The Relative Intensity of Organ Stops

The top organists and organ builders are keenly interested in the manner in which individual stops contribute to a combination. The relationship between the 8- and 4-foot principals on each division, for example, is central to defining an organ’s very nature. For the research behind this presentation, good-quality recordings were made from a central seat in the audience. Every stop on diverse organs from Germany, Boston, and Utah was recorded, and the same four bars of music played on common combinations. Many interesting details emerged from back-to-back comparisons of sound clips, and from line graphs of the intensity (volume) levels.

Don Cook

Don Cook joined the organ faculty of Brigham Young University in 1991. In that capacity, he serves as organ area coordinator and university carillonneur. Formerly, he held associate organist and choirmaster positions at Christ Church Cranbrook, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and at First United Methodist Church, Lubbock, Texas. After earning Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in organ at Brigham Young University, he received a Doctor of Musical Arts in organ performance from the University of Kansas. He currently directs the annual BYU Organ Workshop, founded in 2002, and appears frequently as a guest organist at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. He is actively developing innovative approaches to organ instruction, including the first multimedia organ tutorial for pianists, OrganTutor Organ 101; private and group instruction, BYU independent study courses, and teachers and students in at least nine countries use the tutorial.

The Feminine Aesthetic in the Organ Compositions of Rolande Falcinelli

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Organist, composer, and pedagogue Rolande Falcinelli (1920–2006) was the first woman to be named titular organist over a prestigious console in Paris, that of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, in 1945; she was also a renowned professor at the Paris Conservatory for more than thirty years and a brilliant recitalist and improviser. Yet, her rich compositional legacy remains largely unknown. This paper introduces her various styles of organ composition and shows examples of feminine-coded material that appears throughout her opus, both subtly and overtly.

Lenore Alford

Lenore Alford obtained her Doctor of Musical Arts in organ performance, with special emphasis on sacred music, from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied with Dr. Gerre Hancock. Musicology and women’s studies professor Dr. Andrew Dell’Antonio supervised her dissertation, titled Able fairy: The feminine aesthetic in the organ compositions of Rolande Falcinelli. She presented her research at the International Journal of Arts and Sciences Conference in Gottenheim, Germany in 2008; she also presented it in lecture recital form to the Peninsula chapter of the American Guild of Organists in 2010. An active recitalist in the San Francisco area, where she lives, she also presides over a growing music program at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ross, where she is music director and organist. She is founder of the St. John’s Choir School, which follows the Royal School of Church Music curriculum and includes three graded children’s choirs.

Suite No. 1 for Organ by Florence Price: A Fusion of Many Elements

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Florence Price (1857–1953) was an African American composer educated in the European tradition by male teachers. In a time of the black cultural awakening, she incorporated the black music idioms of spirituals, blues, and syncopated dance rhythms into traditional European musical forms. While she was the first black woman composer in history to have a symphony performed by a major symphony orchestra (Chicago), she was unable to have it published. Enter the organ suite, which enabled her to play her own composition. In this way, she was able to show that she was, indeed, a capable and innovative composer.

Mary Ann Hamilton

MaryAnn Hamilton was named college organist at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York upon completion of her Doctor of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music in May 2000. She also holds a Master of Sacred Music from Union Theological Seminary. Her teachers have included David Higgs, John Weaver, and Gerre Hancock (improvisation). In addition to playing for college chapel services, she plays a monthly organ program called Music, Meditation and Munchies. She was a guest lecturer at the Creative Women during the Chicago Renaissance Symposium at Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia. She is also parish musician at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Geneva, where she plays the organ for Sunday services and directs the Adult Mixed Choir. Previously, she served the Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester in various capacities for more than twenty years.

The Road Less Taken: Charles Winfred Douglas and the Episcopal Chant Revival

Charles Winfred Douglas (1867–1944) was considered one of the most important musicians in the Episcopal Church during the first half of the twentieth century, yet his name is not widely known today. As Music Director for the Community of Mary in Peekskill, New York, he advocated for the use of plainsong as the true music of the church, and as such was diametrically opposed to those who promoted the English choral tradition. This paper explores his work with chant and various publications, and advances a theory about why his vision of a chant-filled church remains largely unfulfilled today.

Gregg Redner

Gregg Redner has been director of music at Metropolitan United Church, London, Ontario, since 2001. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from Exeter University, England, and a dual Master of Music degree in organ and harpsichord from The Juilliard School, and is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the National College of Music. He also holds the Professional Diploma in Choral Conducting. He is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists and holds the Choirmaster Certificate from that organization. In addition, he has also studied in the doctoral program in historical musicology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In April 2013, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship for Services to Music by The National College of Music & Arts, London. He is also a published author; Intellect Press published his book Deleuze and Film Music.

