Today we had lunch with a long-time friend and fellow church musician, Dana Marsh, who happened to be home with his family in California. Dana is no stranger to LCH, having given several duo countertenor recitals with Carl Crosier in the 1990s, and conducted the LCH choir in a Bach cantata for Epiphany in 2002. Dana also was the alto soloist in one of LCH’s performances of Bach’s Magnificat. I also remember being introduced to Bach’s Fugue on the Magnificat when Dana played it for an organ postlude at LCH.

Dana sang as a boy chorister on both sides of the pond—first in the St. Thomas Church (on Fifth Avenue in New York City), then at Salisbury Cathedral when his father, Peter Marsh, a prominent violin teacher, spent his sabbatical there. There’s a Peter Hallock connection too–Dana was Peter’s organ student and sang in the Seattle Compline Choir as a teenager. He got his degree in organ performance at Eastman School of Music, then had two church music positions in the greater Los Angeles area–at St. Luke’s Episcopal in Monrovia, and then director of the Paulist Boy Choristers in Westwood.

Dana spent eleven years in the United Kingdom where he obtained his doctorate from Oxford University. We visited him twice in England where he mastered the art of driving a manual transmission car on the other side of the road! He now is Canon Director of Music at Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, where there are THREE fine pipe organs and four choirs.

Lucky Dana! Lucky Indianapolis!