Ruth Harris, adjunct instructor of organ, received Bachelor (with highest distinction) and Master of Music degrees in organ and church music from Northwestern University and has done doctoral work while on a University Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She studied as a Fulbright scholar in Paris, where her teachers were Jean Langlais, André Marchal, and Nadia Boulanger. Later she studied for a year with Anton Heiller at the Church Music Division of the Academy of Music in Vienna. While still an undergraduate student, she won the Gruenstein Memorial Organ Competition in Chicago. An adjudicator for organ competitions throughout the Midwest, she has concertized throughout the United States.

Ms. Harris has served on the Worship Committee of the Presbyterian Synod of Lakes and Prairies, on the staff of the national Montreat Worship and Music Conferences, and, on occasion, as organist with the Des Moines Symphony. She has been accompanist for many choral groups in the Des Moines area, including the Choral Society, Vocal Arts Ensemble, Concert Singers, Gay Men’s Chorus, Westminster Oratorio Choir, and the Drake Choirs. As such, she has appeared at several conventions of the American Choral Directors’ Association, and, with the Drake Choir, at Carnegie Hall.

Organist at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Des Moines, since 1976, she is Associate Minister of Music and Executive Director of the Fine Arts Series there. Ms. Harris has served as Iowa state chair for the American Guild of Organists. She holds the Associate certification from that organization.