Studies research grant (1976) enabled him to study organs in Germany, Switzerland, and France. Focusing on organs in Saxony and Thuringia, he played nearly all the organs built by Gottfried Silbermann, research that contributed to the initial impetus for building a Silbermann-inspired C.B. Fisk organ (Op. 87) at the University of Michigan. During his research in then East Germany, his study of manuscripts in the East Berlin Stadtsbibliothek led to his co-authorship of a new edition of J.S. Bach’s Orgelbüchlein (1984).
Beginning in 1981, Robert Clark taught at Arizona State University (ASU) where he played a decisive role in the design of ASU’s organ hall and the construction of the Paul Fritts organ. Both were focal points for a symposium, The Historical Organ in America (1992), attended by musicians and organ builders from around the world. Clark retired from ASU in 1998 as professor emeritus of music.
Throughout his career, Robert Clark served as adjudicator for regional, national, and international competitions including those of St. Albans and Grand Prix de Chartres. His several CD's include "Bach at Naumburg", the notable first recording of the fully restored Hildebrandt Organ (1746) in the Wenzelskirche, Naumburg, Germany.
Robert Clark died on August 23, 2017 in Houston, Texas, aged 85. He was survived by his children Susan Clark Joul, Barbara Clark, Robert Clark, and Jill Meiburg; grandchildren, Ivy Joul, Henry Meiburg, Sebastian Meiburg, and Maxwell Meiburg; and a sister, Carol Chamberlin. |
