Playing the 1724 organ at the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam.
Charles Rus is Director of Music and Liturgical Arts at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Medina, Washington.


A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Charles received degrees from the Eastman School of Music, the University of Michigan, and, as a Fulbright Scholar, the Folkwang Hochscule fur Musik in Essen, Germany. His teachers include Russell Saunders, Robert Glasgow, and Gisbert Schneider.


During his 20 years in San Francisco, he was an organist for the San Francisco Symphony, organ teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, organist for Temple Emanu-El, and Music Director at St. John's Episcopal Church.


Charles continues to compose liturgical music, much of which can be found here.


To see a video of my choir singing one of my anthems, click here.














 
Gary Blaise, instrument builder in San Francisco, built for me a hand-pumped organ of 3 stops:

8' Principal of Alaskan Yellow Cedar, full length to low C,

8' Harmonic Flute, and

4' Quintadena.

Short octave, meantone temperament. The range is 5 octaves so that you can play everything up an octave for variety.  The 8' Principal slider is "tuned" so that when it is partially pushed in an Italian Voce Humana is created with the Harmonnic Flute.

My partner, Ed, documented the assembly of the organ in our home in a video, which you can see by clicking here.







Many thanks to Ed for helping me put this site together.