Dr. Richard Proulx,
a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, began piano studies at age six and
benefited from the unique musical training then fostered in that
city's parochial and private schools, where twice-daily solfege and
choral singing were emphasized. He attended MacPhail College and the
University of Minnesota, with further studies at the American Boychoir
School in Princeton, NJ, St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN and the
Royal School of Church Music in England.
Proulx's organ studies were with Ruth
Dindorf, Arthur Jennings, Rupert Sircom, Gerald Bales and Peter
Hallock; extensive choral seminars were undertaken with Donald Bryant,
Robert Shaw and Roger Wagner. He studied composition with Leopold
Bruenner, Bruce Larsen and Gerald Bales.
During 1980-1994, Richard Proulx was
Organist-Music Director at the historic Cathedral of the Holy Name,
Chicago, where he did much to strengthen that cathedral's outreach
program to the city by establishing an extensive and innovative music
program. As hoped by the visionary cathedral rector, Bishop Timothy J.
Lyne, the consistent excellence of this broad based and varied
liturgical music program became a model for cathedrals across the
country. The highly acclaimed concert series Music for a Great
Space involved the cathedral choirs and many of the finest
instrumentalists in the Chicago area. The choirs toured the Midwest in
1982 and 1991, Europe in 1988. Proulx was also responsible for the
planning and installation of two new mechanical action organs for the
cathedral: Casavant (Quebec, 1981) and Flentrop (Holland, 1989).
Before coming to Chicago, Proulx served
for ten years (1970-1980) at St. Thomas Church, Medina/Seattle, where
he directed three choirs and chamber orchestra, established a
tradition of liturgical handbell ringing, and was organist at Temple
de Hirsch Sinai. Previous positions included St. Charles Parish,
Tacoma; St. Stephen's Church, Seattle; fifteen years at the Church of
the Holy Childhood in Saint Paul (1953-1968).
Richard Proulx is a widely published
composer of more than three hundred works, including congregational
music in every form, sacred and secular choral works, song cycles, two
operas, as well as instrumental and organ music. He has served as a
consultant for such recent hymnals at The Hymnal 1982, New Yale
Hymnal, The Methodist Hymnal, Worship II and III, and has
contributions in the Mennonite Hymnal and the Presbyterian
Hymnal. Proulx was a member of the Standing Commission on Church
Music of the Episcopal Church and was a founding member of the
Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians in 1984. He has
conducted choral festivals and workshops across America as well as in
Canada, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Scotland, Australia and New
Zealand.
Proulx was appointed
composer-in-residence for 1994-1995 at the Cathedral of the Madeleine,
Salt Lake City, UT and was named a 1995 Visiting Fellow at the
Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX. He has served on the summer
faculties of the Montreat Conference on Music and Worship, the
Evergreen Conference, St. John's University School of Theology, and
serves as vice president of The Society for Catholic Liturgy.
Currently a free-lance composer and conductor, he has also been an
editorial consultant to GIA Publications and Augsburg Fortress Press.
In the field of commercial music,
Proulx composed the 1971 theme song for Union Pacific Railroad as well
as an orchestral score for the film The Golden Door. Two recent
arrangements sung by The Cathedral Singers were featured in a
May 1996 episode of ER on NBC and his brief organ setting of
Veni Creator Spiritus is heard in the 1997 film The Devil's Own.
In 1991, Richard Proulx founded The
Cathedral Singers as an independent professional recording
ensemble. This group has sung a number of live concerts in the Midwest
and has produced over fifteen compact disc recordings of a great
variety of choral music.
Richard has received many prestigious
awards. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a commission
for a new opera in 1989, the same year in which he was presented the
Gold Medal of the Archdiocese of Chicago by the late Joseph Cardinal
Bernardin. In 1994, he received the doctorate honoris causa
from the General Theological Seminary in New York City and also the
BENE Award from Modern Liturgy Magazine as "the most significant
liturgical composer of the last twenty years." In 1995, he was cited
by Duquesne University for outstanding work as a church musician and
in recognition of the library of music given to Duquesne. The National
Association of Pastoral Musicians named him 1995 Pastoral Musician of
the Year. In 1998, Richard Proulx received the Pax Christi Award from
St. John's University, Collegeville, MN.
A rare combination of talents as
composer, conductor, music editor and organist coupled with wide
experience across denominational lines have given Richard Proulx a
unique perspective of both the opportunities and the challenges found
in liturgical music-making in our time. He remains committed to the
enriching and balancing of the role of the arts in the lives of all
people.
