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Music Staff |
Meet Our Staff...
Larry Doebler has been the Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church since April of 1984. His duties include conducting the Chancel Choir, selecting musicians for the summer services, hiring orchestra personnel as needed and overseeing the music staff. Mr. Doebler is a professor of music at Ithaca College where he serves as director of choral activities. His duties there include conducting the Choir, Madrigal Singers, and Choral Union and teaching conducting (both undergraduate courses and graduate majors), choral techniques, and choral literature. In 1979, Professor Doebler established the Ithaca College Choral Festival and Contest, an endeavor that has commissioned over twenty new choral works, spawned several thousand entries in the choral composition contest, and provided a forum for excellent high school choirs to perform over 120 compositions. Mr. Doebler has received awards for research and teaching excellence from the University of Wisconsin and Ithaca College and has appeared throughout the eastern and midwestern United States as a clinician and guest conductor. As an editor of "no barline" Renaissance music, Mr. Doebler's editions are published by the Lorenz Company in the Roger Dean catalogue. In addition to his academic appointments, he has served as director of music at churches in Cleveland, St. Louis and Madison. Currently, Mr. Doebler is the Music Director for the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble, a professional chamber choir. Early training in keyboard, strings, voice, and brass led to degrees in conducting from Oberlin Conservatory and Washington University in St. Louis. Professor Doebler began his professional career in 1969 at Smith College. From 1971 through 1978 he taught and conducted at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
He went on to complete the Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude in Music, and with Distinction in All Subjects from Cornell University, and in 1966, completed the Master of Arts in Musicology at Cornell. Later, he completed the Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance and Literature at the Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY). Among the several academic and church music appointments held by Damp was an Assistant Professor position at Ithaca College (1977-84) where he was a colleague of Larry Doebler. Dr. Damp retired from academia after 16 years of service as University Organist, Professor of Music, and Chair of the Department of Music History of Lawrence University of Wisconsin in May 1999. In June of that same year, he became the Organist and Musician Coordinator of Ithaca's First Presbyterian. Damp is a published scholar of the organ works of the German-Baroque composer Georg Muffat, and has issued five compact disc recordings on the Calcante label (www.calcante.com). He has held grants from the German Government (DAAD) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (the 1984 Beethoven Symphony Seminar at Harvard and the 1992 Aston Early Music Academy at Rutgers University). Pamela Palmer, Handbell Choir and Children's Music Director:
Her prayer as she ministers in music at First Presbyterian is that God will use her to bring hope and joy to people’s lives. |
Our
organist, George Edward Damp, a 1960 graduate of Ithaca High School, is an
actual Ithaca native. 
Pamela Palmer has
been involved in church music for the past twenty years and considers it a great
privilege to continue her journey of ministry by working at First Presbyterian
Church. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Westminster Choir College in
Princeton, NJ and a Master of Music degree from Ithaca College. Both of her
degrees focused on Music Education. She has taught music in public and private
institutions and has served as director for several adult and children’s choirs
in various churches throughout the years. While attending Ithaca College, Pamela
sang with the Women’s Chorale and the College Choir. It was through these
ensembles that she worked with