Randall Douglas Perry, founder, conductor, and music director of the Bach and Handel Chorale and Festival Orchestra of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, began his career in sacred music at the age of eleven. Since then, he has served as organist and director of music for eight parishes, nineteen years having been spent at the Episcopal Parish of St. Mark and St. John in Jim Thorpe. He is a 1983 graduate of Wilkes College, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor of Music degree.
At present, Mr. Perry is organist and director of music for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity, in Palmerton, Pennsylvania. He also instructs more than two dozen private piano students at his Perry Music Studio in Jim Thorpe.
In 1984, the community of Jim Thorpe and the Carbon County Tourist Promotion Agency honored Mr. Perry for his “outstanding contribution” to the development of music appreciation, and in 1996, the Mauch Chunk Historical Society presented him with the Karl Bodmer Award for outstanding work in promoting the arts in the region. He was also the first person to be contacted when the Laurel Festival of the Arts was being considered, first serving as weeknight church concert coordinator and, later, as manager of the festival.
Among Mr. Perry’s compositions is a musical setting of the Wesley text “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” one of the anthems chosen to be one performed by a choir of 1400 voices at the Forty-Second Annual Choir Festival in the Great Auditorium at Ocean Grove, New Jersey. The Bach and Handel Chorale also has sung this work as well premiering many new compositions by their conductor. His Mass in D Major was especially composed for the performance celebrating the Chorale’s 20th anniversary in May 2004.
Mr. Perry often joins the renowned trumpeter John Thyhsen to perform a wide variety of music from the baroque and classical periods. His two trumpet concertos, dedicated to Mr. Thyhsen, have been performed in the greater Philadelphia area, New Jersey, and New York as well as in Jim Thorpe.
Mr. Perry’s services as guest conductor are frequently requested for choir festivals, church concerts, and most recently, the Carbon County High School Chorus. Helfrich Laboratories have recorded Mr. Perry playing the Austin Organ at St. Mark’s Church, and he was both accompanist and conductor for the Bach and Handel Chorale’s first recording, Christmas In Jim Thorpe, made by WVIA Studios.
