Biography
John
Kersey is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work spans the three
principal areas of music, education and religious ministry. He is
currently President of European-American University, Metropolitan of
the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church and continues his pioneering
programme of research and recording as a concert pianist.Born in London in 1972, he graduated with First Class Honours as the top pianist of his year from the Royal College of Music, where he was the winner of twelve prizes and awards. After graduate study at the RCM (resulting in his Master of Music degree in Performance Studies: Applied Research) and Christ's College, Cambridge, he was elected to a Junior Fellowship at the RCM. His subsequent studies have been in theology, history and esoteric philosophy.
As a musician, John Kersey is best-known for researching and bringing unknown nineteenth-century piano music to a wider public. Founder of the record label Romantic Discoveries Recordings, he has recorded over forty CDs, the majority consisting wholly of world première recordings. He is also founder of the online Henselt Library at European-American University, which makes rare scores of nineteenth-century piano music available to the public.
In 2006, John Kersey released the first ever recording of the original, unfinished version of Beethoven's Sonata in D major, Biamonti 213, together with other Beethoven unfinished sonatas and sketches, in a CD described as a "treasure trove" by the website The Unheard Beethoven. He has also made the first recordings of music by Alkan, Jensen, Jadassohn, Huber and von Sahr, among many others. CNET's Download.com said in 2006, "This British pianist has devoted his career to unearthing great lost composers, and he plays them with genuine reverence".
John Kersey has taught in institutions and privately at every level from primary school to postgraduate. During his seven years on the faculty of a leading London independent college he was acknowledged as the most versatile tutor in their thirty-year history, and at one point was head of both the music and information technology departments while continuing to teach several other subjects. Several of his students have won national recognition for their achievements. Between 2002 and 2004 he served as a Founder Member of the World University, Arizona, USA.
In 2005, he was invited
to move from teaching into educational consultancy. His company,
Marquess Educational Consultants, has provided expert opinion on
several thousand cases in relation to international credentials and
their equivalencies, and continues to be in demand to deal with the
most complex credential-related matters.Ordained ministerially in 2002 and consecrated in the Liberal Catholic tradition in 2006, John Kersey was in 2008 elected Metropolitan of the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church under the religious title of Mar Joannes III. In this non-stipendiary position he has overall responsibility for a growing church with clergy and communities in the United Kingdom and United States, as well as for its wider outreach through the Independent Liberal Catholic Fellowship. He is also the UK representative of the Apostolic Episcopal Church and the Order of Corporate Reunion, both based in New York, USA.
John Kersey is additionally responsible for the educational outreach of the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church, European-American University, where he serves as President. The University is the seminary for the LCAC as well as fulfilling a wider role in furthering a distinctive spiritual and humanistic educational philosophy influenced by Carl Rogers, Jung and others.
His published writings range from books addressing aspects of the history of independent education and the independent sacramental movement to new editions of classic Liberal Catholic texts. He has also published widely as a music critic.
John Kersey has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity firstly by St Katherine's Institute, Wyoming, USA, and subsequently by St Ephrem's Institute of Eastern Church Studies for "his outstanding works on Church History", holds an earned master of arts degree in history and an honorary doctorate in laws from Adam Smith University of Liberia, and was awarded an honorary Cultural Doctorate in Philosophy of Music from the World University, Arizona, USA in 2001. On his consecration in 2006, he received the canonical diploma of Sacrae Theologiæ Professor from St David's Œcumenical Institute, the seminary of the Celtic Catholic Church of the Utrecht Succession and the Religious Society of the Good Shepherd.
In 2002, he was the recipient of the Medal of Honour for Science and Art of the Österreichische Albert Schweitzer-Gesellschaft (ÖASG), and an honorary visiting professorship from the Parthasarathy International Cultural Academy in Chennai, India. The following year, he became the first non-German to receive the Friedrich Silcher Medal in Bronze of the Chorgruppe Aartal of the Dill-Sängerbund of the Hessischer Sängerbund, Hessen, Germany.
He
is a Knight Commander of the International Knightly Order Vitéz of St
George, Hungary, and a Knight of Grace of the Sovereign Order of St
John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta (The Hereditary Order). The
recipient of an honorary commission as Colonel in the Hungarian
National Guard (Magyar Nemzetõrség) he has received the National Guard
Grand Cross and its Medal of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters. He is an honorary fellow of several music colleges and societies, an honorary member of the International Writers and Artists Association, Ohio, USA, and a deputy of the International States Parliament for Safety and Peace, an intergovernmental humanitarian association working for peace around the world. A Freeman of the City of London and Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (elected at age 25), the Royal Geographical Society and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
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