The Muse's Voice: A Musforum Conference, June 19-20, 2015, New York City

Gail Archer is an international concert organist, recording artist, choral conductor, and lecturer who draws attention to composer anniversaries or musical themes with her annual recital series. She was the first American woman to play the complete works of Olivier Messiaen for the centennial of the composer’s birth in 2008; Time Out New York recognized the Messiaen cycle as “Best of 2008” of classical music and opera. Her recordings include her September 2017 CD, A Russian Journey and The Muse’s Voice. Archer’s 2017 European tour took her to Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. She is the founder of Musforum, an international network for women organists, college organist at Vassar College, and director of the music program at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she conducts the Barnard-Columbia Chorus. Archer serves as director of the artist and young organ artist recitals at historic Central Synagogue, New York, New York.

Musforum (www.musforum.org), a network for women organists, held its second conference, Prairie Voices, in Omaha, Nebraska, June 8 and 9, 2017. Omaha was the conference site because it is the only American city in which a woman serves as music director at both the Catholic and Episcopal cathedrals, Marie Rubis Bauer (at St. Cecilia Catholic Cathedral) and Marty Wheeler Burnett (at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral), respectively. Women organists, composers, and conductors from across the United States were the featured artists­­—from age 12, Gianna Manhart, the youngest student at the St. Cecilia Institute, Omaha, to age 88, the remarkable Wilma Jensen, who was our keynote speaker. The events took place at St. Cecilia Catholic Cathedral, Dundee Presbyterian Church, and First United Methodist Church in Omaha. The conference was made possible, in part, by a generous grant from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York.

Thursday, June 8

The events began on Thursday morning, June 8, with a program of early Dutch and German music combined with contemporary music by women composers played by Rhonda Sider Edgington from Holland, Michigan. Edgington is the organist and assistant music director at Hope Church and a staff accompanist at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. The Pasi organ at St. Cecilia Cathedral is really two organs, a mean-tone instrument and a well-tempered instrument on which it is possible to play a program in ancient and modern temperaments. The program opened with the variation set by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Est-ce Mars, followed by Intabulation on Alleluja, laudem dicte Deo nostro by Heinrich Scheidemann and Praeludium in G Minor, BuxWV 150, by Dieterich Buxtehude. Edgington made these works come alive with her precise articulation and colorful registrations, which were heightened by the meantone tuning.

She then turned to living women composers for the remainder of the hour: Patricia Van Ness, Cecilia McDowall, Rachel Laurin, and Margaret Sandresky. The Laurin pieces, “Fugue on a Bird’s Song” and “Scherzetto,” were taken from the Twelve Short Pieces, op. 64 (2012). The light, vivacious gestures in both pieces reached to the highest range of the keyboard and delighted the audience with their humor and rhythmic verve. Sandresky’s “And David danced before the ark of the Lord,” from Five Sacred Dances (1998), drew a fiery and powerful performance from the recitalist.

Chamber music played by the women’s ensemble, I, the Siren—Darci Gamerl, oboe, and Stacie Haneline, piano—was featured in the late morning performance in the nave of St. Cecilia Cathedral. The musicians presented works by Bach, Mahler, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, and Alyssa Morris. The splendid ensemble playing, sparkling dialogue, and nuanced phrasing were such a pleasure for the audience, as these Omaha-based musicians have collaborated for many years.

Our keynote address was provided by Wilma Jensen from Nashville, Tennessee. Jensen was the music director at St. George Episcopal Church in Nashville and taught organ at Oklahoma City University, Vanderbilt University, and Indiana University. Her lively and amusing address focused upon healthy keyboard technique. She emphasized, “Each finger swings freely from the knuckle to the key, while the thumb rotates to the key to play. The thumb does not lift to play. Separating the action of the thumb from that of the fingers is often one of the most difficult tasks for keyboardists.” She demonstrated at both the organ and the piano, as we were in a classroom at the St. Cecilia Institute adjacent to the cathedral, which has a fine small pipe organ and a piano. The organ was built in 2000 by Darron Wissinger of New Hampshire and revoiced by Hal Gober in 2009 for its installation at St. Cecilia. 

Jensen encouraged organists to practice wisely using a gradual method for tempo. “Once I know a passage thoroughly at a slow tempo, I take it a little faster, generally only two metronome numbers, so that the mind and hands hardly notice the change. At each playing I increase the speed by two metronome numbers until I reach a limit where I can still deliver the passage accurately but can’t exceed the speed. There I stop.” Jensen also drew attention to resources for ordinary touch of Baroque keyboard music and cited texts by Quentin Faulkner, J. S. Bach’s Keyboard Technique: A Historical Introduction, and Organ Technique Modern and Early by George Ritchie and George Stauffer, as well as texts by Jon Laukvik, John Brock, and Sandra Soderlund.

Musforum provided luncheon each day and a wine and cheese gathering on Thursday afternoon. These social occasions are as important as the musical events, as they give everyone a chance to get to know each other and discuss our work in a relaxed and informal setting. One of the problems for women who are organists is that we are separated by great distances and do not have regular opportunity for the conversations that we enjoyed at the conference. The conference schedule is deliberately arranged so that we all attend every event and we all have sufficient time to meet our colleagues.

Organist Elisa Bickers and the Bach Aria Soloists from Kansas City performed on Thursday afternoon in St. Cecilia Cathedral. Soprano Sarah Tannehill Anderson joined the violinists and organist in arias by Claudio Monteverdi, Si dolce è’l tormento, and G. F. Handel, Da Tempeste il legno infrante from the cantata Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17. Bickers performed the Variations on John Dowland’s ‘The Prince of Denmark’s Galliard’ by Samuel Scheidt and Toccata in F Major, BuxWV 156, by Dieterich Buxehude. The varied program also included chorale preludes, Herzlich tut mich verlangen by Pamela Decker and Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt by Cecilia McDowall. The concert concluded with Prayer by Olufela Sowande and Nun danket alle Gott by Egil Hovland. The rich variety of the repertoire was the hallmark of the programming, and this factor drew many people from the general Omaha community to all of the performances. 

