Writing Grant Applications to State Arts & Humanities Councils

AGO Chapters and Conventions always need money for programs. Often untapped are grants from state and local Arts & Humanities Councils. This workshop demonstrates how to write grant applications to these agencies in order to fund concerts, workshops, and speakers.

Clavert Johnson

Calvert Johnson has performed in Japan, Mexico, and throughout the United States and Europe. He is known for performing music by underrepresented composers and early music. He has recorded for Albany, Calcante, and Raven. Hildegard, Vivace Press, ClarNan, and Wayne Leupold Editions are his publishers. Author of acclaimed volumes of Historic Organ Performance Practices (Spain, Italy, England, and the Netherlands), He has performed and lectured at many colleges and American Guild of Organists chapters. He has served as the Guild’s treasurer and dean of the Atlanta and Tulsa chapters. He has also served as president, Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society; chair of the board, ArtReach Foundation; and chair, Committee on Cultural Inclusion, College Music Society. He has successfully written grant applications in support of these organizations.

How to Pass the AGO Service Playing and Colleague Exams

Handout

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.

Teaching Organ Techniques in a Holistic Manner

Handout

How can we best prepare our students to play a vast body of organ repertoire with healthy and effective technique? This workshop seeks to answer this question by offering resources and strategies for teaching organ technique in a holistic manner. Learn methods and pedagogical tools from the current technique curriculum used at the Eastman School of Music. Topics include body wellness, use of dynamic instruments to reinforce organ practice, and ways to teach an historically appropriate technique. While this session uses a collegiate curriculum as a model, the basic concepts can be adapted for teaching students at all levels.

Anne Laver

Prizewinning organist Annie Laver has performed throughout Europe and the United States. She has been recognized with a number of awards, including second prize in the 2010 American Guild of Organists National Young Artist Competition in Organ Performance. She holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (M.M. and DMA, Organ Performance) and Brown University (B.A.). She has studied with Hans Davidsson, David Higgs, and William Porter (Eastman); Jacques van Oortmerssen (Conservatory of Amsterdam); and Mark Steinbach (Brown University). She is an instructor at the Eastman School of Music, where she teaches organ literature for graduate organ majors and healthy keyboard technique for all incoming organ students. Her current research interests focus on historical programming trends in nineteenth-century America. She is music director at two historic city churches in Rochester, The Church of St. Luke and St. Simon Cyrene (Episcopal), and St. Michael’s Church (Roman Catholic).

Church Music in Finland

Handout

Finland, a North European country of 5.5 million inhabitants, boasts high-quality church music of considerable variety, especially considering the country’s size. Nearly 80% of the Finnish people are members of the Lutheran church, and the number of church music enthusiasts is growing. This presentation gives a general overview of Finnish church music: the profession and the education of cantors, organ building, music activity in congregations, concerts, compositions, and church music for children. It also explores why the Finnish music scene has produced significant international composers, conductors, singers, and other musicians throughout its history.

Timo Kiiskinen

 Timo Kiiskinen (b. 1960), doctor of music, works as an organ and church music lecturer at Sibelius-Academy, Helsinki, Finland. Before this position, he worked for nearly twenty years as a cantor in several congregations. He has enjoyed a career in many fields: organ, improvisation, singing, choral music, education, composing, etc. In his artistic work, he now concentrates on making music with his baroque ensemble, Galantina (www.galantina.info).

Wilhelm Middelschulte: His Life and Works

Continued from 11:00 a.m. session.

Brink Bush

Brink Bush is a leading interpreter of German Romantic organ music. He has performed throughout the United States and Europe, and made his German debut at the Berliner Dom in 2001. He has performed and studied the organ works of the German-American composer Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943), and given his lecture, Wilhelm Middelschulte: His Life and Works, at Yale University, the University of Iowa, and the 2006 national convention of the American Guild of Organists. He was featured on American Public Media’s Pipedreams in a program titled Bach, Bush and Middelschulte. His New York debut was at Trinity Church Wall Street during the Virgil Fox Legacy Twenty-fifth Anniversary Concert Weekend. He is the editor of The Innermost Secrets by T. Ernest Nichols, a book about the performance technique of the late great Virgil Fox. He currently serves as organist-director of music at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.

Thomas Richner: Organist, Pianist, Teacher, and Composer

Few organists are as versatile as organist and pianist as was Thomas Richner (1911–2008). As a winner of the Naumburg Competition in 1940, he embarked on a career as a concert pianist. He taught at Columbia University and Rutgers. The New York Times hailed him as “a born Mozart player.” Largely self-taught as an organist, he was, for twenty-two years, the organist of The First Church of Christ, Scientist (The Mother Church), in Boston, and toured as an organist and pianist under Truckenbrod management. The presentation gives details of Richner’s life and a list of his compositions and recordings.

