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Views from the Choir Loft

Biography • Richard J. Clark

Richard J. Clark · January 14, 2013

ICHARD J. CLARK is an eclectic musician—composer, conductor, organist, pianist, and songwriter. In 2018, he was named as the Director of Music for the Archdiocese of Boston and choirmaster at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. He previously served for twenty-eight years as Music Director and Organist at St. Cecilia Parish, where he oversaw a thriving music program and helped develop the Smith and Gilbert Organ of six divisions and fifty-four ranks. He continues as Chapel Organist (Saint Mary’s Chapel) at Boston College, where he has served since 2004. As performer and composer, his appearances include the Church of Saint-Eustache (Paris, France), the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (Washington D. C.), Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), the Celebrity Series of Boston, Fenway Park (historic home of the Boston Red Sox), the New York Songwriters Circle, and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (New York).

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The Ministry & Liturgy Magazine has called Mr. Clark’s music “transformative” as well as “expertly arranged and prayerfully sung.” His compositions have been broadcast on radio in New York, New England, and Europe, including Sounds from the Spires with Dr. Jennifer Pascual. In Russia, his organ work Ascent to Freedom was played by American virtuoso Mark Husey and the American Boychoir under the direction of Fernando Malvar-Ruiz. He also appears with his wife, clarinetist Kara Gretschel Clark, on the Cathedral Encores CD featuring the 1875 E. & G.G. Hook, opus 801, at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. He also appears with trumpeter Richard Kelley in a recording of his Requiem pour une américaine à Paris. His liturgical, choral, and organ works are published by Lorenz/The Sacred Music Music Press, CanticaNOVA Publications, RJC Cecilia Music, Corpus Christi Watershed, and World Library Publications. Mæstro Clark is frequently chosen as presenter at international conferences such as the Sacred Music Symposium and the NPM Annual Convention.

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ORN in Greenwich Village, New York City, Mr. Clark grew up in Long Island at St. William the Abbott Parish. While studying as a chemistry major at New York University, he also studied piano and composition with Justin Dello Joio. He received his Bachelor’s Degree at the Berklee College of Music in 1991 where he studied jazz piano and composition. He studied organ with James David Christie. In 1997 he completed his Master of Music Degree from the Boston Conservatory, and was elected to the National Music Honor Society, Pi Kappa Lambda. He currently lives with his wife and four children in Milton, Massachusetts where they are parishioners at St. Agatha Parish. To reach Richard J. Clark via Email, please click here.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles, Biographies Tagged With: Catholic Composers Last Updated: August 20, 2020

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About Richard J. Clark

Richard J. Clark is the Director of Music of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“Latin has been the language of the Latin liturgy for 1,600 years. It is a sign and source of unity as well as a defense of doctrine, not because of the language so much, but because it is a language no longer subject to changes. There are so many beautiful texts which can never have the same effectiveness in translation. Lastly, Latin is bound to an extremely precious heritage of melody, Gregorian chant and polyphony.”

— Cardinal Antonelli (Secretary of the Conciliar Commission on the Liturgy)

Recent Posts

  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension
  • “Breathtaking Photographs” • First Mass of Father Michael Caughey, FSSP (Muskegon, MI)
  • “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)

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