James Walker
Director of Music, Organist-Choirmaster
626.583.2725
jwalker@allsaints-pas.org

James Walker has been Director of Music and Organist-Choirmaster at All Saints Church since 1991. He conducts the church's two adult choirs, co-directs the youth choir and administers and produces an ambitious, varied program of church literature, ranging from gospel, jazz and world music to traditional full-scale orchestral/choral works.

The choirs have performed for the American Choral Directors Association and the American Guild of Organists — locally, and for regional and national conferences.  Both Canterbury and Coventry choirs have performed several times with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

A nationally-recognized concert organist, Mr. Walker has entertained and enlightened audiences throughout the United States, and his solo recitals have been broadcast on National Public Radio.  Winner of the prestigious Mader National Organ-Playing Competition in 1986, he has been a featured performer at the Carmel Bach Festival, the Los Angeles Bach Festival, and several Regional and National Conventions of the American Guild of Organists.  He was College Organist and Instructor of Organ at Occidental College in Los Angeles for nearly a quarter century.  He resigned from academia in 2004 to allow space for practice and composition.

Walker holds both undergraduate and Master of Music degrees from the University of Southern California School of Music.  His organ instructors have been Marcia Hannah Farmer, Ladd Thomas and Cherry Rhodes, and he has studied conducting with Thomas Somerville, Leo Nestor and James Vail.  He was chosen as a Masterclass Conductor for the 1998 Oregon Bach Festival, where he studied with the internationally acclaimed Helmuth Rilling.