Ronald G. Pogorzelski and Lester D. Yankee

Frederick Hohman’s commissioned composition, The Organ Icons, will be premiered March 3, 2019 at 4PM, at Daniel DiCicco Hall at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. For those who can’t attend in person, the recital will be streamed live on the AGO website.

Sunday, March 3, 3:00PM: Pre-concert discussion
Sunday, March 3, 4:00PM: Recital featuring Katelyn Emerson on the Pogorzelski-Yankee organ

The Organ Icons

THE ORGAN ICONS takes its inspiration from the 16th-century Parody Masses as were composed by Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525-1594), where excerpts from bawdy secular songs were incorporated into the compositional fabric of sacred choral compositions sung in the Mass.  In the Parody Mass, secular fragments were often so well concealed in sacred choral writing, that only the performers could secretly appreciate their presence in vocal phrases.  Of course, it is up to the individual as to whether parody does or does not equate with humor.  The parody technique is definitely the focus throughout THE ORGAN ICONS.  Instead of bawdy, secular tunes to parody, the composer Frederick Hohman draws upon some of the most easy-to-recognize, non-texted musical motives in all the pipe organ literature.  The composer uses them in numerous transformations, and in a diverse breadth of musical styles.  The motives are:  [1] the opening of J. S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, S. 565; [2] the figuration that opens the Toccata from Charles-Marie Widor’s Fifth Organ Symphony (the first three notes of which are, in aural terms, identical to the opening mordent of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor); [3] the pedal theme of the same Widor Toccata; [4] the opening phrase of the Reformation hymn-tune “Ein Feste Burg” (A Mighty Fortress, c. 1528), and [5] the 7-note motive from the climax of Olivier Messiaen’s (1908-1992) Transports de joie (Outburst of Joy ) from Ascension Suite.

Frederick Hohman composed THE ORGAN ICONS for the 2019 Pogorzelski-Yankee Award.  The score is published by Zarex Scores and it is available now, exclusively at www.ProOrgano.com.

More information about the Pogorzelski-Yankee Annual Competition.

 

The Carol Teti Memorial Organ Scholarship Committee at Indiana University of Pennsylvania invites you to the world premiere of Monument by Christopher LaRosa.  Monument will be performed on the Porgorzelski-Yankee organ by Dr. James Kibbie, Professor and Chair of Organ and University Organist at the University of Michigan.

The performance is scheduled for 3:00 PM– 5:00 PM in the DiCicco Hall, Room 121 Cogswell Hall on the IUP campus. 

A discussion with the composer will precede the concert at 2:00 PM.

Update: A recording of the concert  is available on YouTube

 

Ann Labounsky premiered Christopher Adler’s Construct: for Organ, March 26th at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Construct: for Organ was the commissioned piece in the second Annual Pogorzelski-Yankee Annual Competition. The concert can be viewed on YouTube at the link below.

Construct: for Organ