Updated May, 2015. Since January 1986 Mark Laubach has served as Organist and Choirmaster of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wilkes-Barre, the Pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Bethlehem, where he administers an active liturgical and choral music program, concert series, and Music from St. Stephen’s, a radio broadcast heard weekly on WVIA 89.9 FM Public Radio. In 2008 Bishop Paul Marshall made Mark Honorary Canon Precentor of the Diocese in recognition of his accomplishments and contributions to the musical and liturgical life of the Diocese of Bethlehem.
Mark Laubach received a Bachelor’s Degree in Church Music from Westminster Choir College and a Master’s Degree in Organ Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. He served for one year as Fellow in Church Music at Washington National Cathedral. His organ teachers have included Clinton Miller, George Markey, Donald McDonald, and David Craighead. Since winning first prize in the 1984 American Guild of Organists (AGO) National Young Artists’ Competition in Organ Performance, Mark has performed in many of the most prominent churches and concert halls in the USA and in Great Britain and Germany. Notable UK recitals have included appearances at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, and cathedrals in Bristol, Chichester, Gloucester, Lincoln, Norwich, and Wells. He is a frequent recitalist, clinician, presenter of hymn festivals, and competition adjudicator for National and Regional Conventions of the American Guild of Organists (AGO) and National and Regional Conferences of the Association of Anglican Musicians (AAM). He has recorded three critically acclaimed compact discs on the Pro Organo label: Teutonic Titanics, French Fest, and Mosaics in Sound. Canon Laubach teaches organ students privately and at Marywood University in Scranton. He is represented by the Concert Artists Cooperative, based in Sebastopol, California.
Canon Laubach will begin a very busy summer in 2015 in late June and early July when he will serve for a fourth time as a Lay Deputy from the Diocese of Bethlehem to the General Convention of The Episcopal Church, and fulfill an appointment by the President of the House of Deputies to serve on the convention’s Prayer Book, Liturgy, and Church Music legislative committee. In late July he will be the host and principal organist for the King’s College Summer Choir Training Course of the Royal School of Church Music in America, held annually at St. Stephen’s since 1995. From August 3 through 9 he will accompany members of the St. Stephen’s Choir and the choirs and their directors from Church of the Holy Spirit in Harleysville, PA and Immanuel Church on the Green in New Castle, Delaware in serving as the choir-in-residence at Winchester Cathedral in England.