Mark Pacoe

Mark Pacoe, Associate Director of Music and Organist, joined the Music Department of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in June 2023 and is also the coordinator for wedding music and the Guest Choirs Concert Series. 
 
Mr. Pacoe began his career in church music as a teenager. At 16, he participated in a 90-voice community choir tour of Italy and had the distinct honor of playing for Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. The following year, Mark spent the summer in Bavaria as an American Field Service exchange student. These early and formative years in music, church, and travel have shaped the sacred musician and performing artist he is today. 
 
Mr. Pacoe has toured throughout Europe, Middle East, Asia and Australia as accompanist and soloist. As prizewinner from the Oundle International Organ Academy (UK), Mark made his international concert debut in 1998 with recitals in Great Britain at St. Paul’s Cathedral (London), Chichester Cathedral and St. Mary’s Cathedral (Edinburgh Fringe Festival).  
He has performed with massed choirs at the “Voices in the House” at Sydney Opera House and Sydney Town Hall in 2007 & 2011, “Perform in Harmony with Olympic Spirit” for the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing Forbidden City Concert Hall and Shanghai Oriental Art Centre in 2008, the 2009 International Haydn Festival at Koncerthaus and Peterskirche in Vienna, the 2014 Normandy Festival commemorating the 70^th Anniversary of the Allies’ landings with performances at L’Eglise de la Madeleine in Paris and St. Maclou in Rouen.
 
In 2014, Mr. Pacoe launched the premiere edition of the Terra Sancta International Organ Festival in the Holy Land with recitals in Nazareth, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Other international solo performances include organ festivals in Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Denmark, Slovakia, Switzerland, Oman, and Mexico.
 
In the United States, Mr. Pacoe has performed extensively at cathedrals, churches and halls in in Los Angeles, Portland, Houston, San Diego, Berkeley, Ft. Worth, St. Louis, San Antonio, Naples (FL), Montgomery (AL), Canton and Youngstown (OH), Atlanta and Demorest (GA), Nashville, Greenville (NC), Washington DC, Newark and New Brunswick (NJ), Boston and Methuen (MA), Lewiston (ME), Fort Wayne, Pittsburgh, Princeton, Albany and New York City. 
 
Mr. Pacoe studied organ with Ronald Gould, Ronald Doiron, Janette Fishell and David Higgs and conducting with Brady Allred and Rhonda Fleming.  He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Duquesne University (Pittsburgh) and was also awarded the André Marchal Award for Excellence in Performance. For his undergraduate Junior Recital, Mr. Pacoe received a state grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council for a lecture and performance on the legend of Faust and Faust for Organ by Czech composer Petr Eben. He earned his Master of Music degree from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, also in organ performance and sacred music. He did post-graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York. As a graduate teaching assistant at East Carolina University and the Eastman School of Music, he taught organ to non-majors among other departmental duties. 
 
Mr. Pacoe adjudicated organ competitions including the 1er Concours International d’Orgue in Saint-Julien-du-Sault (France), 2nd Concorso Internazionale Di Interpretazione Organistica "Agati-Tronci" (Pistoia, Italy), George Markey Scholarship (Metro New Jersey Chapter AGO), AGO Region I RCYO Competition, and the John Rodland Scholarship. He also served on the faculty for the AGO Pipe Organ Encounters in Wilmington, Delaware and Piedmont College in Demorest, GA and has presented to American Guild of Organist chapters in St. Louis, Montgomery, Queens, Metro New Jersey, and Atlanta.
 
Mr. Pacoe has published articles on sacred music in the GIA Quarterly and Word on Worship. He served as editorial assistant for Tones, the quarterly alumni publication of East Carolina University and as editorial board member for Word on Worship, the quarterly newsletter of the Office of Divine Liturgy for the Archdiocese of Newark. In 2013, Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan appointed Mark to the six-member Liturgical Music Commission of the Archdiocese of New York where he currently serves as Co-Chair. He also serves as instructor for the Archdiocesan Organist Training Program. 
 
Mr. Pacoe previously served in ministry at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, St. Malachy’s – The Actors’ Chapel in Midtown Manhattan, St. John Nepomucene and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini on the East Side of Manhattan, and as Artist in Residence at the Cathedral of All Saints, Albany. While serving at St. Malachy’s – The Actors’ Chapel, he spearheaded the campaign and installation of the Aeolian-Skinner, Opus 938 (1935) / Peragallo (2012), known as the Paul Creston Memorial Pipe Organ.  He also established “Concerts at St. Malachy’s” and the “Paul Creston Award.” Mr. Pacoe’s debut recording ‘Crossroads – Music from St. Malachy’s – The Actors’ Chapel, Times Square’ was released on the ACIS label in October 2015.  
 
Mark Pacoe has been a member of EastWest Organists, a premiere group of ten concert artists who “champion the art of the organ” since 2013 and has served as coordinator of that group since 2017.  He commissioned solo organ works by composers Texu Kim (Ma$Hed), Wang Jie (When the World Turns Towards Someone), and Jason Roberts (Prelude and Fugue on ‘Enta Omri’). He is a member of the New York Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, the Conference of Catholic Cathedral Musicians (CRCCM), and the St. Wilfrid Club.