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ken carter
Partner, International Christian Journeys
Professional Bass-Baritone
Choral Conductor
Ken Carter, choral conductor, professional bass, and partner in International Christian Journeys began the diverse musical part of his career at the age of eighteen with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra as bass soloist in Beethoven's Christ on the Mount of Olives.
After receiving a Bachelor of Music degree from Memphis State University (now University of Memphis) in choral conducting, he became soloist for the United States Air Force Band, Symphony and Singing Sergeants.
His first official job was in the White House singing for President and Mrs. Kennedy. He also sang for five other presidents.
During this period he studied across from Carnegie Hall in New York with Samuel Margolis and in Washington DC with Todd Duncan, Gershwin's original "Porgy." He also premiered the Three Michuda Songs of Serge Degastyne in Carnegie Hall.
A dual career emerged after the Air Force years in which he used his basso-cantante skills professionally and secularly in more than 60 leading operatic roles with some of America's best known singers and opera companies including Connecticut Opera, New Orleans Opera, Mississippi Opera, Opera Memphis and others.
Notably, he was Ramfis and Timur respectively in the largest indoor performances of Verdi's Aida and Puccini's Turandot to that date.
He also played leading musical theatre roles as Emil de Becque in South Pacific (Pictured to left with Susan Powell, Miss America 1982), Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun, The Red Shadow in The Desert Song and others at various regional theatres.
In his other "career" he concertized nationwide as the "Singing Sergeant" and ministered in mass evangelism in more than 30 countries with both Crusade Evangelism of Canada and the Billy Graham Association as soloist, choral director and emcee.
Interestingly, he participated in some of the first ever multi-racial crusades in South Africa, led hymns while dogs searched for bombs under the ministry platform in Belfast, was the "Spanish" soloist in the Billy Graham Mexico City Crusade and sang with his battery driven tape recorder in a tiny crusade in Kathmandu although Christian ministry had been forbidden by the Nepalese government.
Chorally, he was bass section leader with the Singing Sergeants and has been director of choirs at First Assembly of God and First Evangelical Church of Memphis; First Baptist Church, San Jose (The Church on the Hill), Saratoga Presbyterian Church, Saratoga; The Villages Chapel, and is currently Minister of Traditional Music at Peninsula Covenant Church in Redwood City CA.
MINISTRY HISTORY
ORGANIZED MEMPHIS FIRST EVER MULTI-RACIAL CHRISTIAN CONCERT.
PAT BOONE, GUEST. FIRST ASSEMBLY, CHEROKEE BAPTIST AND CHURCH OF GOD IN CHRIST, MEMPHIS
MASTERSSINGERS
MET OPERA TENOR, RAY GIBBS (R)
SOPRANO, ANN GIBBS AND ME
100 HUNTLEY STREET, TORONTO
OPUS DEI (a current group)
SAN FRANCISCO OPERA SINGERS
(Back row) DAN HARPER; KEN CARTER; MIKE ROGERS; (front row) RACHELLE PERRY-WARD; DR PAUL THORLAKSEN/
MINISTER OF MUSIC
FIRST ASSEMBLY OF GOD CHURCH
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC,
SARATOGA PRESBYTERIAN, SARATOGA CA.
FIRST SOLOIST FOR ASSEMBLY OF GOD CHURCH IN CALCUTTA INDIA.
NOW IN ITS 53RD YEAR.
MINISTRY IN BALTIMORE GENERAL COUNCIL.
(WATERGATE PRINCIPLE CHUCK COLSON ON MY LEFT)
(a current group)
Front, MARTI WILLIAMS, pianist
Back Row (L-R) JOHN KRAUS, violinist,
JOHN TRIPP, guest tenor, KEN CARTER bass
SINGING WITH TAPE RECORDER ACCOMPANIMENT IN AQUAS CALIENTES, MEXICO