WESTERHOUSE, JAMES H. (b. 1941)

James H. Westerhouse was born in 1941 at Green Bay, Wisconsin. He has a diverse background in music performance and music education. He began piano studies at the age of five, and later continued his piano studies with Ms. Gladys Ives Brainard, (pupil of Josef and Rosina Lhevinne and Wanda Landowska) Professor Emeritus at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, Appleton, Wisconsin. 

 

Mr. Westerhouse served in the Fifth US Army Band in Chicago as pianist and percussionist and in Heidelberg, Germany, with the US Army-Europe Headquarters Band in the same capacity. He was the accompanist for the Seventh Army Soldiers Chorus in concerts and recordings, and completed his military career in 1964 with the Historic Roadside Theater as Music Director and Conductor for the Continental European Premiere of Rodgers & Hammerstein's, The King And I, at the State Theater in Heidelberg.

 

Returning to New York, he was an assistant organist at St. Philip Neri Church, and the assistant conductor of the Lincoln Square Theater Chorus. James studied Piano Tuning and Technology with Avner Carmi, Concert Tuner, discoverer and re-creator of the Siena Pianoforte.  He became the Music Director for the International Dinner Theaters and performed in various dinner theaters throughout the southeastern United States. 

 

After settling in Richmond, VA, he continued his music studies at Virginia Commonwealth 

University (VCU) and was a percussionist in the Richmond Symphony. He started the band program at Benedictine High School in Richmond and was also the music director for the VCU Drama Department musical productions and the Founder and Conductor of the VCU Theater Orchestra. 

 

He was a string orchestra teacher in Fauquier County School and Fairfax County School in Virginia. He did graduate work at The University of Maryland in Music Education where he also sang with the University of Maryland Chorus and was a percussionist and music librarian with the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra. He was the Music Director/Organist at Trinity Episcopal Church in Manassas, Virginia, for nine years, and the conductor of the Manassas Choral Society in 1973-74.

 

He founded the Piedmont Community Orchestra in Warrenton, Virginia, and was former principal percussionist with the “Blaskapelle Alte Kameraden Band” of Fairfax. He also served as Music Director/Organist at St. James' Episcopal Church in Warrenton, Piedmont Parish in Delaplane, Virginia, and Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Haymarket, Virginia. 

 

Currently, Mr. Westerhouse is the Organist/Principal Accompanist at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Gainesville, Virginia, where he also directs the Latin Schola and Choir, and is also the organist at Haymarket Baptist Church, Haymarket, Virginia.  Mr. Westerhouse teaches privately and is a composer and free-lance conductor.