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Last Modified on December 29, 2015

Ask Aunt Wilma

Dr. W Wilma Jenson ilma Jensen has been heralded as an outstanding recitalist, church musician and teacher. As Professor of Organ at Indiana University, among other schools, she has helped shape a generation of outstanding organists. Wilma will be honored at the 2016 Recital and Gala Benefit Reception on April 8, 2016, where she will receive the AGO Endowment Fund Distinguished Artist Award.

Aunt Wilma will answer user-submitted questions in her new online video column. Please enjoy the latest installment below!

Dear Aunt Wilma,
What kind of freedom do you think would be appropriate in the Adagio section of Franck’s Choral No. 3 in A Minor?

Have further questions or discussion about this months’ episode? What would you like Aunt Wilma to address next? Submit your comments and questions below and watch for our next installment or watch previous episodes.

Last Modified on April 28, 2016

Support the AGO on Giving Tuesday: December 1, 2015

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 was Giving Tuesday. Thank you for making the AGO part of your Giving Tuesday plans.

Contribute to the AGO

Last Modified on January 25, 2016

2015 AGO Holiday Cards Available Now

Just in time for the holidays!

The AGO’s holiday cards are now available in the AGO Store (“Guild Gifts”) section. Each packet of 20 cards includes five cards of the four different designs below. They are accompanied by 20 envelopes.

Cards are blank on the inside.

Last Modified on August 11, 2015

Claude Baker Wins First Ronald G. Pogorzelski – Lester D. Yankee Annual Competition

View the 2017 guidelines for the second Pogorzelski-Yankee Annual Competition. Application deadline is August 31, 2015.

Advertising a new prize with a $10,000 commission for a solo organ composition, the AGO’s Committee on New Music fully expected a large body of applicants, but they were nonetheless overwhelmed when they received nearly 80 applications. Committee members were even more thrilled to learn that the applicant pool was not only broad but equally deep, boasting applications from many highly accomplished and internationally recognized composers. In the end, the panel of judges—Pamela Decker, Hans-Ola Ericsson, and David Shuler, all important figures in new music and the organ—selected as the winner a renowned composer new to our instrument, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music professor of composition, Claude Baker.

Last Modified on April 29, 2015

AGO/Quimby Regional Competitions for Young Organists are Underway

The first round of the 2015 AGO/Quimby Regional Competitions for Young Organists has now ended. The competition begins at the chapter level; competitors may compete in any chapter competition held within the AGO region of their home or school. This year 27 chapters had AGO/Quimby RCYO events and those events are now over. The winners from those chapter events advance in turn to the final round, held concurrent with the seven Regional Conventions. The seven regional winners, the 2016 Rising Stars, will play next year at the AGO National Convention in Houston, TX.

Meet the 2015 chapter winners in the RCYO section!

Last Modified on March 17, 2021

Wilbur Held Dead at Age 100

Wilbur Held, a resident of Claremont, California, passed into life everlasting on March 24, 2015, at age 100. The AGO remembers with gratitude his service as a National Councillor (1968–1971) and dean of the Columbus (Ohio) Chapter. A celebration of his lifetime of music composition resulted in a Centenary Edition of his organ works, published by MorningStar Music in 2014.

Wilbur Held was born on August 20, 1914, in Des Plaines, Illinois. He enrolled at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, studying organ with Frank van Dusen and theory/composition with John Palmer, and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees there. Midway through his studies, he became Leo Sowerby’s assistant at St. James Church—an association that lasted seven years.

In 1946, Held joined the faculty at Ohio State University, where he became Professor of Organ and Church Music and head of the keyboard department. He remained in this position for more than 30 years, and was organist-choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus.

During his tenure at OSU, Held earned a Doctor of Sacred Music degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York and studied the organ with Marcel Dupré, André Marchal, Vernon de Tar, and composition with Normand Lockwood and Wallingford Riegger. His compositions are published by MorningStar, Augsburg, Concordia, Hinshaw, Beckenhorst, Sacred Music Press, and Hope. The Nativity Suite, published in 1959, has sold more than 25,000 copies.

In 1978, Wilbur Held retired to Claremont, where he has continued to be active as clinician, recitalist and composer.