About Michael Kearney

Michael R. Kearney (1995-) is an organist, pianist, and composer with a passion for the Psalms set to music.

A native of Long Island, New York, Michael began to accompany church services at West Sayville Reformed Bible Church (URCNA) at the age of nine. He studied piano for twelve years with Diana Morosova and Tamara Slobodkin. Michael’s career as an organist has been largely self-taught. He had three semesters of organ lessons with David Rhoades at Geneva College and gratefully sat in on many master classes with Ann Labounsky of Duquesne University. In 2022 and 2023, he was a recipient of the Peragallo Organ Company College Level Scholarship for Continued Organ Study.

Michael began the site URC Psalmody in 2011 to foster education and fellowship among church musicians in the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition, with a particular focus on metrical psalmody. Since then, the project has expanded into other avenues including a publishing venture and a YouTube channel. In pursuit of bringing this tradition of sacred music to a wider audience, Michael engages in a variety of activities:

• Performing organ recitals and recording sacred and classical music on a variety of historic instruments around the world. He has given organ concerts in the U.S. and the Netherlands, collaborating with musicians such as André Knevel and Gert van Hoef. He has also accompanied The Genevans, student choir of Geneva College, in tours across the U.S. and to Northern Ireland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
• Composing a variety of choral and instrumental music based on the Psalms. His five-part motet on Psalm 103 was the Inaugural Psalm for Geneva College’s twentieth president, Dr. Calvin Troup.
• Producing arrangements and transcriptions of sacred and classical literature. These include a Polish-English edition of Feliks Nowowiejski’s Psalm 136/137 and the first published organ transcription of the Introduction and Allegro agitato from Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony no. 3 “Scottish.”
• Contributing to albums of metrical psalmody. Michael’s compositions, arrangements, and organ performances are featured on several albums released by The Genevans and Crown & Covenant Publications.
• Publishing essays on worship and music. These have appeared in The American Organist, The Outlook Magazine, Christian Renewal Magazine, and The Reformed Presbyterian Witness. In addition, Michael has published scholarly work in several journals of rhetoric, communication, and religion.
• Collecting recordings of congregational singing from churches across North America. These recordings make up some of the more than 500 videos on URC Psalmody’s YouTube channel.

Michael is a board member of Reformed Fellowship, Inc., and a member of the American Guild of Organists. He desires to use his varied interests in communication, psalmody, and theology to serve the church. Michael is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Rhetoric at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

You can contact Michael here.

Last updated February 3, 2024