Marilyn Biery

b. 1959

Marilyn Biery, organist, conductor, composer, hymn writer, and ASCAPlus award winner. One of Marilyn's interests is the research and encouragement of new American organ music. She has written numerous articles about the subject, and they have appeared in The American Organist between July, 2000 and June, 2006, as well as in The Diapason. In October, 2002 she premiered Libby Larsen's new work for organ, On a Day of Bells, commissioned by the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. She has performed and/or premiered many new compositions, including works by David Evan Thomas, James Hopkins, Harold Stover, Frank Ferko, Pamela Decker, Emily Maxson Porter, Stephen Paulus, and James Biery. She is the founder and editor of the “Concert Organ Music” Series at MorningStar Music Publishers, and her article about this new Series was printed in the January, 2005 issue of The Diapason.

Marilyn’s hymn texts are available in anthem form from MorningStar, in settings by James Biery and David Evan Thomas, as well as in her hymnary, Seek a Place of Breathless Beauty, published by MorningStar in 2011.

From 1986-1996 Marilyn was director of music ministries at the First Church of Christ (Center Church) in Hartford, CT. She has served other churches in the Midwest, most recently The First United Methodist Church of Royal Oak, Michigan, where she was interim director of music. Marilyn was director of the National Young Artist Competition in Organ Performance, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists, from 1997-2004. Marilyn holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in organ performance from Northwestern University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ from the University of Minnesota. In 1982 she was a finalist in the National Open Competition in Organ Performance in Washington, D.C. She and James Biery live in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.