Rethinking Dupré

At the time of his death, more than forty years ago, Marcel Dupré was a paradox. His once-legendary playing technique was gone, hobbled by the ravages of arthritis. His approach to performance, especially that of the music of Bach and Franck, had fallen out of favor. Though several of his compositions remained staples of the repertoire, much of his oeuvre remained un-played and unknown. His recordings, many of them made in the 1950s and 1960s, as his technique was in sharp decline, were regarded as historical curiosities, even embarrassments. This paper presents a reconsideration of Marcel Dupré in light of these developments.

Thomas Chase

Thomas Chase is provost and vice-president (academic) at the University of Regina (Canada). He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Glasgow (Scotland). His research centered on theories of hyponymy and their application to the semantic classification of large samples of the English lexis, and is included in The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, published in 2009 by Oxford University Press. Holder of the licentiate diploma in organ performance from Trinity College, London, he also works on French organ literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing especially on the music of Marcel Dupré. He has performed and lectured widely, making appearances in Vancouver, Québec City, Philadelphia, New York, Newark, Seattle, and São Paulo, Brazil. In 2004, the Royal Canadian College of Organists awarded him the diploma of Fellow, honoris causa, in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to organ music as performer, scholar, and visionary.”

The Organ Chorale Preludes of Ethel Smyth

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 This paper explores the historical background, context, and significance of Ethel Smyth’s (1858–1944) organ chorale preludes. Topics include her early influence and education in Leipzig; her acquaintance with Brahms and their shared fondness of Bach; the contextualization of her organ works within the Bach revival; and ideas regarding performance practice, based on evidence found in autograph scores.

Sarah Moon

Sarah M. Moon is a doctoral candidate at Indiana University, studying under Dr. Janette Fishell. She served as the department’s associate instructor from 2009 through 2011. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music in historical performance at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, studying with James David Christie and Webb Wiggins, and received the James Hall Prize in Musicology and the Selby Harlan Houston Prize in Organ and Music Theory upon graduation. She has attended the McGill Summer Organ Academy, the Austrian Baroque Academy, and Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute, and has performed in masterclasses with David Enlow, Francesco Cera, Jürgen Essel, John Grew, and Carole Terry. On the harpsichord, she has performed in masterclasses with Lisa Goode-Crawford and Davitt Moroney. She has presented recitals in the United States and abroad, at venues including Pease Auditorium at Eastern Michigan University and Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The Hymns of Charles Albert Tindley and Roberta Evelyn Martin

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Both The Reverend Charles Albert Tindley (1851–1933), a musically untrained preacher, and Roberta Evelyn Martin (1907–1969), a classically trained concert pianist, were fascinating individuals and very much products of their times. Their hymns hold special meaning and significance for the African American community. This paper summarizes, describes, and compares Tindley’s and Martin’s overall musical styles and historical significance.

Victor Bobetsky

Victor V. Bobetsky is associate professor and director of the Teacher Education Program in Music at Hunter College (City University of New York). His career has included work as a choral director, concert pianist, organist, and public school music teacher and supervisor. Five different publishing houses publish his choral arrangements, and his articles have been published in several peer-refereed journals. He has presented numerous workshops for professional organizations and recently coordinated a symposium held at Hunter College on the origins and history of the song We Shall Overcome.

Teaching Pre-College Organ Students: Methods of the Twenty-First Century

The lack of a standardized system of music education in the U.S. poses certain problems in preparing students for entrance into university music study, in general, and for organ majors, in particular. This presentation seeks to define achievements and problems of the pre-college education in organ music, as well as the expectations of university organ departments regarding incoming students. It explores the new approaches to providing mobile, on-line resources for organ teachers working with pre-college students, and proposes a program for supporting those teachers with course materials in e-book format.

Elena Paradies

Elena Paradies, a native of Lithuania, is a doctoral student in organ performance at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, studying with Dr. Janette Fishell. She received her master’s degree in piano at the Lithuanian Music Academy and in organ at the M. Glinka State Conservatory in Nyzniy Novgorod, Russia. She has participated in organ masterclasses with Professors Kramer, Uriol, Danby, Bellotti, Biggers, and Lohmann. She taught at Klaipeda University, Lithuania, where she published methodological works on organ performance. During the same period, she taught organ at the Klaipeda Art Gymnasium. Her pupils became winners of Children International Competitions: Berlingske Tidende (Denmark) and Rudolf Lyman Organ Competition (Lithuania). While in Lithuania, she combined pedagogical work with intensive concert performances in different venues in Lithuania, Russia, Denmark, Italy, and Germany. She has given lectures on Lithuanian organ music at Greifswald University (Germany) and the Eastman School of Music.