Neal Campbell

Neal Campbell has been director of music and organist of Saint Luke’s Parish in Darien, Connecticut, since 2006. Prior to that, he held church, college, and synagogue positions in Washington, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. He grew up in Washington, D.C. and attended the University of Maryland, studying with William Watkins and Paul Callaway. In 1996, he earned Doctor of Musical Arts at Manhattan School of Music, for which he wrote a dissertation on the life and works of the New York composer-organist Harold Friedell. He is a member of the New York City and Fairfield West chapters of the American Guild of Organists, and is the newsletter editor for the New York City chapter. From 2000 through 2006, he served three terms on the Guild’s national council, representing Region III.

The Lost Organ Temperaments of the Renaissance, 1400–1600

Two families of temperaments, lost until now, were predominant in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Meantone has been incorrectly viewed as the temperament in use in those centuries; it came into use later than previously thought. Widespread use of the lost temperaments is supported by both treatises and physical evidence, which indicate that they had pure thirds, and notably that the tempering was unevenly concentrated to favor the organization of the Church modes. These temperaments, together with tonal design characteristics of Renaissance organs, enhanced the now-lost practice of playing sacred vocal music on the organ.

Adam Rahbee

Adam Rahbee (b. 1976) studied organ and clavichord with Peter Sykes from an early age. He served as a board member of the Boston Clavichord Society, and has performed on clavichord at the Boston Early Music Festival and in a masterclass with Christopher Hogwood. He holds degrees in civil engineering from Northeastern University and from the Center for Transportation Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked in public transit authorities in Boston, New York, Chicago, and London, and has authored and co-authored numerous publications in that field. Scholar Mark Lindley tutored Mr. Rahbee in the mathematics of temperament. Mr. Rahbee has since prepared an extensive review of original sources on temperament from 1400 through the Baroque period. In conjunction with this research, he has begun to revive the practice of playing Renaissance vocal polyphony directly on the organ.

Wilhelm Middelschulte: His Life and Works

An overview of the life, career, and organ works of Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943). Photographs from his beginnings in Herren Werve, Germany, student years in Berlin, career years coming to Chicago in 1891, and return to Germany in 1939, and musical samples of his works will be provided.

Brink Bush

Brink Bush is a leading interpreter of German Romantic organ music. He has performed throughout the United States and Europe, and made his German debut at the Berliner Dom in 2001. He has performed and studied the organ works of the German-American composer Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943), and given his lecture, Wilhelm Middelschulte: His Life and Works, at Yale University, the University of Iowa, and the 2006 national convention of the American Guild of Organists. He was featured on American Public Media’s Pipedreams in a program titled Bach, Bush and Middelschulte. His New York debut was at Trinity Church Wall Street during the Virgil Fox Legacy Twenty-fifth Anniversary Concert Weekend. He is the editor of The Innermost Secrets by T. Ernest Nichols, a book about the performance technique of the late great Virgil Fox. He currently serves as organist-director of music at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.

Who Framed Bach’s Toccata? A Study in the Sublime

The authorship of J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 has been in doubt for a generation. Learn about Jonathan Hall’s research on Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel, whom he hypothesizes is the true composer of this enduringly popular work. The presentation covers the stylistic parallels between BWV 565 and works definitely attributed to Dretzel, the influence of the musical sublime on this work, and the broader context of South German and neighboring organ culture.

Jonathan Hall

Jonathan B. Hall, FAGO, Ch.M., is a member of the American Guild of Organists Professional Certification Committee and teaches music theory at New York University. He is music director of Central Presbyterian Church in Montclair, New Jersey, and a frequent contributor to The American Organist and other publications. His book, Calvin Hampton: A Musician Without Borders, is available from Wayne Leupold Publications. He earned the Doctor of Music degree at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University, where he studied with Marilyn Keiser and Christopher Young. He also did graduate study at the University of Chicago, earning the Master of Arts in English literature. A New York City native, he lives in Rutherford, New Jersey, and is past dean of the Brooklyn chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

The Acoustician’s Dilemma: Finding the Right Balance of Sight and Sound

An acoustical exploration of worship spaces: size, shape, layout, materials, and how various designs affect the sound of a space, often producing radically different visual vs. audible results. Practical application of acoustics fundamentals are presented for buildings with pipe organs, choirs, and participatory congregations (and the spoken word, of course). Audio-visual material include photos, drawings, computer models, and audio clips showing how acoustical science informs consulting technology as applied to virtual and real-world examples. Perhaps some light will be shed on the conundrum: “Why doesn’t it sound like it looks like it should sound?”

Dan Clayton

Dan Clayton is the principal consultant for Clayton Acoustics Group, which he established in 1992, having worked in the field since 1980. His background in acoustics, music, sound systems, technical theatre, computer technology, and pipe organ building provides a solid foundation for his work on worship and performance space projects. His firm has undertaken more than 275 projects, the majority for churches and synagogues, and many including pipe organs. Prior to founding Clayton Acoustics Group, he worked for Artec Consultants, one of the world’s premier acoustics and theatre consulting firms. He is a member of the AGO (New York City chapter), OHS (vice president 2013–2015), AIO, and several acoustics and audio professional societies. In a previous life, he spent a year working for Charlie Fisk as an apprentice organ builder. He has chaired several technical sessions on pipe organ acoustics for meetings of the Acoustical
Society of America.