The afternoon session concluded with a reading session: “Women Composers for Lent” presented by Stacie Lightner. Lightner serves as director of music at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church in Annapolis, Maryland. During the workshop, we sang a number of the choral works listed in the extensive 12-page resource guide, which included both choral music and organ literature appropriate for the liturgical season of Lent, all composed by women.

The St. Cecilia Cathedral Choir under the direction of Marie Rubis Bauer presented an inspiring evening concert, which included choral music by Omaha composers J. Michael McCabe, Marty Wheeler Burnett, and Marie Rubis Bauer. Music arranged by Alice Parker, Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal and Be Thou My Vision, as well as the Messe pour deux voix egales, op. 167, by Cécile Chaminade were featured in the program. Rubis Bauer played Ave Maris Stella by Girolamo Cavazzoni as the prelude and “Dialogue sur les grandes Jeux” from Ave Maris Stella by Nicolas De Grigny as the postlude. Certainly one of the most inspiring moments was provided by 12-year old Gianna Manhart playing Galleries ancient by Dennis Janzer. The beautiful music from the Latin Office, “O Caecilia felix! O felix Caecilia!” began the concert, and the audience sang Magnificat on the Fifth Tone by Kevin C. Vogt at the conclusion.

Friday, June 9

Our Friday morning session at Dundee Presbyterian Church began with a fine organ recital by Chelsea Vaught, music director and organist at First Presbyterian Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, followed by a lecture/recital by Catherine Rodland on the choir and organ traditions at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota. The morning concluded with three young women organists currently enrolled in graduate study, playing a joint recital, with half hour segments for each performer: Sarah Johnson at Boston University, Yumiko Tatsuta at Indiana University, and Shayla Van Hal at the University of Kansas. The afternoon session began with a lively lecture on the more than 500 hymn texts written by Rae E. Whitney, presented by Marty Wheeler Burnett, who researched these texts for her doctoral dissertation. We learned about Whitney’s fascinating life story and sang a number of the hymn settings of her poetry together. There was also a professional quartet of singers who performed additional musical works set to Whitney poetry. Burnett emphasized the importance of including women’s voices when planning music for worship.

The afternoon concluded with a duo organ performance by Melody Steel and Ann Marie Rigler. Steel played Sanctuary by Gwyneth Walker as a solo selection, and Rigler performed Psalm 151 by Emma Lou Diemer as a soloist. The duo organist repertoire was powerful and very exciting: Variations on Veni Creator Spiritus by David Briggs, Martyrs: Dialogues on a Scottish Psalm-tune, op. 73, by Kenneth Leighton, and Rhapsody for Organ Duo by Naji Hakim. 

The gala final recital took place on Friday evening at St. Cecilia Cathedral featuring Lynne Davis, Crista Miller, and myself, Gail Archer. A well-known specialist in French repertoire, Davis began with “Offertoire sur les Grand Jeux” from the Mass of the Convents by François Couperin, followed with Choral II in Si mineur by César Franck, and concluded with Te Deum by Jeanne Demessieux. My own program featured Ceremonies Suite by Jennifer Higdon, Prelude and Fugue by Alexander Shaversaschvili, and Power Dance by Joan Tower. Tower and I worked together on this piece on the organ at Vassar College for nearly a year, and it was a great pleasure to play the work at this event. Crista Miller concluded the concert with works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Prelude in G Major, Pamela Decker, “Ubi Caritas” from Retablos, Brenda Portman, Trio on St. Helena, and Naji Hakim, “Rags” from Esquisses Persanes.

All women, no matter what age or point in their professional career, are welcome in the Musforum network. Women organists are cordially invited to join us by sending me an email: [email protected], and I will add your name to the free listserve. Women need to move forward in the field on the basis of merit: their education, skill, and accomplishment. The world will be enriched by our musical gifts, and we will lift up hearts and minds by the beauty and powerful inspiration of our song.

ARTEK goes German

Two days before Johann Sebastian Bach’s 330th birthday, while exercising my daily morning custom of reading The New York Times I was happily surprised to see a picture of a very ornate harpsichord being played by Gwendolyn Toth. What a pleasant way to begin a March morning, I thought. Accompanying the photo was a Critic’s Notebook piece, “Plucking Away, 300 Years Later,” by James R. Oestreich. A quick scan of his essay convinced me that I wanted to know more details about this festival of German music played on four Germanic harpsichords, so I contacted Dr. Toth, who responded to my request with an electronic copy of the 16-page program booklet as well as the illustrations that brighten this column.

Gwen Toth founded ARTEK (The Art of the Early Keyboard) in 1986. Various programs under her direction have been lauded in the New York media, and several of us in Texas have benefitted from the generosity of Toth and her husband Dongsok Shin, who have shared difficult-to-find replacement parts for at least two of our Willard Martin harpsichords (one of them a Saxon-style instrument). So it was with particular empathy that I read the programs and extensive notes from this festival and forthwith decided that there was much of interest to share with the readers of this column.

To celebrate Toth’s new two-manual harpsichord, a close copy by John Phillips of the celebrated 1739 instrument made by Johann Heinrich Gräbner the Younger of Dresden, Toth devised two concert programs plus several associated events to occur on Friday and Saturday, March 13 and 14. One might be quite certain that Johann Sebastian Bach would have approved of these particular dates, especially the second!* The venue was New York’s Immanuel Lutheran Church, where Toth is the music director (in addition to her positions as orchestra director at Manhattan College and harpsichord teacher at Montclair State University). 

