Mary Beth Bennett
Organ Improvisation Composition
"(Bennett's recording).....Poetry without words. Absolutely ravishing"
- Michael Barone, Host of APM's Pipedreams
"Composer, Performer, and Improviser: Mary Beth Bennett is the complete musician. She delights and rewards listeners with her artistic insight, musical authority, and brilliant communication"
- John Walker, Past President, American Guild of Organists
- Michael Barone, Host of APM's Pipedreams
"Composer, Performer, and Improviser: Mary Beth Bennett is the complete musician. She delights and rewards listeners with her artistic insight, musical authority, and brilliant communication"
- John Walker, Past President, American Guild of Organists
Dr. Mary Beth Bennett is a nationally recognized performer, composer and improviser living in historic Richmond, Virginia where she serves on the adjunct music faculty of the University of Richmond and is Organist of Second Baptist Church. Having previously held various positions in Washington, D.C., including at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and as Ceremonial Organist for the United States Department of Defense, she holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Stetson University, the Staatliche Hochschüle für Musik (Cologne, Germany), and the University of Southern California. She pursued postdoctoral study in plainchant at the Catholic University of America. Her organ teachers have included David Craighead, Paul Jenkins, Paul Manz, Michael Schneider, Ladd Thomas and Cherry Rhodes. The winner of numerous awards in performance and composition, she has received commissions in multiple genres from the American Guild of Organists, National Association of Pastoral Musicians, Association of Anglican Musicians, The Paul VI Institute for the Arts, Millennia Consort and various churches, chamber ensembles and private parties. In 2018, she won the AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition, and in 2020 she won the Performance Award of the Franco Competition of the Guild of Carillonneurs of North America. Her primary composition teacher has been James F. Hopkins. She maintains a studio of improvisation students and has served as a judge for the AGO National Competition in Organ Improvisation, and presented improvisation seminars for major conventions of the AGO and NPM as well as the Smithsonian Institution. She has served as a judge for the national women’s composition competition of AAM and the AGO International Year of the Organ composition competition. As a performing member of the Liturgical Organists Consortium she recorded three compact discs which have garnered critical acclaim, including a “Golden Ear Award” for best organ CD of the year from Absolute Sound Magazine, and her most recent CD, Bennett plays Bennett was recorded in 2015. Her performances and compositions have been featured multiple times on American Public Media's PIPEDREAMS program <www.pipedreams.org> with Michael Barone. Her compositions are published by E.C. Schirmer, Augsburg-Fortress, Concordia, G.I.A., Broadman, World Library, National, Hope, and Oxford University Press publishing companies.