Samuel F. Rowe

Samuel Rowe is the Director of Music at the Basilica, a position that he has held since February of 2020. He also recently served as an Assisting Organist at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, and as Assistant Organist at the Church of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Fredericksburg, VA. Prior to relocating to the Baltimore-DC area, Mr. Rowe was an active freelance keyboardist and conductor in the New York City/Northern New Jersey area, where he accompanied and directed several choirs throughout the region, and, as a ballet pianist, served for three years as a staff accompanist for the Cecchetti International Summer School in Holland, MI. He was the pianist for the Newark Boys Chorus in Newark, NJ, from 2017 to 2019, a group with whom he performed across the country and internationally on a concert tour of Argentina and Chile in the Spring of 2019. As a composer, Mr. Rowe was recently one of eight fellows selected for the Catholic Sacred Music Project's Composition Institute, led by Sir James MacMillan in Alexandria, VA, in May of 2023.

Originally from Maine, Mr. Rowe received his Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey in 2016 and his Master’s of Music degree in Choral Conducting at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 2021. His organ teachers have included Renée Anne Louprette, Ronald Stolk, and Ray Cornils. His conducting studies were primarily with Timothy McDonnell. He lives in Baltimore City with his wife and children.