AGO & Organ News

The American Guild of Organists (AGO) has been awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support educational programs and career development for organists, choral conductors, and composers in 2017, including new music commissioned for the AGO National Convention in Kansas City, MO July 2–6, 2018. While the AGO has received regular support from the NEA since 2005, the $25,000 “Art Works” award is the largest grant the arts endowment has ever given to the Guild.

“This grant covers the full breadth of the AGO’s educational activities for current and prospective members as well as our programs of outreach to the public,” stated AGO Executive Director James Thomashower. “The NEA’s funding sends an uplifting message to the entire organ community: our instrument and its music are vitally important to the American people. The award validates the AGO’s ongoing efforts to ensure that music for the organ is created by talented composers, performed by skilled musicians, and appreciated by the widest audience possible. It is an honor for the Guild to be recognized by the NEA, the most prestigious independent federal agency in the United States responsible for funding and promoting artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation.”

In December, the NEA announced that it will award more than $30 million to nonprofit organizations and individuals across the country in 2017. Nearly $26 million of that will be for Art Works, the NEA’s largest funding category. Art Works focuses on the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts. The NEA will give 970 Art Works grants to organizations in 48 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017.

“The arts are for all of us, and by supporting these projects, the National Endowment for the Arts is providing more opportunities for the public to engage with the arts,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “Whether in a theater, a town square, a museum, or a hospital, the arts are everywhere and make our lives richer.”

For a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grant support, please visit the NEA website.

The AGO has begun developing a series of 30 videos intended to teach basic skills and techniques to beginning organists including pianists who are making a transition to organ-playing. The videos will be available on the AGO ‘s YouTube channel. More information will be forthcoming shortly. In the meantime, here are the working titles of the videos:

1. A pianist’s first steps in making the transition to the organ. The concept of 8´ pitch.
2. The architecture and layout of the American pipe organ. Two-manual organs.
Turning the organ on. The coupling of manuals.
3. Larger American organs of three or more manuals. Coupling manuals to pedal. Divisions under dynamic expression.
4. The organ score. Manual and pedal compasses. Varieties of pedalboards.
5. Families of organ tone. Naming the sounds and stops. Ranges of organ pitch.
6. Two basic contrasting organ registrations for leading hymn singing.
7. Using general and local pistons (thumb pistons and toe studs) to change registrations quickly.
8. Traditional use of mutation stops, the cornet, and mixture stops.
9. The crescendo pedal. Where is it? What does it do? When is it useful?
10. Does the shoe fit? A discussion of organ shoes.
11. Are you comfortable? A discussion of best bench height.
12. Basics of good pedaling. A few pointers from various organ methods.
13.-18. A keyboardist’s guide to leading hymns with the organ.
1)The use of organ pedals when adapting a hymn to the organ.
2)Varying the organ registrations in hymn playing.
3)The beauty of simple hymnal harmony. Using only time and touch to shape melody.
4)The power of interpreting hymn texts with alternate harmony.
5)The why, when, and how of key modulation in hymn playing.
6)Responding to classic prose forms in hymn texts.
19. Getting a shy congregation to sing. Elastic tempo and variety of touch in hymn playing.
20. Pointers for hymn introductions, and on handling the time between stanzas.
21. Love that text but not that tune, and vice versa. A guide for using metrical indexes for finding alternate hymn tunes.
22. A little traveling music. Spinning out a liturgical procession and filling awkward silences. Is this called organ improvisation?
23. To Amen or not to Amen, and other traditional conventions in American hymn singing.
24. Varied textures in playing hymns. Soloing out melodies and symphonic hymn registration.
25. Getting a MIDI-capable instrument to play through the organ console.
26. The art of the organ substitute. Tips on adjusting to changing acoustics and unfamiliar congregations.
27. Getting around on the vintage Hammond B-3 and C-3 electronic organs.
28. Tips for adapting to historic replica organs and exotic tunings during worship.
29. Customizing your own American-style crescendo pedal.
30. Adapting folk, guitar, piano, and other non-organ music to the organ.

Organists Marie-Louise Langlais, Eileen Guenther, Henry Lowe and Michael Britt will present a concert honoring organist John C. Walker, immediate past president of the American Guild of Organists, on Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 3 p.m. at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, MD. They will be playing the church’s 1931 Skinner organ, Opus 839 (IV/45). Three choral works composed in Walker’s honor will also be performed.

The program includes works by Jean Langlais, Jehan Alain, Maurice Duruflé, Bruce Simonds, Robert Hebble, and Joe Utterback. Brown Memorial’s Chancel Choir will perform pieces by Daniel Gawthrop, Alfred Fedak and JoyAnne Amani Richardson. John Walker and JoyAnne Richardson, who directed the gospel choir when the two of them served together at The Riverside Church in New York City, will play organ and piano on the concert’s concluding work..

Marie-Louise Langlais was co-titular organist of the Basilica of Sainte Clotilde for many years with Jean Langlais, the renowned composer and organist. Widely celebrated for her “intensely musical playing, full of passion, and for her remarkable technique,” Mme Langlais has performed, lectured, and served on organ competition juries around the world. Emeritus Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatory of Music, she recently published Jean Langlais Remembered, a musical biography of her late husband.

Eileen Guenther, three-term president of the AGO, is Professor of Church Music at Wesley Theological Seminary where she is also Director of Chapel Music. She has performed recitals throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, and also conducts workshops on global music. Author of Rivals or a Team: Clergy-Musician Relationships in the 21st Century (2012), Dr. Guenther recently published In Their Own Words: Slave Life and the Power of Spirituals.

Henry Lowe recently retired after 32 years as Director of Music at Church of the Redeemer in Baltimore. His career as a church musician, recitalist, clinician, conductor and teacher has taken him to many parts of the this country and Europe. He has presented recitals at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Former dean of both the Cincinnati and Baltimore Chapters of the AGO, he also taught organ at Towson University and Goucher College.

Michael Britt is a frequent recitalist of classical organ music who has performed at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. He also performs theater organ music and is in demand nationally as a silent film accompanist. He recently accompanied “Phantom of the Opera” at Princeton University Chapel for the tenth time. In addition to being Minister of Music at Brown Memorial Park Avenue Church, Britt also serves as Assistant Organist at Beth-El Congregation and teaches at the Community College of Baltimore County. He is former Dean of the Baltimore AGO chapter.

John Walker is Minister of Music Emeritus at Brown Memorial, having earlier served at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburg and The Riverside Church in New York City. He is a member of the organ faculty at Peabody Conservatory of Music and distinguished Visiting Professor of Organ at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He has performed in the most distinguished venues throughout North America, Europe and Asia; he also has a noted discography. Before becoming AGO president, he served in many other capacities in the organization, including directing the Task Force which developed the first Pipe Organ Encounters.

Tickets to this Tiffany Series event are $20 general admission, $50 Patron level, and $10 students. Parking and shuttle service will be available. For more information, call 410-523-1542 or email.

The Tiffany Series is named for the historic Bolton Hill church’s unparalleled collection of 11 original Tiffany stained glass windows. Brown Memorial is wheelchair accessible.