Biography

Francis Koerber stands next to his 1905 Steinway Victorian Piano.

Francis Koerber was born on January 1, 1955 to his parents, Francis N. Koerber, Sr. and Rose M. Wagner in Tarrytown, New York. Francis began his piano studies at the age of 5 and musical composition at 11. He received training as a vocal soprano and studied private piano under Thomas Sullivan, organist and choirmaster of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio during most of his elementary education. Francis became a member of the renowned boys choir, taking its members from the adjoining school, this choir was an integral part to the liturgical life of the community, providing music for liturgies, devotions, weddings and funerals on a daily basis.

Upon moving to Baltimore, Maryland in 1969, Mr. Koerber took up studies at the Peabody Preparatory of Music under various teachers in private piano performance, music theory and composition. Simultaneously, he studied theory at Towson High School under James Sipes and was a member of Towson High Chorus under the direction of Thomas Johnson.

Mr. Koerber's collegiate studies included organ performance, composition and theory at Towson State University with organ professors John Hoffman and Thomas Spacht. He also studied composition with professors Theldon Meyers and Gordon Cyr and then went on to study composition with Jean Echielberger Ivey at the Peabody Conservatory of Music.

Mr. Koerber has held numerous posts such as Director of Music, Organist and ChoirMaster throughout the Baltimore area, taking his first position in 1973 as Assistant Organist at St. Pius X Roman Catholic Church. Presently, he performs private concerts of the known classical piano repertoire and includes many of his own compositions in that venue . Mr. Koerber presently provides his services contractually as organist and choir director for the Basilica of the Assumption of the B.V.M. He has also held position as an Ambassador for Sibelius Corporation in the demonstration of their renowned software application for music composing, arranging and publishing and provided workshops and training. Mr. Koerber is presently a member of the Church Music Association of America. He is also a member of the third order of the Company of Mary.

His choral works have been performed by the Baltimore Symphony Chamber Singers, Towson State University Chorale, Coro Odyssea of Lisbon, Portugal, and numerous church, cathedral, chamber choirs and ensembles including his own schola, Vox Vitae. His liturgical settings have been produced and aired regularly on EWTN Catholic Cable Network. Mr. Koerber has also worked directly with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to provide liturgical music for their conferences in Washington D.C., and for liturgies celebrated in reparation for abortion. Mr. Koerber has self published through Sibelius Music since 2000. He maintains www.myopus.com to represent his concert venues. His latest offering, RomanCatholicSacredMusic.com is a new portal for the distribution of his sacred music compositions and a possible venue for other Roman Catholic composers.

Having a fascination for the technical realm, Mr. Koerber refined his tuning skills working with Ray Remmers, a blind tuner, while he was employed as a technician for Kunkel (Baldwin) Piano Company in 1978-79. He then went on to work for Warfield Piano Company which today carries an inventory of the finest hand made Europeans instruments in the world including Hoffman, Feurich, Walter, Knight, Petroff, and others. (Francis' own instrument is a 1905 Steinway 6' A Victorian Grand Piano which his parents acquired for him in 1963. )

Mr. Koerber also maintains a career in the fine arts producing geometric and abstract designs (www.floosiga.com). He writes lyrics, poetry and prose, some of which is included in his own music compositions. His artistic endeavors extend to crafting some of the finest hand made rosaries (www.finerosary.com) which are exclusively available at the Basilica gift shop in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 1988 Mr. Koerber launched an entrepreneurial (two-pronged) endeavor as President of Cecilia Project, Inc. With a team of engineers from Westinghouse, Martin Marietta and General Elevator he developed and produced a prototype touch-screen computer-based music system for the purpose of providing MIDI music accompaniments controlling tempo, instrumentation, key transposition, repertoire lists and more. The U.S. Pentagon Office of Chaplains requested units for dispatching to aircraft carriers and remote locations for the U.S. armed forces and were to be produced in conjunction with Singer L.I.N.K.

Through his other endeavor, branded FluidArts, he provided marketing services supported by the emerging electronic publishing industry in 1990. This aided Mr. Koerber in spawning the creation of many types of media design and production efforts for church organizations, religious, social, government, corporate, private, profit and non-profit associations . He went on to be a long standing consultant to Medicaid and Medicare as he is to date. On the forefront of the new technology, Mr. Koerber then secured positions including Electronic Communications Manager at Cadmus Journal Services and Cadmus Professional Communications, VP of eMedia for Novak-Birch, Interim Production Director for the Catholic Review, consultant on staff for Catholic Relief Services, Creative Director, Marketing Manager and Webmaster for Alabanza Corporation, and it's subsidiaries, TruePresence, Baltimore Technology Park, and BulkRegister, LLC. Coupled with his long established background in music, fine art, print design, and the convergence of the media arts to a single platform, he is presently one of the few who execute in the realm as a Media Asset Manager. (www.franciskoerber).

Questions? Contact the composer : francis@romancatholicsacredmusic.com