Threnodia (1962)

Vincent A. R. Rossi (1931–2015) — Threnodia (1962) for organ

Vincent A. R. Rossi (1931–2015) was a native of Providence, Rhode Island. Educated at the University of Oxford, in his early years he was a Roman Catholic pre-seminarian and worked as a Chinese language specialist for the intelligence section of the U.S. Navy. In 1978, Rossi became the successor to Earl Blighton, who had founded in the 1960s an esoteric-style religious order (Holy Order of MANS) with Rosicrucian/Theosophical roots. Following the anticult hysteria in the USA (after the Jonestown mass suicide in 1978), Rossi began his efforts to turn the order into a branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church where it was eventually renamed Christ the Savior Brotherhood in 1988. Rossi himself became an Eastern Orthodox priest and was also active as a barber, composer, and pianist.