Marie Rubis Bauer

Marie Rubis BauerBiography – 2016Dr. Marie Rubis Bauer is Archdiocesan Director of Music – Cathedral Organist at Saint Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska which houses the landmark Martin Pasi, Op. 14 dual temperament pipe organ. Rubis Bauer joined the staff at Saint Cecilia as Cathedral Organist in 2003. Since 2005 she has directed the Cathedral and Archdiocesan Choirs and serves as Director of the School of Music in the Saint Cecilia Institute for Sacred Liturgy, Music and the Arts, which offers course work in liturgy and music; applied lessons in piano, voice, harp, violin, and flute; and an organ academy tutoring twenty youth, adult, and parish organists in the region each year. Under the shadow of the two regal Romanesque towers of Saint Cecilia Cathedral are multiple buildings, completing the Cathedral Campus – a Rectory, an Elementary School and Day Care and the Monsignor Ernest Graham Building and Cathedral Cultural Center, which houses an art gallery, a museum of history of the Archdiocese of Omaha, a gift shop and 90-seat lecture hall.  On the same floor is also a Parish Center including conference room and dining area for 150 people.  On the 2nd floor of the Cathedral Cultural Center is the Saint Cecilia Institute – which consists of an office suite, two rehearsal rooms, 3 classrooms, a music library, the historic Boys Town Collection, and two additional practice rooms.  Housed in the Institute are two of the Campus’ 5 pipe organs, including a 10-stop tracker by Darron Wissinger/voiced by Hal Gober and a Holtkamp Martini.  In addition to the Pasi organ, there are two smaller organs by Lincoln, Nebraska builder, Gene Bedient.   Over the past 15 years, the Cathedral Music Ministry has hosted numerous conference including the American Guild of Organists, the Westfield Center, the Midwest Historic Keyboard Society, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, and the Society for Catholic Liturgy.  For thirty years the Cathedral Arts Project has brought visual and performing arts programming and lectures to the Omaha area.  Organ Concerts on the Pasi organ and large and small ensemble concerts are a part of an annual Concert Season.  For more information on CAP, see the website www.cathedralartsproject.org.  Under the direction of Rubis Bauer the Saint Cecilia Cathedral Choir and its professional core, the Schola Caeciliana, sings at all solemn liturgies in Saint Cecilia cathedral and presents major sacred choral works; recent performances include the Mozart Requiem, Duruflé Requiem, Fauré Requiem, Handel Ode to Saint Cecilia, Charpentier Te Deum, Mozart Mass in D, K194, Buxtehude Magnificat and the medieval liturgical drama, The Shepherds.   The Cathedral Choir recently accepted an invitation to join the Sistine Chapel Choir and other select choirs in singing for the Final Mass of the Jubilee Year of Mercy with Pope Francis in November, 2016.  The Cathedral Choir combines the resources of adult and advanced youth volunteers and professional section leaders, with an average age of 25-30 years.  The youth of the choir have come up through the graded choir program – the Archdiocesan Youth Choir – AYC.  For more information see www.stceciliacatehdralmusic.orgIn 2010-2011 Rubis Bauer provided leadership throughout the Archdiocese of Omaha, teaching at thirty gatherings for musicians, priests, deacons, and laity in the unique initiative Forward Together: Welcoming the New Roman Missal.  This extensive formation program was designed to support renewal of musical liturgy and raising the quality of Roman Catholic liturgical music and the skill of liturgical musicians and clergy. Included in this initiative was the initiation, by Archbishop Lucas, of the Core Repertoire for the Archdiocese of Omaha, including a newly commissioned mass setting by David Hurd, Communion Antiphons by Michael McCabe, a list of hymns and Chant Tones for the execution of Liturgy of the Hours.  In 2014, an effort to renew the liturgical rites of Christian Funerals resulted in the creation of additional ritual music for the funeral mass for the Core Repertoire.Rubis Bauer has performed for regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, and the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. She has been a featured performer and conductor on seven compact disks, including solo discs of music by composers Petr Eben and Dan Locklair.  As organist and harpsichordist she has performed solo concerts and concertos throughout the United States and in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland.  Her performances have been aired on Pipedreams produced by Public Radio International. She has been featured on the inaugural series of significant American organs, including Martin Pasi organs at Saint Cecilia Cathedral, Omaha and Hope Lutheran Church, Shawnee, KS, the Paul Fritts organ at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Hellmuth Wolff organ at the Bales Organ Recital Hall at the University of Kansas, and the C.B. Fisk organ at Pittsburg State University. Other American venues have included the University of Notre Dame, the University of Alabama, Calvin College, Dordt College, Augustana College, Wichita State University, Duke University, and a variety of American cathedrals, including Grace Episcopal, Topeka, KS, Grace and Holy Trinity, Kansas City, St. Joseph Cathedral, Columbus, OH, Cathedral of the Assumption, Louisville, KY, St. Paul Cathedral in Pittsburgh, PA, Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, and the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, CA.Rubis Bauer has been active as an interpreter of early music and co-founded and directed the Omaha Bach Festival and Omaha Baroque, an organization dedicated to the study and performance of early music. While in Kansas City, she was harpsichordist for the ensembles SummerFest, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, Tastowerk Baroque Trio, and The Early Music Consort in Kansas City and has performed numerous organ and harpsichord concertos with various ensembles, including the complete Brandenburg Concerti of Bach on multiple occasions. Rubis Bauer has collaborated extensively with her husband, Dr. Michael Bauer, professor of Organ and Church Music at the University of Kansas. With Michael she has published several articles, and is a contributing author to the book Leading the Church’s Song (Augsburg Fortress Press). Recently they performed the complete organ works of Dieterich Buxtehude. She has also written a chapter in the book Duruflé: The Last Impressionist (Scarecrow Press). Her choral compositions are published by Hinshaw and Morning Star Music publishers. In an administrative role, Rubis Bauer has served as the national placement director for the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, on the board of directors for Director of Music Ministry Division of NPM and was Director of the American Guild of Organist’s 2012 National Competition in Organ Improvisation in Nashville, and served as Chair of the Steering Committee of the Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians. She serves on an advisory sub-committee for the National Shrine Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.  In 2004 she represented the United States in Fatima, Portugal at the International Congress on Liturgical Music. She has been a keynote speaker for a National Conference of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions. She also served as Director of Education for the presenting organization Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City, launching what has grown to become one of the United States’ premier arts outreach programs: MusiConnection.Rubis Bauer holds masters and doctoral degrees in organ from the University of Kansas, as well as an undergraduate degree from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD. Her majors teachers include: James Higdon, Mary Helen Schmidt, Roger Davis, and Cherry Rhodes; significant teachers and mentors in organ and harpsichord include Susan Marchant, James David Christie and Edward Parmentier.Rubis Bauer joined Independent Concert Artists in 2012. She is available for solo concerts or concertos, performing either a diverse repertoire or programs of early music on organ, harpsichord, and lautenwerck, and in duet with Erica Rubis, viola da gambist, (Bloomington, Indiana).