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2023 Summer Organ Recital Series – Randall Sheets
August 27, 2023 @ 6:00 pm
Join the Basilica for the final performance in our 2023 Summer Organ Recital Series on August 27 at 6:00 PM in the Great Upper Church. Randall Sheets of Washington, D.C. will perform.
Randall Sheets
Randall Sheets recently retired as Ceremonial Organist for Arlington National Cemetery, where for the past twenty-five years, he honored our fallen veterans while performing over 1000 services a year in the historic Old Post Chapel. He served as a resource for military chaplains and families in planning services and has performed for dignitaries and government officials at the highest levels including senators, Supreme Court justices, secretaries of state and congressmen. Randall now works for the R.A. Daffer Church Organ Company as a sales representative for Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and eastern West Virginia.
A graduate of Wittenberg University, he studied with William Walters (piano), Trudy Faber (harpsichord) and Cheryl Colantonio (organ), then received a MM from Bowling Green State University under Jerome Rose (piano) and Vernon Wolcott (organ) and a DMA under Thomas Schumacher (piano) at the University of Maryland. Throughout his graduate study, Dr. Sheets taught at the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution, and later taught at the Levine School of Music, the National Cathedral School, and the Landon School. He was awarded the Liszt Commemorative Medal by the Hungarian Minister of Culture for his work as Festival Director of the Franz Liszt Centennial Celebration held in Washington, D.C.
Randall tours frequently with trumpeter Chuck Seipp as the Seipp/Sheets Duo. They have performed over 100 concerts in twenty-two states during the last six seasons, at various universities, churches, and festivals. Their concerts are an innovative blend of standard repertoire, patriotic programs, and contemporary arrangements with video. They continue to commission many new arrangements and compositions as well as creating their own arrangements.
As a church musician, Dr. Sheets has extensive experience as an organist and choral conductor, handbell director, and producing and managing concert series. Concert appearances as an organist include programs at Washington National Cathedral, The Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land, West Point Cadet Chapel, National City Christian Church, The Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, St. Luke’s Catholic Church, McLean, historic Bruton Parish in Williamsburg, Virginia, and Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.
