Music

Ellen Koziel, Ph.D., serves as assistant minister of music, directing our children’s music program, assisting with the Parish Choir and children’s formation, and playing the organ for St. Mary’s Episcopal School chapel services. She retired following a 32-year career as an Orff music specialist in the Memphis City Schools, teaching at Cordova Elementary and previously at Shady Grove Elementary.

Dr. Koziel was assistant choirmaster of St. Mary’s Cathedral and is formerly the music teacher of Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal School and assistant organist of Grace-St. Luke’s Church. She is a graduate of Radford University and holds the Master of Music with Orff-Schulwerk certification and the Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Memphis.

A member of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and the American Orff-Schulwerk Association (AOSA), Dr. Koziel is also on the faculty of Rhodes College, directing the Rhodes Women’s Chorus, and regularly teaches Orff-Schulwerk recertification classes in the summers at the University of Memphis and throughout the southeast region.

As Minister of Music and Liturgy, David Ouzts serves as director of music and organist for the parish and conducts the Parish Choir and Holy Communion Ringers. As the parish liturgist, he works closely with the clergy in planning all worship. He also serves as chapel organist for St. Mary's Episcopal School.

A native of South Carolina, Dr. Ouzts began his organ study as a high school student at Converse College and holds organ performance degrees from Furman University and the Yale School of Music. He holds diplomas in sacred music and Anglican studies from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. He studied organ with Walter Lindsay Smith and Robert S. Baker and organ improvisation with Gerre Hancock.

As a post-graduate student at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, he studied organ and church music with Marilyn Keiser, choral conducting with Jan Harrington and Michael Schwarzkopf, and served as a graduate assistant to organ department chair Larry Smith. In 2008 he earned the Doctor of Sacred Music degree from the Graduate Theological Foundation in South Bend, Indiana, and was named an Oxford Foundation Fellow to study systematic theology at the University of Oxford (U.K.).

He is involved in numerous professional organizations He is a past dean of the Huntington (WVa) and Memphis chapters of the American Guild of Organists (AGO) and presently serves as the AGO Tennessee District Convener. He has also served in a number of capacities as officer or board member for the Association of Anglican Musicians (AAM), Royal School of Church Music in America (RSCM), American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Handbell Musicians of America, and Choristers Guild.

In 2022 Dr. Ouzts celebrates his 20th year as parish musician of Church of the Holy Communion.