An Introduction to Early Spanish Organ Music

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In recent years, pre-eighteenth-century Spanish organ music has emerged from relative obscurity, yet it remains unfamiliar to many organists. Most of this repertoire is easily played on smaller instruments (even without pedals), but some musicians feel intimidated and unsure about how to approach it. This paper introduces the three most significant Spanish organ composers of the time—Cabezón, Correa de Arauxo, and Cabanilles—and focuses on the predominant genre: the tiento. Also included are handouts listing current playing editions and a short bibliography on aspects of performance practice.

Robert Parkins

Robert Parkins is university organist and professor of the practice of music at Duke University. His publications include articles for several professional journals, including essays on performance practices in early Spanish keyboard music and the chapter on “Spain and Portugal” in Keyboard Music Before 1700 (Routledge). Among his recordings, on various labels, are Early Iberian Organ Music (Naxos) and Iberian and South German Organ Music (Calcante). Early Spanish Keyboard Music, a harpsichord LP first issued by the Musical Heritage Society in 1983, is now available again as a free MP3 download at https://sites.duke.edu/robertparkins/early-spanish-keyboard-music/. He received his degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Yale University School of Music. In 1973, he was awarded a Fulbright grant to study in Vienna. His teachers have included Gerre Hancock, Anton Heiller, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Charles Krigbaum, and Michael Schneider.

Resounding Beauty: The Organ Music of Arvo Pärt

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) is undoubtedly one of the most significant and popular composers of the twenty-first century. Around 1976, he developed a new musical technique called “tintinnabulation.” Since then, he has composed more than sixty pieces for choir and/or organ in this style, which have been embraced by both performers and listeners alike and used extensively in film, television, and social media. This workshop introduces the five works for solo organ and also addresses how to interpret the organ parts of the choral works that use organ.

Andrew Shenton

Andrew Shenton is a scholar, prize-winning author, performer, and educator based in Boston. He first studied at The Royal College of Music in London, and holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from London, Yale, and Harvard universities, respectively. He holds the Choir Training and Fellowship diplomas of the Royal College of Organists. He has toured extensively in Europe and the United States as a conductor, recitalist, and clinician, and has received numerous scholarships and awards, including Harvard’s Certificate of Distinction in Teaching and a Junior Fellowship from the Humanities Foundation at Boston University. Moving freely between musicology and ethnomusicology, his work is best subsumed under the heading “music and transcendence,” and includes several major publications on Messiaen, Pärt, and others. He is associate professor of music at Boston University, artistic director of the Boston Choral Ensemble, and director of music at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Weston, Massachusetts.

“Extra” Ornamentation in Baroque Organ Music, Especially Bach

Baroque music, the history books tell us, is highly ornate. Yet, there apparently was a contemporary performing tradition in which players routinely added more ornamentation of their own. Bach’s music was criticized in his time as having all (or most) of the ornamentation written out, leaving no choices for the performer to make, yet, today, we hear ornaments added to his music, as well. Sometimes the elaboration we hear sounds elegant and appropriate, at other times awkward and overdone; old sources all reference “good taste” as an arbiter. How does a performer decide whether or when to add ornamentation, and how much is too much? In this lecture, sources for performance practice are consulted, but study and reflection of music itself serve as a guide for recommendations, with many examples given.

Peter Sykes

Peter Sykes is associate professor of music and chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, where he teaches organ, harpsichord, performance practice, and continuo realization. He is also music director of First Church in Cambridge and director of the Keyboard Day segment of the Boston Early Music Festival. He performs extensively on the harpsichord, clavichord, and organ, and has made ten solo recordings of organ repertoire ranging from the music of Buxtehude, Couperin, and Bach, to that of Reger and Hindemith, to his own acclaimed organ transcription of Holst’s The Planets. His recently released a recording of the complete Bach harpsichord partitas on the Centaur label, and will soon release an all-Bach clavichord recording and the complete Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. He also performs and records with Boston Baroque and Aston Magna. A founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society, he is the recipient of the New England Conservatory’s 1978 Chadwick Medal and 2005 Outstanding Alumni Award, the Cambridge Society for Early Music’s 1993 Erwin Bodky Prize, and the St. Botolph Club Foundation’s 2011 Distinguished Artist Award.

Panel of New Music Commisions Composers

The Community Hymn-Sing is Alive, Well, and Coming to Your Town

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Learn how to prepare and execute a successful, engaging, community hymn-sing festival. Based on the Portland, Maine Kotzschmar Organ’s Centennial Celebration, this workshop covers guiding principles, preparations, development, and implementation. Attendees will receive the Centennial Celebration program booklet and participate in a shortened mock-dress rehearsal, as it was conducted with Portland’s choir of 200 singers. Learn how to create an uplifting experience for your choir and community, and how to have fun doing so!

