Join us for a magnificent organ recital by Benton Schmidt at the Church of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A multi-faceted church musician currently serving at Saint Paul’s Newman Center in his hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, where he is building a program that includes scholas, mixed choirs, and a children’s choir, Benton Schmidt is in the process of finishing his doctoral degree in church music at the University of Kansas, where his focus includes both modern and French Classic repertoire. His academic interests include the classical Solesmes method of Gregorian chant as taught by Dom André Mocquereau and the tradition of organ alternatim in the Latin liturgy. His travels have taken him to give organ recitals at Marquette University, St. Matthew’s Cathedral DC, and La Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta in Cosenza, Italy. Upcoming performances include South Dakota State University and Saint Thomas 5th Ave, NYC. Benton completed his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance at North Dakota State University, where he developed his enthusiasm for choirs and early music, inspired by yearly performances of Handel’s Messiah each Christmas. He earned his Masters of Sacred Music at the University of Notre Dame, where he became especially interested in early German organ repertoire by Heinrich Scheidemann and Matthias Weckmann. He is looking forward to playing this lovely music on the wonderful Noack organ at the Shrine, especially the medieval Salve Regina of Arnold Schlick. Outside of music, Benton is an ardent Anglophile who enjoys the mystery novels of Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, the writings of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, and dabbling in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar.