Richard Proulx

Richard Proulx (proo) has spent his life involved with church music. From 1980 to 1994, he was Organist/Music Director at the historic Cathedral of the Holy Name in Chicago, where he still resides. The varied liturgical music program he established there became a model for cathedrals across the country. Prior to that he served at churches in Seattle and St. Paul. Proulx has written much congregational music, sacred and secular choral works, song cycles, operas, and instrumental and organ music, and has been a consultant for several hymnals. He was a member of the Standing Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal church, and a founding member of the Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians. In 1991, Proulx founded The Cathedral Singers as an independent recording ensemble. In addition to their concerts they have produced over fifteen compact disc recordings. A native of St. Paul, Proulx attended MacPhail College and the University of Minnesota, with further studies undertaken at the American Boychoir School in Princeton, Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, MN, and the Royal School of Church Music in England. As a child he benefited from the twice-daily solfege and choral singing experiences in Saint Paul's parochial and private schools, and from piano, organ, and composition lessons.