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Dr. Wylie S. Quinn III, Organist and Choirmaster

Dr. Quinn has been Organist and Choirmaster of the Chapel of the Cross since 1970. He holds the B.A. degree from Davidson College, B.D. and S.T.M. degrees from Yale University, and the Ph.D. from Duke University in the field of the philosophy of religion. His organ teachers include Charles Krigbaum, Robert Sutherland Lord, and Wilmer Welsh. A native of Gastonia, N.C., he began his organ study with John Morrison at Queens College, Charlotte, while a high school student. He has performed numerous recitals in churches, universities, and colleges in the eastern United States, has been a frequent participant both as a solo recitalist and conductor in the North Carolina Bach Festival, and has lectured and performed often at workshops and festivals of church music.

As a conductor, Dr. Quinn has directed many masterworks during the past 33 years at the Chapel of the Cross, including the Mass in B minor, St. John Passion, Magnificat, and numerous cantatas by J.S. Bach, the Requiem by Gabriel Fauré and that of Maurice Duruflé, and Noye's Fludde by Benjamin Britten, as well as numerous masses and large-scale settings of the canticles. He taught for twenty-four years at Saint Mary’s College in Raleigh where he was the Fletcher Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, and for four years at Saint Timothy’s-Hale school in Raleigh where he was Chairman of the Department of Religion and Philosophy and Organist-Choirmaster at All Saints Chapel. During the 1983-84 academic year he was Artist-in-Residence at Duke, and conductor of the Duke University Chorale. He received a grant for study from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1978. Dr. Quinn is a board member of the American Guild of Organists and is active in the Association of Anglican Musicians and the Royal School of Church Music.

Dr. Quinn can be reached at 919-929-2193 or email