Currently living and working in a wonderful new surrounding on the West Coast, Frank Ferko previously spent 30 years as a very active musician in Chicago. From 2001 to 2003 Mr. Ferko held the position of Composer-in-Residence with the Dale Warland Singers, long regarded as one of America's finest a cappella choirs, and his works have been performed by other distinguished ensembles such as Nederlands Kamerkoor, VU-Kamerkoor, Oost-Nederlands Kamerkoor (The Netherlands), Jubilate Singers (New Zealand), Commotio, Holst Singers (United Kingdom), Harvard Glee Club, Cantori New York, Conspirare, Seattle Pro Musica, Opus 7, Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, Magnum Chorum, Ars Nova Singers, Lutheran Choir of Chicago, South Bend Chamber Singers, Bella Voce (formerly known as His Majestie's Clerkes), American Repertory Singers, and the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. Distinguished solo artists who have performed his works include sopranos Sylvia McNair, Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, Nancy Gustafson, Claudia Patacca and Patrice Michaels; tenors Brian Manternach, Michael Hume and Kurt Hansen; baritones Nathan Gunn, Robert Orth and Jeffrey Ray; duet keyboardists Timothy and Nancy LeRoi Nickel, Marilyn and James Biery, and Colin Andrews and Janette Fishell, as well as organists David Schrader, Patrick Wedd, David Craighead, Larry Palmer, Dana Robinson, Robert Huw Morgan, Jonathan Dimock, McNeil Robinson, Leonard Raver, Russian harpsichordist Tatiana Zenaishvili, and saxophonists Frederick Hemke, Jasmin Lelande and Gail Levinsky.

Mr. Ferko's works have been heard in concert or in radio broadcast in 30 countries on six continents, and his music has been presented at the Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music (2002), Jusqu'aux oreilles (Montreal, 2001-2003, 2005-2006), Festival Oude Muziek (Utrecht, 1998) and at national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, American Choral Directors Association and Chorus America.

Frank Ferko's awards include the 1989-1990 AGO/Holtkamp Award from the American Guild of Organists, awards from Meet the Composer, American Composers Forum, American Music Center, Arts International and ASCAP. Four times since 1996 he received the Individual Artist's Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council, and in 2003, 2005 and 2006 the Illinois Arts Council awarded him the Governor's International Travel Exchange Grant for presentations of his music in The Netherlands and Ireland. His works are published exclusively by E. C. Schirmer, and many of his works have been recorded for compact disc on the Arsis, Cedille, Gasparo, Raven, Pro Organo, ZigZag, Notegun, New Art and Liturgical Press labels. His Stabat Mater for unaccompanied mixed chorus and soprano solo, which received high audience and critical acclaim in the U.S. and abroad, has been recorded on compact disc for Cedille Records with soprano Nancy Gustafson and His Majestie's Clerkes (former name of Bella Voce), conducted by Anne Heider.

Mr. Ferko has also served as adjudicator in national competitions including Chorus America/ASCAP Awards in Adventurous Programming, the AGO/ECS Choral Composition Competition and Choral Ventures of the Dale Warland Singers.

Since 1991 he has presented his own works in lecture/demonstrations at universities, conservatories and high schools across the country and abroad.

As a scholar of the music of Olivier Messiaen, Mr. Ferko has lectured on Messiaen's organ music and has performed many of Messiaen's works in concert. He has also written articles for The American Organist on avant-garde music in the church and on the organ music of the Swiss composer Marc Briquet. Mr. Ferko's compositions based on his research on the life, music and writings of Hildegard von Bingen have gained international attention, and during the summer of 1998 Mr. Ferko was invited to perform his Hildegard Organ Cycle at the Holland Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht (Netherlands), a performance which marked the European premiere of the work. This was followed by the West Coast U.S. premiere of the work at the Cathedral of St. Mary in San Francisco. Other performances of this work have been presented in major cities across the U.S. since 1991. Similarly, Ferko's Hildegard Motets have been performed by professional and college choirs across America, and his articles about the music of Hildegard and her influence on present-day composers have appeared in the British music journal Choir & Organ. In the past few years Mr. Ferko's profile articles about significant American music ensembles and solo artists of our time have appeared in The Diapason and Choir & Organ.

Frank Ferko visits Ethan Mordden in his New York apartment. As Mr. Ferko is making a point, Mr. Mordden photographs him.

Frank Ferko (b. 1950, Barberton, Ohio) began piano study at the age of nine in Barberton, Ohio with Grace Baughman and in high school he studied with Richard Shirey, a member of the music faculty at the University of Akron. He began work as a church organist at the age of 14, and two years later he began to conduct a small church choir. At 18 he entered Valparaiso University and received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano and organ performance from Valparaiso in 1972. He received the Master of Music degree in music theory (with a minor in organ performance) from Syracuse University one year later. He holds a doctorate in music composition from Northwestern University. His teachers have included Richard Wienhorst and Alan Stout (composition), Philip Gehring and Will O. Headlee (organ), Newman Powell (piano and music history) and Howard Boatwright (theory). For nearly three decades he held the post of director of music at various churches in the Midwest, primarily in the Chicago area. Mr. Ferko holds memberships in Pi Kappa Lambda, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), American Music Center, American Composers' Forum, Chorus America, Music Library Association, and voting membership in the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (Grammys).