9:00–10:00 a.m.

Opening Worship | Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston

New Music Premieres

“Eternal Ruler of the Ceaseless Round” – SATB chorus and Organ – Libby Larsen

“March to Glory” – Organ Solo – Carol Barnett

“O Be Joyful in the Lord” – SATB Chorus and Organ – Matthew Martin

“Sortie” – Organ Solo – Daniel Roth (Commissioned by Leo Abbott)

Cathedral of the Holy Cross

The 2014 AGO national convention’s opening worship service takes place at historic Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston’s South End. The Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, Episcopal priest and author, is the featured preacher. The service includes the premiere of “Eternal Ruler of the Ceaseless Round” by Libby Larsen, “March to Glory” by Minnesota-based composer Carol Barnett, and a Jubilate Deo by Matthew Martin, sung by the Choir of Trinity Church, Copley Square, conducted by Director of Music and Organist Richard Webster accompanied by Associate Director of Music and Organist Colin Lynch. Also receiving its first performance is a Sortie by Daniel Roth of Saint Sulpice, Paris, commissioned and performed by Leo Abbott, Music Director and Organist at Holy Cross Cathedral.  Written specifically for the cathedral’s 1875 E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings organ, the work is based on the plainchant Ut queant laxis. The commission was partially funded by grants from the Boston Chapter AGO, Special Projects Advisory Committee; the District of Columbia AGO Foundation; and a donation from the Durgin family in memory of the late C. Peter Durgin.

Night Song (Compline) is the inspiration of its artistic director and founder, Daryl Bichel, Boston organist, composer, and singer.  Night Song reflects his Anglo-Catholic faith as well as his affinity for ancient and contemporary chant, Renaissance polyphony, and jazz. Participation in Night Song is through listening and silent prayer.  It is not meant to be a performance but rather a “transformance” encouraging an inner journey toward peace, clarity, centering, and spiritual renewal.  Set apart from the sights, sounds, and values of current culture, Night Song helps participants enter a mystical sphere to experience the Divine.  While Christian in nature, it speaks to a diverse cross-section of people entirely through music, punctuated by three long periods of silence. Bichel’s tri-tone chant setting for compline, his Anglican chant psalm setting, his setting of the compline hymn text “Jesus, Redeemer of the World,”, and three pieces of Renaissance polyphony are sung by Beneficia lucis, an ensemble of a dozen men led by James Busby. Jazz instrumentalists offer musical meditations and improvised accompaniments to plainchant under the direction of Ben Schwendener, an influential voice in contemporary creative music and a leading authority on George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization.

Designing Promotional Materials

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Learn tips and tricks for designing print and electronic materials, including concert programs, brochures, church bulletins and newsletters (you never know when you’ll become the Secretary!), postcards, and websites. Topics include fonts, graphics, whitespace, and general formatting. The workshop is geared towards those with intermediate computer experience. Microsoft Word and Publisher, as well as Dreamweaver, are featured, although the ideas shared are applicable to other programs on all operating systems. Handouts are available, and a sampling of print materials is available onsite for exploring additional ideas.

Heidi Kohne

Heidi Kohne is a freelance organist in Portland, Oregon, after holding the position of music director and organist (and, later, financial secretary) at Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church for eleven years. She received her Bachelor of Music from DePauw University and Master of Music from Indiana University, both in organ. She also holds Service Playing and Colleague certificates from the American Guild of Organists. She was on the steering committees for the Guild’s 2007 Region VIII convention and 2011 POE, both in Portland. She has performed at two Guild conventions: the 1996 national convention in New York City, as part of a POE workshop, and the 2013 regional convention in Salem, Oregon, her hometown, as a recitalist. Currently, she is the secretary and part-owner of a family-owned rural telephone company in Illinois. A past dean of the Portland AGO chapter, she is the current treasurer and webmistress.

Keyboard Psychohaptics: Empirical Performance and Pedagogy Research and its Applications

Recent empirical research into the complex connections between music cognition and the kinesthetics of keyboard performance promises to reshape our understanding of organ technique and keyboard pedagogy. This exciting new field of research, “keyboard psychohaptics,” seeks to merge existing scientific theories of music cognition with the study of keyboard performance kinesthetics. This workshop summarizes recent work in this field and fosters an open discussion of the important ramifications of this and future research in areas of organ performance and pedagogy. Geared toward a lay audience, this workshop is designed to engage experts and non-experts alike.

Randall Harlow

Performer-scholar Randall Harlow’s expertise includes empirical performance research, the Inuit organ tradition, hyperorgan technology, and twenty-first-century avant-garde. He has presented at conferences at Harvard University, Cornell University, Westfield Center, the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Göteborg International Organ Art Center (GOArt), and Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative Festival. Past research includes the first study of the pipe organ culture of Greenland. He currently serves on the AGO Committee for New Music Competitions and Commissions. His numerous premieres include compositions by John Anthony Lennon, Kaikhosru Sorabji, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, concertos by Petr Eben, Tilo Medek, and Giles Swayne, and works with live electronics by Steve Everett, Steven Rice, and René Uijlenhoet. His forthcoming debut recording features a transcription of Franz Liszt’s legendary Études d’Exécution Transcendante. He holds a DMA from the Eastman School of Music and is currently visiting professor of organ and music theory at the University of Northern Iowa.

Changing Stops: American Organs and Registration in the Nineteenth Century

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The nineteenth century saw the evolution of the American organ’s tonal and mechanical design from a retrospective echo of the eighteenth-century English model to a forward-looking prototype of the twentieth-century’s instruments. Overlapping British, German, and French tonal concepts coalesced into a style that was uniquely American. Organ music written by American composers followed a parallel evolution, particularly with regard to registrational practice, plainly influenced by the organs they played.

