How to Pass the AGO Service Playing and Colleague Exams
Explore the most common barriers to success on the AGO Service Playing and Colleague Exams, in a workshop led by a member of the AGO National Committee on Professional Certification. This workshop is appropriate for organists preparing for their first AGO certificate and for those who have taken exams and wish to perfect their scores next time around. Topics include practical approaches to study and preparation. Recorded examples from actual exams are used to demonstrate commonly heard misunderstandings or errors, and to illustrate successful results. Additional topics include keyboard harmony, transposition, and improvisation skills, as well as some basic tactics for proficiency in hymn playing and anthem accompaniment.
Andrew Scanlon
Andrew Scanlon, FAGO, is an organ professor at East Carolina University. He is organist-choirmaster at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Greenville, and artistic director of the East Carolina Musical Arts Education Foundation. He previously taught organ at Duquesne University, and has held positions at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, Buffalo; Christ & St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, New York; and Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School. He has performed at national conventions of both the American Guild of Organists and Organ Historical Society, and throughout the United States and in Canada, England, Italy, France, Germany, and Croatia. He has been a faculty member for three Pipe Organ Encounters, and serves on both the National Board of Examiners and the National Committee on Professional Certification of the Guild. He holds degrees from Duquesne University and Yale University. His principal teachers have been John Skelton, Ann Labounsky, David Craighead, John Walker, and Thomas Murray.