The first program comprised the complete second part of Bach’s Clavierübung, but with a most interesting twist: because the Gräbner instrument has an expanded bass range (the lowest note is DD rather than the usual FF), Toth decided to play the French Ouverture in the key of G minor rather than its published key of B minor, a downward transposition of a major third. As she wrote in notes to the program, “ . . . Ultimately one faces the question of, having the extra lower notes, how does one make use of them?” Since the composer himself had made a downward transposition from its original C minor to B minor for the published version of his monumental work, it seemed to be an apt way to revel in the magnificent possibilities provided by the added bass strings. Following intermission came the Italian Concerto, but in this case an attempt at a similar downward change of key did not prove satisfactory, so Toth decided to play it in its usual key of F, thereby “displaying the beautiful sound of the high range of the instrument” as well.

Master harpsichord builder John Phillips continued the festive evening with a question and answer session. In his eloquent written notes to the program, Phillips provided two possible explanations for the unusual range of this harpsichord’s prototype: 

If it were intended for ecclesiastical use the low DD would, at Kammerton, sound the same pitch as the CC (16-foot C) of the organ at Chorton—a whole step higher. If it were to be played in consort with the organ, including its 16-foot range, there would be no need to go below DD. Since it was tuned to Kammerton, it could still play with other instruments without transposing. If the intended use were for the theater orchestra, the low DD would be the same as the lowest note of a violone in the most usual tuning. In either case, this instrument would have excelled as a ‘big band’ continuo harpsichord. 

Additionally Phillips mentioned his surprise that he had produced a total of 13 Gräbner-inspired harpsichords since the first commission for one in 1998: 

Even though the first copy of the 1739 instrument was musically revelatory to many, I assumed that no one else would be interested in such a big . . . and heavy harpsichord. I was wrong. Musicians took to them. The one before you is my third 1739 . . . and there are ten more Gräbners of other somewhat smaller varieties as well.

Events on day two began in the afternoon with several free workshops: the first was concerned with “Concepts of Early Keyboard Technique,” led by Dr. Toth, who utilized both a harpsichord and a clavichord, a favorite pedagogical instrument in the 18th century, for her presentation. The second workshop, “Lessons in Harpsichord Quilling and Maintenance,” was guided by Dongsok Shin, who serves as harpsichord technician for both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Opera.

At eight that evening a concert of music for multiple harpsichords engaged four distinguished New York harpsichordists: Bradley Brookshire (assistant conductor and harpsichordist at the Metropolitan Opera), Stephen Rapp (assistant organist at St. Patrick’s Cathedral), Gwendolyn Toth, and Dongsok Shin. The music, most of it rarely heard in concert, included Concerto in D for two harpsichords by Joseph Schuster (Toth and Shin), Duetto in C Minor for two harpsichords by Müthel (Shin and Rapp), Sonata in G Minor [Allegro] by Mattheson (Brookshire and Shin), Sonata in F for two harpsichords by W. F. Bach (Rapp and Brookshire), Concerto in B-flat Major for two harpsichords by Graun (Toth and Rapp), and, for the grand finale, Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1065, by J. S. Bach, with the entire ensemble, including ARTEK strings.

Four diverse Germanic instruments by three builders provided appropriate keyboards for this stylish presentation. In addition to John Phillips’s magnum opus, Owen Daly of Salem, Oregon, contributed his newly finished harpsichord based on one built in Hamburg in 1728 by Christian Zell. Daly’s harpsichord, with a compass of FF–d′′′, has a classic disposition of three stops: 8′, 8′, and 4′ registers, with manual coupler and buff stop. Of special interest is its stringing in Stephen Birkett’s historically produced iron and brass wire. 

Philip Tyre was the builder of Bradley Brookshire’s 1990 harpsichord. Originally a single-manual instrument (GG–e′′′) with two 8′ stops and a 4′ register, strung in brass throughout, its prototype was a harpsichord built in 1738 by the organ-maker Christian Vater of Hannover. In 2005 Willard Martin added a buff stop and enlarged the case to accommodate a second keyboard. 

The fourth harpsichord, owned by New Jersey resident Edward Brewer (an Oberlin classmate of mine, who often transported me as a passenger on his motorcycle during our junior year in Salzburg), was built by Thomas and Barbara Wolf of The Plains, Virginia, and is also a two-manual instrument based on Vater’s single-manual harpsichord, “but with rather different sound results,” according to Dongsok Shin’s note in the program.

Director Toth ended the program note to her solo recital with these wise words, “Playing Bach on a German harpsichord has been truly a revelation. Both the orchestral quality of the full sound and the clarity of the individual notes serve his music in a way no French harpsichord (for many years the instrument of choice for Bach) can ever match. A perfect marriage of instrument and repertoire.” 

I would concur, having experienced one of John Phillips’s instruments slightly more than a decade ago during the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society’s conclave at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. There, on our quest to hear Bach as Bach might have heard Bach, we tried to absorb into our minds and ears not only the fullness of sounds produced by the magnificent nine-foot harpsichord, but also those created through the quiet beauty of Willard Martin’s Lautenwerk, a gut-strung keyboard instrument; and those dynamically controllable sounds made possible through David Sutherland’s fascinating recreation of a Dresden fortepiano: all three instruments based on prototypes that Bach almost certainly knew. Many years earlier, Isolde Ahlgrimm had noted wryly that “Bach probably would have been quite surprised to hear his music played ‘authentically’ on the ubiquitous French-style instruments of the mid-20th-century harpsichord revival, lovely as they are.”

