photo courtesy of Eric Coyne
Rodney Alan Giles
...........................................................................................

Rodney Alan Giles, born October 30, 1947, in Kansas City, Missouri, died peacefully on December 4, 2010, in Overland Park, Kansas after enduring an extended illness and dialysis for six years.

He graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School, Prairie Village, Kansas, where he participated in music and drama, playing Henry Higgins in the first high school production anywhere of “My Fair Lady.” After earning his Bachelor of Music in organ performance as a student of Bethel Knoche at the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri, Kansas City, he went on to receive his Master of Arts in organ performance from Ohio State University in Columbus as a student of Gordon Wilson.

From 1973 to 1989, Rodney was Minister of Music and Organist at First Baptist Church of Kansas City. He served as university organist and adjunct instructor at both Park University in Parkville, Missouri, and Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas. Rodney was a staff organist, at the RLDS (now Community of Christ) Auditorium in Independence, Missouri, giving many recitals there from 1973 until 1985. A member of the Greater Kansas City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists since 1962, he was their Dean in 1978-79. During five summers in Graz, Austria, Rodney was on staff at the American Institute of Musical Studies, which prepared American singers and instrumentalists for careers in European opera. There, he and I met in 1988.

Rodney moved to New York City in 1989 where he became Organist/Director of Music at Hansen Place Central United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, and later Director of Music at West Park Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. In 1994, Rodney and I bought the home we named Argyles in Cherry Grove, where Rodney exercised his green thumb and was treasurer of the Garden Club for many years.

From 1996 to 2000, Rodney was the presiding pastor of New York’s Manhattan congregation of the Community of Christ. From 2000 through 2007, he spent winters in Florida, where he served as minister of music for First Congregational Church of Fort Lauderdale.

In Cherry Grove every summer, Rodney played for church services at the Community House and acted in plays for both the Arts Project of Cherry Grove and Island Repertory Theatre Company, including his 2007 solo show at The Tides, “Brokeback Mountain and Me.” He also played the piano in the Arts Project’s Ocean Aires concert that year.

Eager to start a new life by himself, join new friends, and leave the East Coast behind, Rodney moved west to Aurora, Colorado in 2008. He moved to Overland Park in 2009, living with his mother, Gloria Giles, and spending his last year in the company of many relatives and friends, along with his beloved dog, Stoney, a Scottie mix with the size and strength of a Labrador.

A memorial service is being held at the Mission Road Congregation of the Community of Christ, 79th & Mission Road, Prairie Village, on Saturday, December 11, at 11 a.m.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions are suggested to Wayside Waifs (www.waysidewaifs.org) or to The Rodney Giles Endowment Fund at the American Guild of Organists, Greater Kansas City Chapter (www.kcago.com).