Richard Gress was appointed to a one-year post as music intern at Christ Church, Exeter, New Hampshire. Gress, 17, will assist director of music and organist Bruce Adami with accompanying the church’s choirs, playing the organ and piano for services, and singing in the Christ Church Choir.
Gress, of Newmarket, New Hampshire, has studied the pipe organ for seven years as part of the Young Organist Collaborative Program, which has subsidized organ lessons for over 100 young musicians. In 2012 and 2013, Gress won the Young Organist Collaborative C. Pennington Brown Scholarship.
For the past year, Gress has served as interim organist at Trinity Anglican Church in Rochester, New Hampshire. In 2014, he was awarded second prize in the University of North Carolina School of the Arts High School Organ Playing Competition, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; second prize in the L. Cameron Johnson High School Organ Competition held at Storrs Congregational Church, and was a finalist in the Albert Schweitzer Competition for Young Organists, Wethersfield, Connecticut. A student of Bruce Adami for three years, Gress previously studied organ under David Wold and Tamara Rozek.