I daresay that ARTEK’s German odyssey is yet one more hopeful journey in the ever-ongoing attempt to bring more historical accuracy into our performances of music from the past.

* Should you have difficulty making sense of this sentence, please e-mail me at [email protected] or write to Dr. Larry Palmer, 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, Texas 75229. I will be happy to send an explanation. As always, news items and comments are welcome.

The Diapason’s inaugural “20 under 30” selections came from a field that included over 100 nominations, a response that surprised and delighted us. The nominees were evaluated based upon information provided in the nominations; we selected only from those who had been nominated. We looked for evidence of such things as career advancement, technical skills, and creativity and innovation; we considered a nominee’s awards and competition prizes, publications and compositions, and significant positions in the mix. Our selections were not limited merely to organists but reflect the breadth of our editorial scope, which includes the organ, harpsichord, carillon, and church music. Here we present the winners’ backgrounds and accomplishments, and then have them tell us something interesting about themselves, and about their achievements, goals, and aspirations.

Since we had to decline multiple nominees for each one we chose, selecting only 20 from a field of very worthy nominees was quite a challenge. We do urge you to participate in the “20 under 30” awards next year—a person must be nominated in order to be selected. 

A native of Michigan, Linda Dzuris is professor of music and university carillonneur at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. She is also organist at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Simpsonville, South Carolina.

On the last day of September in this, the University of Michigan’s bicentennial year, a conference on the music of Louis Vierne, presented by the university in partnership with the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Detroit, was dedicated to concert organist and pedagogue, Robert Glasgow. It was a unique opportunity to hear all six of Vierne’s organ symphonies, several of his character pieces and chamber music, plus works by Vierne’s mentors and students.

September 30

The conference began on the evening of September 30 with the final round of the university’s sixth annual Organ Improvisation Competition at First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor. Competitors were given two themes and required to improvise a three-movement symphonic suite on the church’s three-manual, 42-rank Schoenstein organ. 

First prize was awarded to Matt Gender, a Doctor of Musical Arts student at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, where he has studied with James Higdon and Michael Bauer. Second prize and the audience prize were awarded to Joe Balestreri, director of music for the Archdiocese of Detroit and episcopal music director at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Detroit, as well as a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2015. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organ performance from the University of Michigan, where he studied with James Kibbie. Third prize was awarded to Sandor Kadar, organist at First Presbyterian Church of West Chester, Pennsylvania. In addition to studying improvisation privately with Jeffrey Brillhart, he holds degrees in organ performance, sacred music, and conducting from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria.  

The judges were Ellen Rowe, professor of jazz and contemporary improvisation, University of Michigan; Edward Maki-Schramm, director of music, Christ Church, Detroit, and conductor of the Community Chorus of Detroit; and Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, hymn festival leader, workshop clinician, and author of music literacy books for children, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Sponsorship was provided by the American Center for Church Music, First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, and the Ann Arbor Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. 

October 1

“Music of Vierne for Choir, Voice, Brass, & Organ” was the title of the opening concert on Sunday, October 1, in the historic Norman Gothic stone edifice of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit. Utilizing both the church’s original 1925 three-manual, 50-rank Casavant Frères organ and its 2003 two-manual, 29-rank Austin organ, the Detroit Archdiocesan Chorus and the Cathedral Singers (Cathedral Church of St. Paul) joined their voices under the direction of Jeremy David Tarrant to present Vierne’s Messe solennelle, op. 16. Trumpets, trombones, and timpani combined with Naki Sung Kripfgans at the organ for the performance of Marche triomphale du centenaire de Napoléon I, op. 46, conducted by Elliot Tackitt. Andrew Meagher accompanied soprano Kathy Meagher in the performance of Les Angélus, op. 57. Vierne’s Tantum ergo, op. 2, and Carillon de Westminster, op. 54, no. 6, were heard before the program moved to the music of other Notre Dame musicians: Ubi caritas by Maurice Duruflé and Olivier Latry’s Salve Regina with Joe Balistreri at the organ.

Later that evening, concert attendees traveled down Woodward Avenue to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul for a gala organ recital by Martin Jean, a former student of Robert Glasgow, current professor at Yale University, and highly acclaimed American organist. Employing all the nuances available from the Opus 23 organ by D. F. Pilzecker & Company of Toledo, Ohio (with several rescaled/revoiced stops from the 1923 Austin and 1951 Casavant instruments), Dr. Jean gave eloquent performances of Widor’s Symphonie Romane, op. 73, and Vierne’s Symphonie V in A Minor, op.47.

October 2

Monday commenced with a full morning of presentations at First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor that were thoughtfully constructed, earnestly delivered, and well received. Of particular interest to any who knew or heard Robert Glasgow perform was the announcement of plans for making available extant recordings of past performances, many currently on reel-to-reel tape. Jeremy David Tarrant, former student of Professor Glasgow at the University of Michigan and later executor of his mentor and friend’s estate, would like to release a two-CD set that would include recordings made from a 1995 Organ Historical Society Convention recital in Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, among other select events. Another goal is to have concerts available for download on a Robert Glasgow website. 

Mr. Tarrant also presented a survey of Vierne’s Pièces de fantaisie, which included live performance of several of the pieces. Jeremy David Tarrant serves as organist and choirmaster of the Cathedral of St. Paul, Detroit, adjunct professor of organ at Oakland University, and is an active concert organist. The University of Michigan Department of Organ especially recognized him for initiating the partnership between the cathedral and the university that brought this conference concept to realization. 

Jason Alden of Alden Organ Services served on the faculty of Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois, and Concordia University, Ann Arbor, Michigan. His performance and commentary had us take a closer look at Vierne’s 24 pièces en style libre, while later in the day he gave us a skillful rendering of the composer’s Symphonie IV in G Minor, op. 32.

