Andrew Henderson

Andrew Elliot Henderson has served on the organ faculty of the Manhattan School of Music since 2015 and currently serves as Chair of the department. Dr. Henderson has held the position of Director of Music & Organist at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church since 2005, where he oversees an extensive liturgical and choral program, including the 40-voice Saint Andrew Chorale, the 175-voice New York City Children’s Chorus, in addition to the Saint Andrew Music Society’s Music on Madison concert series. He also serves as the Associate Organist at New York City’s Temple Emanu-El – one of the largest Jewish houses of worship in the world, and as the organ instructor at Teacher’s College, Columbia University.

Dr. Henderson, a native of Thorold, Ontario, holds degrees in music from Cambridge University in England and Yale University. While at Cambridge he held the position of Organ Scholar at Clare College, Cambridge from 1996 to 1999, and at Yale he completed his graduate studies in organ performance on a full scholarship from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. The recipient of a C.V. Starr Foundation fellowship, he was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at The Juilliard School in 2007, receiving the Richard F. French prize for the best doctoral document. For ten years he served as an adjunct assistant professor of organ at Westminster Choir College, where he taught graduate courses in organ literature.

In August 2002 Andrew was a finalist in the international organ competition Grand Prix de Chartres held in Chartres Cathedral, France, and in 2003 he won first prize in the biennial National Organ Playing Competition sponsored by the Royal Canadian College of Organists. As well as performing recitals in St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, London, and in most major venues in New York City and at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., recent performances include organ and continuo playing with the New York Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Musica Sacra, Voices of Ascension, The Oratorio Society of New York, and The Collegiate Chorale. Recent solo recitals include appearances in Kilgore, TX (East Texas Pipe Organ Festival), Krakow, Poland (Krakow Philharmonic Hall), at the Elora Festival (Ontario), and in Colorado (Boulder Bach Festival), Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, New Jersey, South Carolina, at the historic Round Lake Auditorium in Upstate New York and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He has been featured as a recitalist and workshop leader at national and regional gatherings of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the Fellowship of United Methodists in Worship and Music Arts, the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and the American Guild of Organists. His performances have been featured on the nationally-syndicated public radio programs Pipedreams and With Heart and Voice. His first solo CD, Andrew Henderson at St. John’s, Elora, was recorded and released in 2010.

A Fellow of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, his teachers have included John Tuttle, Barrie Cabena, David Sanger, Thomas Murray and John Weaver. Andrew is married to organist Mary Wannamaker Huff, who is the Associate Director of Music at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church and Director of the New York City Children’s Chorus.