John Sullivan

From 1992 through his alleged retirement in 2007, John Sullivan, FAGO, was the “music man” at Poughkeepsie Day School, where he taught elementary and middle school classroom music. He is currently the district convener for Northern New England for the American Guild of Organists, and organist and music director at St. George’s Episcopal Church, York Harbor, Maine. He has served the Guild as dean of the Central Hudson Valley and Portland chapters, coordinator of the Regions II/III convention in 2005, and the Portland chapter’s Pipe Organ Encounter in 2013. He was also on the planning committee for the Kotzschmar Community Hymn Sing in 2011. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Marist College, Poughkeepsie; a Master of Arts in music education from New York Universit;, and the Fellowship Certificate from the Guild.

Terrie Harman is director of music at Trinity Church in York Harbor, Maine, and is organist and choir director at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Rye Beach, New Hampshire. She previously served as organist and music director at South Church (Unitarian), Portsmouth, New Hampshire; organist at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and interim minister of music at Christ Church Episcopal, Exeter, New Hampshire. In addition to her music endeavors, she maintains an active law practice in Portsmouth,  representing individuals and businesses where finance and law intersect. She is a contributing member of the American Guild of Organists and holds the Guild’s credential of Associate.

The Organ Music of Ned Rorem

American composer Ned Rorem (b. 1923) has contributed an important body of work to the organ repertory. His compositions encompass a variety of styles and levels of difficulty, ranging from short, simple tonal movements in two voices through extended, virtuosic works that include bitonality and atonality. This workshop surveys Rorem’s entire corpus of solo organ music, and includes live performances of a selection of contrasting individual pieces and excerpts. A list of Rorem’s organ compositions in graded order of difficulty are provided, as well as a list of movements suitable for use in worship services.

Charles Tompkins

Charles Boyd Tompkins is university organist and professor of music at Furman University, Greenville. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan, he has performed at universities and major churches throughout the United States, and has played recitals at Notre-Dame, Paris; the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.; for the Piccolo Spoleto Music Festival, Charleston; and for national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists, Association of Anglican Musicians, Music Teachers National Association, and the College Music Society. His performances have been broadcast on American Public Media’s Pipedreams radio program. Organist of Greenville’s historic First Baptist Church since 1997, he has also served as organist and choirmaster of Hamline United Methodist Church, St. Paul, Minnesota, in a joint appointment as professor of music at Hamline University, and as organist of Christ Church Cathedral, Rochester.

Gregorian Chant for Children’s Choirs

Following a brief review of Gregorian chant basics, this workshop explores rehearsal methods and conducting techniques for introducing chant to children or any group of singers who might find the repertoire intimidating. Participants consult ancient paleographic sources and discuss how even very young singers can intuitively interpret such manuscripts to achieve a highly nuanced performance. Participants have an opportunity to conduct a demonstration choir of children from the St. Gregory Conservatory of Sacred Music, and receive a bibliography, a guide to online resources, and recommendations for further study.

Michael Olbash

Michael Olbash, CAGO, Ch.M., is the founding director of both the Stepping Stone Chant Project, whose recording Blessed Is the Ordinary (Brave Records) was released in 2009, and St. Gregory Conservatory of Sacred Music, an organization of Catholic homeschooling families dedicated to the study of Gregorian chant and sacred choral music. He holds an undergraduate degree in music from Harvard University and a Master of Arts in sacred music from St. Joseph’s College. He is president of the Southeastern New England chapter of the Choristers Guild and New England regional coordinator of the American Federation Pueri Cantores. He has presented numerous Gregorian chant lectures and workshops throughout New England and at the Midwinter Chant & Polyphony Symposium, sponsored by the Greater Columbia (South Carolina) chapter of the American Guild of Organists. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Guild’s Boston chapter and is the recipient of the 2012 S. Lewis Elmer Award.

Harmony by the Numbers – Principles of Thoroughbass Fluency

Thoroughbass was described by J. S. Bach as “the absolute foundation of music”, and the ability to play figured basses enhances sight-reading, transposing, and harmonization skills. Learn how the study of thoroughbass will enrich your understanding of harmony and develop your ability to perceive chord shapes and voice leading in your hands. We will survey teaching approaches and materials with the goal of developing this skill into a rich resource for creativity for the musician. And we will show how differences between historical practices and “modern” theory increase understanding of the connections among the mind, ear, and hand.

Dean Billmeyer

Dean Billmeyer is professor of organ, harpsichord, and music theory at the School of Music of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He has appeared more than two hundred times as organist, harpsichordist, and pianist with both the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and has more than thirty years of experience teaching figured bass. His numerous awards include prizes in the Dublin International Organ Festival Competitions in 1980 and 1988. As a collaborative performer, his recording credits include the only commercial recording of William Albright’s oratorio A Song to David, and three CDs with the Dale Warland Singers. In the past two seasons, he has given twelve organ concerts on four tours to Germany and Austria, and has lectured in Eisenach and Linz. In July 2014, he will lead masterclasses with Albrecht Koch in Saxony under the auspices of the German Silbermann Society.

