Tony is our church organist and choirmaster and also directs and performs in our Bedford Chamber Concerts performed in St. Matthew's Parish House.

For over three decades, the multi-gifted Anthony Newman has been in the public eye as America's leading organist, harpsichordist and Bach specialist.  Time magazine described him as the "high priest of Bach."  His prodigious recording output numbers more than 150 CDs on Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, Vox and now KHAEON Klassical.  In 1989, Stereo Review magazine chose his recording of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, played on fortepiano, with original instruments, as one of the "records of the year."  His collaboration with Wynton Marsalis, "In Gabriel's Garden" on Sony Classical, was the best-selling classical CD for 1997.  Also included among his collaborations are best-selling CDs with Kathleen Battle, Itzhak Perlman, and Jean-Pierre Rampal.  Mr. Newman has guest-conducted many of the world's great chamber orchestras including those of Los Angeles, the 92nd Street Y in New York, the New York Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.  A whole series of orchestral conducting triumphs with the Seattle Symphony, San Francisco Broque, and the New York Chamber Orchestra raised him to the top ranks of Baroque and Classical specialist conductors.

No less prodigious as a composer, his works have been heard in Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw, New York and London.  His compositions include sonatas and concerti, choral works, a complete set of piano preludes and fugues in every key, and others.  In 2000, Albany Records released a recording of Anthony Newman's first opera, "Nicole and the Trial of the Century," on the controversial subject of of the O.J. Simpson criminal trial in Los Angeles in 1995.  His most recent major composition, Requiem, for chorus, vocal soloists, orchestra and organ, was released by KHAEON Klassical in September, 2001.

Anthony Newman was born in Los Angeles, studied in Paris with Alfred Cortot and the famed Notre Dame Cathedral organist Pierre Cochereau. He later received degrees from Mannes College of Music in New York, Harvard University, and Boston University. He was a professor of music at SUNY College at Purchase for thirty years. As a person committed to outreach, he has been a volunteer at Stamford Hospital and a member of Hospice, a national organization which provides comfort to the terminally ill, since 1994.