Introduction

Biography

Clement was the son of Aman­dus Marcks and An­na Ma­ria Moy­er (or Mey­er), and hus­band of Ca­ther­ine (Kate) M. Kem­mer­er.

He was edu­cat­ed in the pub­lic schools, and the pre­para­to­ry school of Muhl­en­berg Col­lege.

His interest in mu­sic was ma­ni­fest­ed in ear­ly boy­hood. He be­came or­gan­ist of the Lu­ther­an and Re­formed church at Em­ma­us at the age of 14 years, and lat­er or­gan­ist of the Mo­ra­vi­an Church in Em­ma­us.

He be­gan his mu­sic­al stu­dies with Pro­fess­or C. F. Her­mann, which he con­tin­ued for six years. Sub­se­quent­ly he stu­died un­der Dr. Gil­christ of Phi­la­del­phia.

In 1886 he be­came the or­gan­ist of Zi­on’s Re­formed church, Al­len­town, and in 1891 of St. John’s Lu­ther­an church, Al­len­town, serv­ing there un­til his death.

Shortly af­ter ar­riv­ing in Al­len­town, Marks or­gan­ized the Eu­ter­pe­an Male Oc­tette, whose suc­cess led to the for­ma­tion of the Eu­ter­pe­an Club, con­sist­ing of for­ty male voic­es, in 1887. Six years lat­er, the name changed to the Eu­ter­pe­an Club-Ora­to­ri­o So­ci­ety, with ov­er two hun­dred mixed voic­es.

In 1909, Muhl­en­berg Col­lege con­ferred a Doc­tor of Mu­sic de­gree on Marks, who was a Pro­fess­or of Mu­sic at the col­lege.

He was al­so pre­si­dent of the State Mu­sic Teach­ers’ As­so­cia­tion, sec­re­tary of the Com­mittee on Church Mu­sic of the Ge­ne­ral Coun­cil of the Evan­ge­li­cal Lu­ther­an Church, and one of the prin­ci­pal mem­bers that pro­duced the re­vised Sun­day school book for the Lu­ther­an Church.

He was a mem­ber of the Phi­la­del­phia Crock­et Club, made up of pro­mi­nent mu­si­cians of Phi­la­del­phia and sur­round­ing dis­tricts.

At his death, it was said, As teach­er, con­duct­or, and pro­mot­er of mu­sic­al ev­ents of a class­ic­al na­ture, Cle­ment A. Marks stood un­ri­valed in a com­mu­ni­ty where love of mu­sic is strong and where real mu­sic­al abi­li­ty is not rare.

He was pro­mi­nent­ly iden­ti­fied with all the va­ri­ous Ma­son­ic bo­dies and had been the High Priest of Al­len Chap­ter.