F. Anthony Thurman has been appointed music director at the First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He completes 22 years as music director at the Irvington Presbyterian Church, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, where he oversaw the selection, design, and installation of a 3-manual, 29-stop organ by Orgelbau Klais (Bonn, Germany) in 2001, and Whitechapel Bell Foundry (London, England) tower bells in 2007. In Germantown, he will perform on the McLean Memorial Pipe Organ, the largest church organ in Philadelphia and described as “Germantown’s Giant” by Orpha Ochse in her book, Austin Organs.
A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree as a student of McNeil Robinson, Thurman holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in organ performance and church music from the University of Louisville, where he was a student of Melvin Dickinson. An award-winning organist, he has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad and has been conductor of church choirs and choral societies in New York, New Jersey, and Kentucky. He continues in his full-time position as director of development and communications at the American Guild of Organists national headquarters.
