David Arcus

Chapel Organist and Associate University Organist

Biography

David Arcus is Duke University Chapel Organist and accompanist for the Duke Chapel Choir, serving as organist for nearly 200 services a year in the Chapel. He is also Organist of Duke Divinity School, where he has taught courses in church music and hymnody. A native of Kingston, New York, he holds the B. Mus. degree from Oberlin Conservatory and the M. Mus. and D.M.A. degrees from the Yale University School of Music.

Active as a recitalist, Dr. Arcus has concertized in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany, performing at the Washington National Cathedral, London’s St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and Paris’s St. Sulpice. He appears annually on the Duke Chapel Organ Recital Series. His compact disc, Organs of Duke Chapel, is available on Gothic Records, and his performances have been heard on the nationally broadcast radio program Pipedreams. He frequently includes music by contemporary composers in his recitals and has premiered works by composers such as Aaron Jay Kernis, Dan Locklair, Richard Townley, and Peter Paul Olejar.

A composer himself, Dr. Arcus has received many commissions, including one from the Raleigh Oratorio Society, which premiered his Hodie for mixed voices and organ in December 1997. In August 1998, Hinshaw Music Inc. published his Memorial Festival Overture (based on the hymn-tune “Celebrate,” by Carol Saylor), which began as an improvisation performed in 1997 at a memorial concert for Don Hinshaw in Duke Chapel. Dr. Arcus was named winner of the 2000 Holtkamp-AGO Competition in Organ Composition and performed his winning entry, the Song of Ruth and Naomi, at the 2000 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists (AGO) in Seattle. In December 2001, he premiered his Symphony No. 2 for Solo Organ, commissioned for the 25th anniversary of the dedication of the Benjamin N. Duke Memorial Organ (Flentrop) in Duke Chapel. His most recent organ composition, Ancient Wonders, was published by Wayne Leupold Editions.

Recognized internationally as an improviser at the organ, Dr. Arcus was selected as the only American to participate in the International Organ Improvisation Competition of the 1990 Haarlem Organ Festival, in the Netherlands. He won second prize at the 1994 National Improvisation Competition of the AGO National Convention in Dallas. Additional awards include winner of the Lloyd Morisett Contemporary Keyboard Improvisation Competition (Oberlin, 1980), the Charles Ives Organ Scholarship (Yale, 1982), and the Yale-AGO Organ Composition Competition (1991, Toccata-Fantasia on Hymn to Joy, published by Concordia).

David Arcus is married to the Rev. Robin J. Townsley Arcus, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. They reside in Durham, North Carolina, and enjoy hiking with their dog, River.