Dr. Samuel A. Schmitt is Organist & Choirmaster at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Parish and Oratory in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  He has dedicated the better part of the past thirty years to making music for the church as an organist, conductor, composer, teacher, and choral singer. At Sts. Cyril and Methodius he directs the parish choir in classical polyphony for Mass and choral Vespers and the men’s chant schola in the full Latin propers each week. In addition, the Children’s Schola sings polyphony and the chant ordinary for Mass once a month. 

Schmitt studied the Solesmes method of chant under Dr. Theodore Marier while earning a master’s in liturgical music­ with a concentration in organ performance at the Catholic University of America. He earned a doctorate in musicology at CUA for his research on the music and liturgical practice of underground Catholics in Elizabethan England.

While in Washington Dr. Schmitt served as assistant organist at both the Cathedral of St. Matthew and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Most recently he was Director of Sacred Music and Organist at the Cathedral Parish in Bridgeport. Schmitt’s chant-based choral faux-bourdon settings of the psalms in English and Spanish are sung by choirs across the country.  

He teaches music history, theory, and appreciation at Trivium School in Lancaster, Massachusetts, where his 100-voice chorus of high schoolers joyfully sing polyphony, chant, and the occasional madrigal.

Dr. Schmitt also serves as Executive Director of the Carl Schmitt Foundation in Wilton, Connecticut. The Foundation seeks to further the legacy of American painter Carl Schmitt, one of the founders of the Silvermine Guild of Artists. He is the author of Carl Schmitt: The Vision of Beauty (Scepter Publishers) and Silvermine (Arcadia Publishing), and can often be found singing with his wife and six children and friends at Mass or around a bonfire.