Read the John Karl Hirten biography and be inspired by his achievements in the music industry. His choral music has been performed in churches worldwide.

John Karl Hirten’s music is published by GIA, Concordia, Augsburg, Trinitas, and others. His compositions have been been favorably reviewed in The Diapason, The American Organist and the Journal of the American Choral Directors Association. His music is well represented in Wonder, Love and Praise, a supplement to the Episcopal Church’s Hymnal. He has received awards for some of his hymn tunes, and recent commissioned pieces include an Evening Service (Preces, Responses, Mag and Nunc) for All Saints Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, and Inscriptions, for orchestra and chorus, for the Mill Valley Philharmonic. 

He holds a Master’s Degree in Organ Performance from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He has performed regularly throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, having appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony, American Bach Soloists, the Oakland East Bay Symphony, and even the Oakland Ballet. He is a monthly performer at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, an art museum that boasts an E.M. Skinner organ. In 2006, he was a finalist in the American Guild of Organists National Competition in Organ Improvisation.

Mr. Hirten has worked as a church musician since the age of fifteen, having worked as a cantor while still a teenager to serving as organ scholar at Trinity Church on Wall Street, New York City, to organist and music director at St. James Cathedral in Brooklyn, Old St. Mary’s in San Francisco, and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Belvedere. He is currently Director of Music at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ross, CA. In addition, he has worked for synagogues, taught organ at a Baptist Seminary, and has written music for the Lutheran Church. His varied background in church music has led to his being described as an “ecumenical wonder” (GIA Quarterly).