Panel on the Young Organist

Richard Bunbury, moderator

This panel addresses issues pertaining to young organists in their formative years as middle, high school, undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students, as well as emerging concert artists and touring performers. A variety of issues are discussed, both musical and non-musical. The panel comprises three outstanding and accomplished young organists at various stages in their education and career: Chelsea Chen, Monica Czausz, and Raymond Nagem. Artist manager Phillip Truckenbrod offers his guidance on the performance career aspect of being an organist. The session includes time for questions and a round-table discussion.

Richard Bunbury

  Richard Bunbury, Ph.D., retired from St. Theresa of Avila Church in West Roxbury in 2012, after thirty-two years, and now serves St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Dover, Massachusetts. He is active as an organist, harpsichordist, and choral clinician. His recordings include Unchanging Love: Brass and Organ Music of Larry Thomas Bell (Albany Records). In addition to his church music, he pursues an academic career, including ten years on the faculty of The Boston Conservatory. In 2007, he was appointed to the full-time faculty in the Music Education and Musicology departments at Boston University. He is on the board of several professional organizations, regularly presents at research conferences, and writes for journals and standard reference works. He recently received a book contract from Scarecrow Press for the Dictionary for the Modern Organist.

Chelsea Chen

Organist and composer Chelsea Chen is internationally renowned for her concerts of “rare musicality” and “lovely lyrical grandeur,” and a compositional style that is “charming” and “irresistible” (Los Angeles Times). She has performed in venues around the world including Singapore’s Esplanade, Moldova’s National Organ Hall, Los Angeles’s Disney Hall and Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, and her music has been aired on CNN.com, Pipedreams from American Public Media, Hawaii Public Radio, and Taiwan’s Good News Radio. Ms. Chen studied at Juilliard and Yale with Paul Jacobs, John Weaver, and Thomas Murray, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan. In 2013, she and German composer/violinist Viviane Waschbüsch formed their transatlantic VivaChe Duo to champion new chamber music for violin and organ. Ms. Chen is Artist-in-Residence/Organist at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida.

Monica Czausz

Monica Czausz is a rising junior at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where she studies with renowned professor Ken Cowan. She is organ scholar at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) in Houston, where she works with Robert Simpson and Bruce Power, and assists with the highly acclaimed Treble and Cathedral Choirs. She is the First Place winner of the 2013 William C. Hall Competition (San Antonio), the 2012 National L. Cameron Johnson Competition (Storrs, Conn.), and the 2011 National Oklahoma City University Competition. She has performed at notable venues in the United States, including Verizon Hall (Philadelphia), Cathedral of St. Joseph (Hartford), Edythe Bates Old Recital Hall (Houston), Christ Church Cathedral (Springfield, Mass.), and Macy’s Wanamaker Grant Court (Philadelphia). Before attending Rice University, she worked as organist and choir director at St. Paul’s Church (Episcopal) in Holyoke, Mass., where she led a small but enthusiastic music program.

Ray Nagem

Raymond Nagem is associate organist at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York, and a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School, where he teaches the survey course in organ literature. He is a student of Paul Jacobs. A native of Medford, Massachusetts, he began organ lessons with John Dunn while attending the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School. As the recipient of the first American Friends of Eton College Scholarship, he spent a year in England, studying music at Eton College with Alastair Sampson. He earned his B.A. from Yale University, where he studied with Thomas Murray, and his M.M. from Juilliard. He has held positions at The Parish of All Saints, Ashmont in Boston; Trinity Church, Southport, Connecticut; and Christ Church, New Haven.

Phillip Truckenbrod

Phillip Truckenbrod has represented American and European concert organists since 1967, and his company has exhibited at least once annually at national and regional American Guild of Organists conventions since 1971. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa and of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and for a number of years worked as arts and music editor and critic at The Star-Ledger, Newark, then the seventh largest daily newspaper in the country.

The Professional Organist as Successful Communicator

In times of economic turmoil, in which churches are closing, positions “downsized,” and salaries and job descriptions often lacking, the organist of 2014 can be helped by tuning-up and improving communication and negotiation skills. This workshop focuses on communication skills useful in navigating organists’ professional relationships. Clergy, choirs, music committees, parishioners, volunteer boards, colleagues, and agents are among a long list of professional relationships that the organist faces. This workshop reviews practical skills and approaches for communicating, as well as internal skills, that help the organist remain calm, focused, and well-composed.

David Christopher Bellville

David Christopher Bellville, Ph.D., is a pastoral psychotherapist and consultant. A graduate of Boston University Graduate School, he also holds degrees from B.U. School of Theology and General Theological Seminary in New York City, and two degrees from Michigan State University. He has led workshops on reducing anxiety and stress (as at this convention), and other topics, for American Guild of Organists chapters and its 1990 national convention, and for churches, religious communities, and numerous professional groups in the United States and South America. He has an active practice in Brunswick, Maine. He is also married to an organist and is a clergy person himself.