“Our Vierne” was a thought-provoking session led by Lawrence Archbold, professor of music emeritus, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, that considered Louis Vierne and his output from the viewpoint of various sub-categories of old and new musicology. History and values for “Old Musicology” covered aspects of biography, score editing, musical form, genealogy, and style analysis. “New Musicology” pushed us further as we considered how music is used and issues such as feminist critique, nationalism, personal stories, and liminal spaces. Good thesis topics.

After some midday free time, the 71 conference registrants and 20 students were invited to watch Vincent Dubois, the newest appointed titular organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, teach a masterclass at Hill Auditorium on the Ann Arbor campus. Clair de lune, op. 53, no. 5; Impromptu, op. 54, no. 2; and Lied, op. 31, no.17, were played by undergraduates Julian Goods, Jennifer Shin, and Matthew Durham, respectively. Much attention was paid to the musical shaping of phrases within all pieces, and each student responded well to the animated coaching given by Monsieur Dubois.

“Gems of the Flemish Romantic with an American Interlude” filled the air around Burton Memorial Tower as the sun began to set. The Charles Baird Carillon consists of 53 bells weighing about 43 tons and was played beautifully with tremolo galore by Jeremy Chesman, university carillonist and professor of music at Missouri State University, Springfield. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he was the first person to earn a Master of Music degree in carillon performance.  

Of course, no university conference would be complete without a faculty recital, and we were not disappointed with the evening’s musical offering on the Frieze Memorial Organ, a Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner instrument, since rebuilt, in Hill Auditorium. There are 120 ranks (12 from the 1893 organ built by Farrand & Votey Company of Detroit for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago) with four additional ranks available in the Echo division. James Kibbie, the chair of the organ department and university organist, performed Vierne’s Symphonie VI in B Minor, op. 59, with a mastery of expressiveness and precision. Associate professor of organ Kola Owolabi paired the symphony with a dynamic performance of Prélude, Adagio, et Choral varié sur le thème du Veni Creator, op. 4, by Maurice Duruflé and called to mind the connection between the two musicians in his program notes.  

October 3

The first morning session on Tuesday was an eye- and ear-opener. Michael Barone, host of Pipedreams from American Public Media, presented an illustrated talk, “Louis Vierne: His Other Music,” accompanied by recordings of much-overlooked compositions. Vierne gave us 17 opuses for organ, but there are 45 opuses of other music. We listened to works including Largo et Canzonetta for oboe and piano written early in his career, a few of his numerous pieces for piano, excerpts from an orchestral symphony and a rhapsody for harp written a few years after his second organ symphony, a piano quintet from 1917 composed for the death of his youngest son, and Vierne’s op. 61 from 1931, La ballade du déspéré, orchestrated by Maurice Duruflé. Mr. Barone certainly proved there is a trove of worthy music by Louis Vierne besides those works written for solo organ.

Sarah Simko, a master’s student at the University of Michigan and a member of The Diapason’s 20 under 30 Class of 2017, performed Symphonie III in F-sharp Minor, op.28, in a mid-morning recital at Hill Auditorium, holding the audience captivated from beginning to end. A long line of appreciative listeners waited to praise her, as it was an exhilarating performance.

Attendees and the greater Ann Arbor community experienced the unusual treat of seeing at ground level, rather than having to ascend a tower, how a carillon is played by means of a full 48-bell (26,000 lb.) carillon attached to a flatbed of a semi truck. Tiffany Ng, assistant professor and university carillonist at Michigan, secured a bicentennial celebration grant from the university to bring the Mobile Millennium Carillon in from the Chime Master Company of Lancaster, Ohio. Three of Dr. Ng’s current carillon students performed pieces for a masterclass outside Rackham Auditorium. Jeremy Chesman, who performed a solo concert the previous evening, delivered helpful instruction while maneuvering between the small cabin housing the playing console and street level via a small ladder. Kevin Yang, Rachael Park, and Michelle Lam each quickly adjusted their playing to produce more sensitive delivery of musical passages.

Students continued in the spotlight as six studying with James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi took the stage back at Hill Auditorium. Jennifer Shin, Joe Mutone, Dean Robinson, James Renfer, Sherri Brown, and Joseph Moss each played a movement of Symphonie I in D Minor, op. 14, competently representing the strength of the organ department.

The afternoon sessions reconvened at First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor where Naki Sung Kripfgans is organist.  She is also a staff collaborative pianist for the University of Michigan string department and university choir. In her presentation on “Vierne’s Harmonic Language,” Dr. Kripfgans posed questions about impressionism and how the label may or may not work in reference to the composer’s various works. 

Then we had soup—literally. A local chef demonstrated how to make the base for a classic bouillabaisse or seafood stew from the port city of Marseilles during her presentation “A Taste of France with Christine Miller.” When it was ready, sampling for all commenced.

A sweeter treat awaited us in the sanctuary. More intimate than the other venues we had been in, the space was a good choice for pianist Nicole Keller from Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio, with the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance’s Ivalas Quartet members (violinists Anita Dumar and Reuben Kebede, violist Caleb Georges, and cellist Pedro Sánchez) and award-winning Australian cellist Richard Narroway. Mr. Narroway, who is pursuing a doctoral degree with Richard Aaron at the University of Michigan, played Cello Sonata, op. 27, written when Vierne was 40 and prior to his third organ symphony. The performance was followed by String Quartet, op. 12, written some 16 years earlier. Deeply committed to sharing string quartet repertoire both new and old, the Ivalas Quartet graciously answered questions posed by Michael Barone after their spirited performance. We learned that op. 12 is the first composition by Vierne the musicians have taken on, and that they were not familiar with any of his chamber pieces beforehand. The quartet agreed they did find it an interesting composition and they would indeed continue to hone the work to include on future programs.

