Nashville’s sacred music community lost one of its mainstays this weekend. Organist, choir director and teacher Peter Fyfe died Saturday at the age of 92.

Fyfe grew up in the small West Tennessee town of Covington. His aunt Ermine McNeely was his first music teacher; by the time he was in high school, he was playing the organ during church services. After that, the organ became his ticket to a larger world. He studied at the American Conservatory in Chicago, Union Theological Seminary’s School of Sacred Music and Columbia University.  Even during his military service, Fyfe found an organ console to call home. Stationed in North Africa, he worked as the interim organist for the American Church in Cairo.

Fyfe was playing at St. Michael’s Episcopal in New York City when he met the woman who would become not just his wife, but his musical partner. Lois Gainer, herself a trained organist, sang in that church’s choir. Both were passionate about church music, which was flourishing in New York at the time, and they eagerly attended as many performances as they could when they weren’t making music at their own church.

A few years after their wedding, one of Fyfe’s boyhood friends encouraged him to consider coming back to Tennessee; Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Nashville needed an organist and choir director. Fyfe took the job in 1959 and stayed in the position for the next 35 years.  Three years later, he became the first organ instructor at what was then called the Blair Academy (now the Blair School of Music), and soon after was designated the Vanderbilt University organist.

Fyfe used his positions at Blair and Christ Church to bring new music to Nashville, and to encourage cooperation between the city’s church musicians. His choir joined singers from First Presbyterian to present concerts of large scale music. He brought composer Leo Sowerby (one of his professors at American Conservatory) and John Scott (organist of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London) to perform in Music City. He hosted the first performance of Gregory Woolf’s “Mass with Electronic Tape” and invited Barry McDonald to conduct a “Jazz Mass with Hymns.” Fyfe commissioned new music to be performed in Nashville, even as composers like Sowerby and Gerald Near were dedicating compositions to Fyfe.

Between his teaching and playing — and her work finding and distributing organ and choral music — Peter and Lois Fyfe both took on roles as leaders among the city’s organists. The husband and wife team shepherded musicians, endowed a scholarship and sponsored concerts. In 2012, they were honored jointly at the American Guild of Organists national convention with the Edward A. Hansen Leadership Award for “unparalleled knowledge of sacred music” and their long and generous track record as teachers and mentors.

Peter Fyfe never wanted to forget the moment he met Lois. Their first date was on April 13, 1951; throughout their 60 years together, he gave her a yellow rose on the 13 ^th of every month to mark the anniversary of that fateful dinner. Fyfe lost his partner when she passed away in 2014. After a long battle with illness, he died in hospice care. He’s survived by his daughter, Catherine, and two grandsons.