Jamie McLemore, Festival
Accompanist
Jamie McLemore currently
serves as Organist and Music Associate at South Highland Presbyterian
Church, Birmingham, Alabama a position he has held since September 2009.
Prior to this position, he served as organist for Briarwood Presbyterian
Church, also in Birmingham, for over 19 years.
A native of Birmingham,
he began formal piano lessons with Susie Francis Dempsey as one of her
first students at Trusswood Piano Studios in Birmingham. Mr. McLemore
graduated from the University of Alabama where he was a student of the
late Warren Hutton. Additional study has been with Dr. Patricia Fitzsimmons,
Dr. James Dorroh, and at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey
with emphasis on children's choirs. Mr. McLemore has studied improvisation
with Mr. Herbert Buffington in Atlanta, Georgia. He has held workshops
on service playing and literature for Montgomery and Gadsden area churches.
An active member of the Birmingham chapter of the American Guild of
Organists, he has served that chapter as Sub-dean and Dean and chair
of the Hospitality Committee. He is now completing his second term as
Dean. Last June, Mr. McLemore was the Director of the POE (Pipe Organ
Encounter) held here in Birmingham. This event attracted 22 teenagers
from 5 Southeastern states and introduced them to the pipe organ for
a week of in-depth study. Mr. McLemore has served as organ consultant
to churches in Alabama, Mississippi, and currently in Charleston, West
Virginia.
Mr. McLemore is employed
with Samford University as the Assistant Textbook Director in the Samford
University Bookstore. In his spare time he enjoys traveling (he was
in Paris on 9/11!) art collecting, gourmet cooking and spending time
with family and friends.
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