The penultimate conference event was a faculty recital by Tiffany Ng. Again, the Mobile Millennium Carillon was featured as she played selections in tribute to Louis Vierne including an athletic piece that referenced the Westminster chime and an arrangement of Ravel’s impressionist-style La vallée des cloches. Dr. Ng is responsible for the commissioning of several pieces, three of which were heard Tuesday evening. An advocate of new music for carillon with a social significance, she programmed Ashti by Jung Sun Kang (b. 1983) first. The composer, a Korean immigrant, was moved by the story of an artist acquaintance, an Afghan refugee.  

Handbells and mobile carillon combined during an alumni spotlight to allow Dr. Ng to relocate to Burton Tower’s instrument. Student carillonist Michelle Lam was joined by Handbell Adventure, and was directed by Wm. Jean Randall for the performance of a recent composition by Joseph D. Daniel. Mr. Daniel is an organ department graduate, composer, and member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. He was happy to be in attendance to hear his Five Miniatures (2106) for the first time while not having to direct or play. 

At the Charles Baird Carillon, Dr. Ng gave us some special collaborative, electroacoustic music composed in 2017. The first of two commissions in this portion of the recital was The Seer by Laura Steenberge (b. 1981), who describes this scene: “High in her tower, [the Seer] weaves space and time together with the vibrations of the ringing bells.” And the second commission, Euler’s Bell by John Granzow (b. 1976), seamlessly merged live performance with pre-recorded sounds created to showcase the connection between bells and history in the following way as noted by the composer: 

As history tells, bells are shattered in their belfries for easy transport to military furnaces. If the bell withstands the concussion, it may rebound and spin on its mouth’s edge with ratios of wobble to rotation redolent of Euler’s Disk, a physics toy used to investigate this type of oscillation. Euler’s Bell integrates the sound of such a bell wobbling on the hard ground, a sound that might forestall, just briefly (and yet longer than you might expect) the perennial recycling of metals and history.

Dr. Granzow is an assistant professor in the University of Michigan Department of Performing Arts Technology. His resulting eerie sonance with Dr. Ng was stunning.

Recently appointed continuing guest artist at the University of Michigan, Vincent Dubois regaled us with a closing concert that completed our journey through the organ symphonies of Vierne as he expertly performed Symphony II in E Minor, op. 20, followed by Dupré’s Symphonie-Passion, op. 23. With a rousing, grand finale send-off in the form of an improvisation on the name of Louis VIERNE, it was farewell until the next annual organ conference.

From saucy tangos to chant-based works, expertly fashioned counterpoint, and everything in between, the organ works of Pamela Decker run the gamut of style and variety. Her compositions and recordings have received high and well-deserved acclaim in recent years. Decker has had a variety of experiences that shape her compositions—from theater organist to Fulbright Scholar. She has been commissioned by regional and national American Guild of Organists conventions, and her works have been performed around the world.

Background

I first became acquainted with Decker’s works as a graduate student at Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. My professor, Larry Smith, suggested that I learn her three-movement work, Río abajo río (1999, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL610004). I became enamored with the excitement and fire in the music, as well as her colorful, yet accessible harmonic language. Since then, I have learned several other Decker works, for both church and concert use. In addition, I had the privilege of premiering her first organ concerto, El Tigre, at the Region IV AGO convention in 2011. 

Music and movement have always had a close connection to Decker. While she did not grow up in a family of musicians, her earliest memories are of a home in which music frequently came from the record player, and she danced and performed living-room gymnastics whenever it was on. As a child, Decker and her family lived in Falls Church, Virginia, where her father was a naval research contractor. They attended a Methodist church there, and Pamela recounts this story:  

I recall a Sunday morning when my parents were taking me to church, and we were about to enter the narthex. Someone at that moment opened the big double doors to the sanctuary, and I remember an expanse of white wood and columns and a torrent of organ music pouring down the center aisle. I was entranced, and I thought that I would very much like to play the grand instrument that could produce those sounds.

Her parents thought she might have a specific talent for dance, but when at nine she was given the choice among dance, ice skating, or music, she quickly and without hesitation chose music lessons. She has had formal lessons in piano, organ, and harpsichord. Her first organ teacher was Jean Morgan, a concert organist with a large studio in Alexandria, Virginia.

When Decker was thirteen, her father received a promotion that required the family to move to the San Francisco Bay Area. This move was significant to her development as a composer, as it introduced her to the world of the theater organ. Her first teacher in the Bay Area, Galen Piepenburg, was trained as both a classical and theater organist. The Avenue Theater in the Bay Area hired organists to play half-hour recitals before movies began. By the time she was fifteen, Decker was showcased as one of these performers. She both made her own arrangements of “twenties-style” music and used reputable versions by other performers. The theater also hosted concerts by renowned organists from around the world. One of the recitals she considered memorable was by Korla Pandit, a theater organist from India. Decker’s experience with the theater organ scene greatly influenced her desire to create and “re-create.”

Decker moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Stanford University, where she studied with Herbert Nanney, an experienced concert organist and a published composer. While an undergraduate at Stanford, she had a church position and made the decision to focus on classical training. As she developed, she concentrated equally on both composition and performance practice. Her desire to study performance practice led to a Fulbright scholarship to study in Lübeck, Germany, at the Musikhochschule Lübeck. This experience gave her the opportunity to learn from and perform on many historic instruments. In addition, she was able to travel to Paris and even spent a day with Jean Langlais and Marie Louise Jaquet-Langlais. 

