BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

MICKEY THOMAS TERRY holds degrees from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Dr. Terry’s principal organ teachers have been Clarence Watters, Charles Callahan, and Ronald Stolk (Improvisation). He was the Second Prize winner of the 9th Annual Clarence Mader National Organ Competition (Los Angeles/Pasadena), and a finalist in both the Michigan International Organ Competition (University of Michigan Music School-Ann Arbor), and the Flint Competition (Flint, Michigan). 

Dr. Terry is a critically-acclaimed concert organist who has concertized throughout the United States and the Caribbean. He has been broadcast several times on Public Radio International’s Pipedreams. He was a featured recitalist at the 1997 Region III American Guild of Organists (AGO) Convention in Washington, DC and the 2001 Region IV Convention of the AGO in Jackson, Mississippi. Dr. Terry was also a featured recitalist at the 1998 American Guild of Organists National Convention in Denver and at the 2006 American Guild of Organists National Convention in Chicago.  

Terry has been a featured artist at Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and organ recitalist at the Piccolo-Spoleto Music Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1996 and 1998, he presented the African-American Organ Music workshop at the American Guild of Organists National Convention. He also served as Sub-Dean and Program Chair of the District of Columbia Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. 

He has published several journal articles that have appeared in The Musical Quarterly (Oxford University Press), The American Organist Magazine, The Diapason, as well as the British journal Choir and Organ. There is also an article that appears in Volume IV of Essays in American Music(Garland Publishers, 1999) and as well as an essay that appears in Readings in African-American Church Music and Worship (GIA Publications, 2001). Terry is the editor of a critically-acclaimed multi-volume (currently 10 vols) African-American Organ Music Anthology published by MorningStar Music Publishers (St. Louis, Missouri). He has also served on the Advisory board for the ECS/AGO African-American Organ Music Series published by E.C. Schirmer Music Company of Boston. 

Dr. Terry appears on the Albany Records label compact disc George Walker-A Portrait, playing the organ works of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker and on the Minnesota Public Radio compact disc Pipedreams Premieres, Volume 2, playing an organ work of African-American composer Thomas H. Kerr. 

Dr. Terry has also taught on the faculty of Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He serves as a Master Instructor in Howard University’s Department of Music in Washington, DC. He serves as Organist of Fairfax Presbyterian Church, Fairfax, VA.  He is the recipient of the 2022-2023 Artist Fellowship awarded by the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities. A current biographical sketch of Dr. Terry also appears in Who’s Who in America.