Barbara Owen

Barbara Owen holds degrees in organ performance and musicology from Westminster Choir College and Boston University. She is author of numerous articles, entries in The New Grove Dictionary of Music, and books, including The Organ in New England, E. Power Biggs: Concert Organist, The Registration of Baroque Organ Music, The Organ Music of Johannes Brahms, and The Great Organ of Methuen. She was Music Director of the First Religious Society of Newburyport (1963–2002) and Librarian of the AGO Organ Library at Boston University (1985–2012), and is currently active as organist, lecturer, and consultant. A former AGO regional councillor and dean of two chapters, she is past president of the Organ Historical Society and a trustee of Methuen Memorial Music Hall. Honors include the American Musical Instrument Society Curt Sachs Award, the Westminster Choir College Alumni Merit Citation, the Max Miller Book Award, and the Organ Historical Society Distinguished Service Award.

Discovering the Organ Library and Archives of the Boston AGO Chapter

The Organ Library of the Boston AGO Chapter is one of the largest collections of organ music in the world. Its web catalog, at www.organlibrary.org, is a searchable database that gives access to information about the more than 50,000 musical works in the collection. The Web Catalog lists the complete contents of anthologies and single-composer collections. The Library’s holdings include archives that document the careers of notable performers, among them T. Tertius Noble and E. Power Biggs. This workshop explores the practical value of the Web Catalog’s search feature and gives a virtual tour of the Library’s extensive archival holdings.

Help! My bucket is always full! Time Management for Musicians

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This workshop generously sponsored by the Worcester Chapter of the AGO

Learn time-management techniques; psychological resistance tools for sticking with tasks; methods for hierarchical focus and top-down planning; how to trust that you have listed your project steps in order to accomplish them in due time; compensatory tactics to minimize task avoidance, subconscious deferral, and perfectionistic tendencies; how to match time of day (and moods) with the tasks best performed then; and how to unleash your creative spirit to produce happy collisions of ideas that offer fresh twists for composition/improvisation, programming, and marketing.

Will Sherwood

A lifelong juggler of careers and skills, Will Sherwood has navigated the superposition of demands from the corporate world (thirty years at DEC, Compaq, and Intel in Microprocessor Design engineering management), church music (fifty years), and his own businesses (graphic design, web/database design and hosting, and commercial photography). Balancing priorities of multiple professions and home life, he has accumulated techniques and perspectives to manage a plethora of simultaneous projects and to keep focus while creative impulses emerge all over the map. As an organist, he has performed in Europe and the United States, including as guest soloist with the Boston Pops. He is dean of the Worcester chapter of the American Guild of Organists, artistic director of Mechanics Hall Organ Series, and director of music at First Unitarian, Worcester for more than twenty-five years. An avid runner, vegetarian, and organic gardener, he always has many irons in the fire.

Masterclass on Organ Improvisation

One of today’s leading concert organists and improvisateurs, Thierry Escaich coaches class participants on the art of organ improvisation in an open-lesson format.

Thierry Escaich

Internationally renowned composer, organist, and improviser Thierry Escaich is a major figure on the contemporary musical scene. Born in 1965, he has been organist at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris since 1997, having succeeded Maurice Duruflé. He appears in recitals the world over and is known for combining works in the standard organ repertoire with his own compositions and improvisations. Having previously served as composer-in-residence with the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne, and the Orchestre National de Lyon, he is currently associate composer with the Paris Chamber Orchestra. His composition catalogue boasts more than one hundred works that have been performed by leading international orchestras and artists, and he has been honored with three Victoires de la Musique awards as Composer of the Year (2003, 2006, 2011). Since 1992, he taught composition and improvisation at the Paris Conservatoire, where, as a student, he earned Premier Prix.

Church Concert Series: A How-To Guide

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Are you establishing a concert series in your church or producing a single concert, or has your existing series been in a slump and you need new ideas? Learn proven strategies for success in this workshop, which addresses: artistic programming; ticket sales; writing musician contracts; printing programs; hosting pre- and post-concert receptions; marketing and free advertising via social media and networking; CD and media sales; fundraising; and, finally, how to attract as large an audience as possible.

Brian Bogdanowitz

Brian Bogdanowitz has been a musician since the age of twelve, studying organ, piano, electronic music, and voice. He has been music director for churches of many denominations. He is a composer, arranger, accompanist, and an accomplished theater organist. He also writes scores for silent movies. He has three CDs and a DVD to his credit, some published works on the way, and a mass written for the Catholic Church using the new text. He taught elementary through high school music for fifteen years. He has appeared on public television many times playing the theater organ; he has his FCC license, had his own radio show, and has been a champion of the organ all his life. He has directed community theater musical productions, and instituted successful concert series in the churches at which he has been employed.

To MIDI or not to MIDI

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Learn about the latest MIDI advancements from a true pioneer in the field, focusing on three important aspects of MIDI: 1) organ voices; 2) non-organ voices; and 3) sequences.

Robert Tall

Robert Tall has devoted most of his life to music. Advanced studies at the University of Utah culminated in 1967 with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in music and psychology. He has been a member of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Guild of Organists since 1984, holding many positions, including dean, and was convention coordinator for the Guild’s 2004 national convention in Los Angeles. On the national level, he served as director of the Guild’s Committee on National Conventions. Since 1984, he has worked in various capacities to help create and develop digital systems that allow MIDI to communicate with classical organs. He calls the classical MIDI organ “The Modern Organ,” for which he has composed, arranged, and recorded music. He is a true pioneer in the field. His performances and lectures are highly entertaining. He enjoys sharing the magic!