Decker recounts this fond memory of her day with Langlais: 

In the early evening, Mr. Langlais had to go to Ste-Clotilde to play for a funeral. He took me with him. On the streetcar, he kept pointing to landmarks and telling me to look at them. Even though he was blind, he knew exactly where everything was and how to tell me important bits of information in connection with what he was pointing out. I realized that I was on a “sightseeing” tour with Jean Langlais! At the church, there was some time before the service, so he allowed me to play several pieces. I recall that I played the Bach 9/8 Prelude and Fugue in C Major, and some of my own music. It is a treasured memory for me that he said very positive things about my work in both areas and encouraged me to continue composing as well as performing.

Harmonic style

The music of French organ composers has had a tremendous influence on Decker’s compositional output and her tonal language. She is particularly fond of Olivier Messiaen’s music. His modes of limited transposition have influenced the development of her own individually designed synthetic modes. The most influential of Messiaen’s works for Decker has been La Nativité du Seigneur. In learning and studying this work, she was struck by the lush harmonies and rich chromaticism that the modes yield. This, in turn, inspired Decker to explore and discover her own unique harmonic language. 

Study of Messiaen’s modes has led Decker to transform church modes, adding one or two pitches to the collection of a specific mode. She frequently incorporates a transformed Dorian that adds F-sharp and B-flat to the basic Dorian mode. (See Example 1.) One of her other favorite modes to employ is a Phrygian mode that adds F-sharp and C-sharp. These are just two examples of the synthetic modes that Decker works with, and she believes that each one has its own “pitch-class personality.” She works with the modes both individually and in combination and finds it interesting to use this “modal material within the context of designing original forms.”

Example 2 shows an example of the synthetic Dorian, used in mm. 64–70 of Albarda, the first movement of Flores del Desierto (1998, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL610006). Decker’s synthetic Phrygian mode, which adds F-sharp and C-sharp to the basic Phrygian mode, is shown in Example 3. Decker uses this mode in Jesu, dulcis memoria (2011, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL710010), mm. 64–69, as shown in Example 4. 

Decker has also worked with scale types in flamenco patterns (see Example 5). The intervallic patterns of the flamenco modes play a prominent role in her new work, Fanueil Hall (2013, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL610014), which was premiered at the 2014 AGO national convention, held in Boston. 

Rhythmic influences 

Messiaen’s creative rhythmic structures also have inspired Decker’s compositions. Decker states, “Messiaen also choreographs expressive nuance through additive rhythms and multi-metrical constructions. I have also found this element to be influential; I have used meter changes and shifting accents to place emphasis in my music.” For example, this passage in 2/4 from the final movement of Río abajo río, shown in Example 6, illustrates these shifting accents, which provide a strong syncopated effect. 

The captivating rhythms that Decker employs are also largely influenced by Latin American dances. She first became interested in Spanish and South American music after hearing Alicia de Larrocha perform Iberia by Isaac Albéniz. After this discovery, she began to immerse herself in Spanish and South American literature. She has done much reading and research into Latin American dance forms. She has incorporated many dance rhythms into her works, including the samba, charrada, rondena, tarantella, boliviana, and many others. Example 7 shows an example of a tango rhythm from the third movement of Río abajo río.

Other South American Influences

Another influence on Decker has been Ástor Piazzolla, a composer from Argentina who studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger encouraged Piazzolla to compose works that would reflect his native Argentinian culture. Piazzolla was a virtuosic performer on the bandonéon, the main instrument of the South American tangueros (students of tango). Decker states: 

This instrument was invented in Germany in 1854 by Heinrich Band, as a substitute for a pipe organ for churches without the financial resources to purchase and install a pipe organ. The instrument gradually made its way to South America, as musicians emigrated from Europe, and after the passage of time, it was adopted by the tangueros and the street musicians. Thus, there is a connection between Piazzolla’s primary instrument (he was a virtuoso-level performer on the bandonéon) and my own primary instrument. I love the fact that there is precedent for performing tango music at the organ.  

Registrations

While Decker’s harmonic language and rhythmic energy are progressive, she tends to stay with traditional use of the organ in terms of registration. She uses registrational changes as both a “color and form-defining factor.” Her scores are very clear in calling for specific registrations that are adaptable to most instruments. As a performer, she understands the need to make registration changes work on both electro-pneumatic and mechanical-action instruments, and as a composer takes into account that sometimes a combination action may not be available and that the performer must pull stops by hand. Her registrations might call for combinations such as a voix celeste accompanying a solo reed, a clear plenum, or combinations up to full organ. 

Traditional forms

Decker also employs more traditional forms, such as the prelude and fugue. She composes counterpoint as a “procedural basis” and expands the form with contemporary harmonic and formal structures. She also frequently integrates Gregorian chant into her works. Her collection entitled Retablos incorporates the chants Pange lingua, Ubi caritas, and Victimae paschali laudes. Jesu, Dulcis Memoria is a prelude and fugue based on the chant for which it is titled; Example 8 shows a passage from the prelude, and Example 9 a passage from the fugue. 

German chorale and Protestant hymn tunes also play a major role in Decker’s works. She has written a chorale prelude on Herzlich tut mich verlangen, and her collection On This Day (2009, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL610005) features popular Advent and Christmas tunes such as Personent Hodie, Antioch, and Cranham. On This Day would be an excellent collection with which to begin studying Decker’s works; Example 10 shows a passage from her setting of Antioch.

Many of Decker’s works can serve both a concert and a liturgical purpose. Her compositions are both engaging and accessible to a wide audience, especially when the audience is educated about the construction and program behind the piece. Decker states:

I believe that music should have intellectual substance, pure emotion, and undeniable communicative ability in equal measure. Even if a passage or section sounds improvisatory, I think that upon analysis, a performer or theorist should be able to discern evidence of substance and “intelligent design,” if I may borrow a phrase from another discipline. I also think that while program notes are fascinating, they should not be necessary for the composition to achieve its goal of making a visceral impact on the listener.

