Dr. Mary Ellen Sutton
 Organ, Music History, Music Theory
Chair of the Keyboard Division

McCain Auditorium 235
(785) 532-3830
sutton@ksu.edu

Dr. Mary Ellen Sutton is Professor of Organ at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. She joined the KSU faculty in 1974 after teaching five years at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Missouri. In addition to her full-time teaching, she is organist at First United Methodist Church, Manhattan. She conducts church music workshops and works with organists and organ students from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds. She was a Staff Organist at the RLDS Auditorium in Independence, Missouri for nine years, and was a consultant for the Catholic Diocese for Western Kansas, headquartered in Salina, Kansas for several years as part of an organist training program across the Diocese.

Dr. Sutton is a member of the American Guild of Organists Chapters in Topeka and KSU-Manhattan Area, and gives several programs a year for AGO Chapters in Kansas. Some recent programs have been on “Spanish Organ Music in Its Golden Age,” “Beginning Improvisation for Church Organists,” and “Mozart and the Organ,” as well as a reading session for new church music publications for a music store in Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. Sutton is also an active clinician and adjudicator for both organ and piano.

Her Doctor of Musical Arts degree was granted by the University of Kansas in Organ Performance and Pedagogy. She was awarded Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and she received an Associate of Arts degree from Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. Her organ teachers include James Moeser, Bethel Knoche, and Oliver Houston as well as master classes with many internationally known organists. Her travel to Europe has included study at the International Summer Organ Academy in Haarlem, The Netherlands for two summers, as well as the opportunity to hear many fine organs and organists throughout Europe.

Click here for a black-and-white photo of Dr. Sutton suitable for use in printed programs.



Return to Music Department Home Page  |  Return to KSU Home Page