WE NOTE WITH SORROW THE DEATH OF PROF WEATHERSBY IN 2006
Lucius R. Weathersby was until recently a professor of music and Chairperson of the Music Department at Dillard University in New Orleans.
For more than five years, Mr. Weathersby was employed full-time as a director of music in two churches. In each of those positions, he founded and managed concert series- First Congressional Concert Series at First Congregational Church in Waterloo, Iowa and The Second Sunday Concert Series at Church of the Beatitudes in Phoenix, Arizona. These concert series continue to feature local, national and international musical figures.
Mr. Weathersby is a concert artist who keeps a busy schedule performing concerts in Europe, Central America, and many major cities in the United States, lecturing and performing works of African and African-American Composers for the Organ as well as concerts by various composers.
Recordings released by Albany Recordings include: "Spiritual Fantasy": a CD of organ works by African and African-American composers, released in the Fall of 2000; and a cd of African and African American composers for piano and flute, with Flutist Wendy Hymes, released in the Spring of 2001.
As a conductor, he has conducted orchestral and vocal ensembles. While in Iowa as director of music for First Congregational Church, he conducted members of the Waterloo Cedar Falls Symphony. In Phoenix, the sanctuary choir of Church of the Beatitudes performed many classical Masses with members of the Phoenix Symphony. In 1993, he was a guest conductor at the International Dvorak Festival. Mr. Weathersby led The West Union Madrigal Singers in Dvorak's Mass in D. In 1997, he was appointed assist to Maestro Herriman and the San Marcos Symphony.
He is also in demand as a lecturer on such topics as Afro-American Music,
Keyboard Techniques, and The Music of the Baroque.
As a composer, Mr. Weathersby has written works for organ and brass - Fanfare 1993, choir - Seven Last Words, 1994 (a thirty-minute work on the words of Jesus from the Cross), chamber orchestra - Suite in d, 1996 (a twenty-five minute work in three movements) premiered by members of the Phoenix Symphony, piano - Tranquillity Suite, organ - Spiritual Fantasy (premiered by the composer on January 19, 1997 at the Meyerson Center of the Performing Arts using the C.B. Fisk Organ; as well as other smaller compositions. Reviews the world over have praised Weathersby's ability to communicate what the composer intended to his audience. "Flair and musicality," "Virtuosity at his finger tips," "Born performer," and "Solid performance," are but a few quotes from reviews.