Hentus van Rooyen

Dr. Hentus van Rooyen, a native of South Africa, is Director of Music Ministries at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Cape Elizabeth, ME. Additionally, he teaches Applied Organ lessons at Bowdoin College, and was recently appointed as the chorus master for the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s Magic of Christmas. In April 2024, he appeared as guest director for the St. Mary Schola, Maine’s Premier Early Music Ensemble.

From 2018-2022, he served as Assistant Professor of Music, Sacred Music Coordinator and College Organist at Bethany College in Lindsborg KS, where he taught organ, music history, music theory, aural skills, and directed the Bethany College Handbell Ensemble. He also served as the Director of Music and Organist at Christ Episcopal Cathedral in Salina, KS.

Van Rooyen holds the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in organ performance from the University of North Texas. His other degrees in organ performance, pedagogy, and church music were completed at the University of Pretoria and the University of South Africa. He has studied organ performance with Jesse Eschbach and Wim Viljoen, and baroque repertoire studies with Paul Leenhouts.

During the Sumer of 2019, van Rooyen traveled to Italy to play several Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century organs by Italian builders, aiding research for his dissertation: The Keyboard Toccatas of Michelangelo Rossi (ca. 1602 – 1656): Performance Perspectives for Organists. In January 2020, he was invited by the Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Dietrich Brauer, to perform organ recitals at the Lutheran Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Moscow and at Saint Catherine Lutheran Church in Saint Petersburg. In September 2021, van Rooyen participated in the semi-final round of the 12^th Mikael Tariverdiev International Organ Competition in Kaliningrad, Russia.