Staff

Dr. Paul Cienniwa

Director of Music

Email:
Phone: 617-267-6730 x 227

Paul Cienniwa has been a church musician for over ten years, developing choral programs for children and adults while leading congregations in joyful song. As an organist and harpsichordist, he has received praise for concerts given in Europe (“His mastery of the instrument and the quality of his playing delighted all those who came to listen.”—Le Cep; “un concert exceptionnel”—Le Dauphiné Libéré) and the United States (“Critic’s Choice”—Chicago Reader). He has appeared as soloist and ensemble player in venues in the U.S. and abroad, including the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, Les Nuits Musicales de Corps (Corps, France), the Reformed Church in Toulon, France, and, since 2005, at the annual White Mountain Bach Festival in North Conway, NH. In 1998, he was awarded Fulbright and Belgian Educational American Foundation grants for study in Europe, and in 2003, he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University.

Paul Cienniwa is Founding Artistic Director of Newport Baroque Orchestra, a professional period-instrument orchestra based in Newport, RI, and in 2006, he was appointed director of the a cappella chamber choir, Sine Nomine (Fall River, MA). Prior to First Church, he served for several important historic churches, including St. Mary’s Church in Newport, RI, where John F. Kennedy was married, and Trinity Church in Newport, where Charles Pachelbel, Johann’s son, was the first organist. Currently, Paul Cienniwa resides in Fall River, MA where he and his wife, cellist Audrey Cienniwa, are in the process of restoring their 1870 carriage house.

http://paulcienniwa.blogspot.com