Hentus van Rooyen, a native of South Africa, is Director of Music Ministries at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Cape Elizabeth, ME. Prior to his relocation to Maine in 2022, van Rooyen served as Assistant Professor of Music, Sacred Music Coordinator and College Organist at Bethany College in Lindsborg KS, where he taught organ, music history, music theory, aural skills, and directed the Bethany College Handbell Ensemble. He also served as the Director of Music and Organist at Christ Episcopal Cathedral in Salina, KS.
He holds the degrees Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music in organ performance from the University of North Texas. His other degrees in organ performance, pedagogy, and church music were completed at the University of Pretoria and University of South Africa. He studied organ performance with Jesse Eschbach and Wim Viljoen, and baroque repertoire studies with Paul Leenhouts.
His quest for international studies was initiated after winning the prestigious Stephanus Zondagh Overseas Music Study Scholarship at the University of South Africa Overseas Music Scholarship Competition in 2011 while studying with Wim Viljoen. In 2012, he was awarded the Scholarship for Overseas Study from the Southern-African Church Organists Association (SAKOV), and received a generous scholarship from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, which enabled him to begin his studies at the University of North Texas.
In 2014 van Rooyen won first prize at the William C. (Bill) Hall Organ Competition in San Antonio, TX, and was named ‘Outstanding Graduate Student in Organ Performance’ by the University of North Texas College of Music in 2014 and 2017. As the teaching fellow for organ, he was nominated for the ‘Outstanding Teaching Fellow Award’ in 2018. He was the accompanist and continuo organist for the early music vocal ensemble, the UNT Collegium Singers, and played continuo in the UNT Baroque Orchestra. He also served as Assistant/Associate Organist at Christ the King Catholic Church, Dallas Texas from 2015 to 2018.
During the Sumer of 2019, van Rooyen traveled to Italy to play several Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century organs by Italian builders as part of his research for his dissertation: The Keyboard Toccatas of Michelangelo Rossi (ca. 1602 – 1656): Performance Perspectives for Organists. In January 2020, he was invited by the Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Dietrich Brauer, to perform organ recitals at the Lutheran Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Moscow and at Saint Catherine Lutheran Church in Saint Petersburg.
In September 2021, van Rooyen participated in the semi-final round of the 12th Mikael Tariverdiev International Organ Competition in Kaliningrad, Russia.