Serenade Concert June 30 2024

The daughter of a Moravian minister, Mary Lou Kapp Peeples began organ study at age twelve and in the same year assumed her first post as a church organist. Well-known conductor Thor Johnson soon became aware of her extraordinary talent and asked her to accompany Moravian Music Festivals. She played for seven of these festivals from local to international level with Johnson and Ewald Nolte, and returned in 1984 as organ clinician for the international festival. She has performed numerous recitals in the United States and France, including a recital at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York. Her performances have been heard on National Public Radio and Alabama Public Radio. She was selected by internationally-renowned organist Marie-Claire Alain to study privately with her in Paris for two years. During this time she served as assistant organist-choirmaster to Susan Landale at St. George’s Anglican Church in Paris, as organist at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, as harpsichord accompanist for flute students of Jean-Pierre Rampal, and was nominated for the finals in the Chartres International Organ Competition. On Easter Sunday, 1976, before a standing-room audience, she became the first American organist to present a recital at Eglise St. Louis des Invalides in Paris. Additionally, she sang in a series concert which was broadcast on Radio France sponsored by the Societe de Musique d’Autrefois. As harpsichord soloist, she was featured three times with members of the Montgomery and Alabama Symphony Orchestras in performances of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. She has also performed with Carolina Baroque and Carolina Chamber Symphony.

Mrs. Kapp Peeples earned music performance degrees from Salem College and the Eastman School of Music. Her major teachers were Margaret and John Mueller and Russell Saunders. She also performed in master classes with Arthur Poister, Hans Wunderlich, Vernon de Tar, and Catherine Crozier Gleason. She was organ recitalist and clinician for the Alabama Music Teachers Association state convention, served as organ advisor, for the Alabama MTA, and currently serves as Organ/Harpsichord Chair for the North Carolina Music Teachers Association. She was an adjudicator for the Music Teachers National Association Southern Division Competition in 1985, and was published in The American Music Teacher. For many years she served as an appointed member of the Liturgy and Music Department of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, and was organist for the Royal School of Church Music Training Course in 1998 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Her choral music training includes work with John Dexter, Milford Fargo, Robert Shaw, Sir David Willcocks, Thomas Dunn, Eph Ely, Ann Jones, Jean Ashworth Bartle, and Andrea Klouse. Mary Lou was the subject of a feature article entitled “Outstanding Alabamians” in Alabama magazine. For over twenty years she and her husband Wade were professors of music at Judson College, where they received several awards for teaching excellence. They now live in Winston-Salem, where she serves as organist at Calvary Moravian Church and accompanist for the Moramus Chorale.