For those who have never explored Decker’s works, I encourage you to investigate her compositions. Pamela Decker has recorded her own works on the following Loft recordings: Decker Plays Decker: Sacred to Secular (Volume 1), LRCD 1053, Decker Plays Decker: Desert Wildflowers (Volume 2), LRCD 1076, and Decker Plays Decker: Suite Dreams and Fantasies (Volume 3), LRCD 1130 (www.gothic-records.com). A complete list of her works may be found at her website, pamela-decker.com.

Edie Johnson is music associate and organist at Church Street United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. She also teaches private organ and courses in organ literature and church music at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

When meeting Kimberly Marshall, one’s first impression is that of great energy. That impression lingers as one encounters her presence in written publications and recordings—she seems to turn up everywhere and indeed, she has performed and presented at American and European conventions and conferences, has written entries for Grove and other music dictionaries, recorded organ music from the 15th to the 21st centuries, and even made videos to illustrate exercises for organists (Marshall kindly produced one for The Diapason).

A native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Kimberly Marshall began organ studies in 1974 with John Mueller at North Carolina School of the Arts. After studies in France with Louis Robilliard (1978–79) and Xavier Darasse (1980–81), she returned to North Carolina and completed her undergraduate studies with Fenner Douglass in 1982.

With a full scholarship from the British government, she pursued graduate studies at the University of Oxford (1982–86), earning a D.Phil. in Music for her thesis, Iconographical Evidence for the Late-Medieval Organ. During her time in England, she won first prize at the St. Albans Organ Interpretation Competition in 1985, leading to a contract with the BBC and a recital on the Royal Festival Hall series.

In 1986, Marshall was appointed assistant professor of music and university organist at Stanford, where she presided over organs by Fisk (dual-temperament, 1984) and Murray Harris (1901). Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1991, she continued her research and teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium in Australia. From 1993–96 she served as dean of postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, developing a new master’s degree in advanced performance studies, awarded in conjunction with King’s College London. 

From 1996–2000, Marshall was a project leader for the Organ Research Center in Göteborg, Sweden, where she taught and performed. Under the aegis of GOArt, she organized the first conference ever devoted to organ recordings, “The Organ in Recorded Sound,” and has edited its proceedings.¹ Appointed to Arizona State University in 1998, Marshall (now Goldman Professor of Organ) oversees the graduate organ studio and presides over the instrument by Paul Fritts (1992). 

Kimberly Marshall has performed and done research worldwide, from a sabbatical in Pistoia, Italy, researching early Italian organ music, to performing on many historic organs, including those in Roskilde Cathedral (Denmark), St. Laurenskerk, Alkmaar (Netherlands), the Jacobikirche in Hamburg, and the Hildebrandt instrument in Naumburg, Germany, which Bach examined in 1746. She has also presented concerts and workshops on early music in Sweden, in Israel, at the 2007 Early English Organ Project in Oxford, and at the Festival for Historical Organs in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Marshall’s publications reflect her eclectic interests. Examples include Rediscovering the Muses (Northeastern University Press, 1993), her edition of articles on female traditions of music making; entries for the Cambridge Companion to the Organ (1998), the Grove Dictionary of Music 2000, and the Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages (2012); and her anthologies of late-medieval and Renaissance organ music (Wayne Leupold Editions, 2000 and 2004). 

Marshall’s recordings (over a dozen, at this writing) cover a wide spectrum, including music of the Italian and Spanish Renaissance, French Classical and Romantic periods, and works by J. S. Bach. Her most recent CD, The First Printed Organ Music: Arnolt Schlick, celebrates the music of Arnolt Schlick on the 500th anniversary of its publication (2012). A CD/DVD set, A Fantasy through Time (Loft, 2009), featured the organ fantasy genre across five centuries, from Ferrabosco and Sweelinck through Jehan Alain. Marshall has collaborated as organist for a recording of Chen Yi’s organ concerto with the Singapore Symphony (BIS, 2003). Her recording of works for organ by female composers, Divine Euterpe, includes music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Elfrida Andrée, and Ethyl Smyth.

While at Stanford and the Royal Academy of Music, Marshall gave performances of organ works by Ligeti in the presence of the composer, and she has been an advocate for music by Margaret Sandresky, Dan Locklair, and Ofer Ben-Amots. In a recent article, she described the new Gerald Woehl organ in Piteå, Sweden (“The ‘Organ of the Future’ in Sweden’s Studio Acusticum,” The American Organist, February 2013, pp. 62–65). Her publications and recordings can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Marshall. 

Marshall also maintains a vibrant website (www.kimberlymarshall.com) and a Facebook page, and she can be found on YouTube performing everything from Christmas favorites to Widor. Marshall also has created exercise videos tailored to the organist, in which she demonstrates moves and stretches that work on muscles most used by organists. In person and even via the telephone Marshall communicates a passion both personal and professional, and we wished to explore the life and work that has ensued from such energy and enthusiasm.

Joyce Johnson Robinson: Do you come from a musical family? 

Kimberly Marshall: My mother is very musical and had a beautiful singing voice, but she had very little formal training. Her mother had played the piano, so when I was seven, she asked if I’d like to study the piano. We didn’t have an instrument in my home until my parents bought an upright piano for my practice.

What ignited your love of organ music? 

I had the great luck to be born in the town where John and Margaret Mueller were teaching. Margaret is a legendary organist, and she became my piano instructor when I was thirteen. She is a master teacher for young musicians, and she opened my ears to the expressive possibilities of the piano. John attended one of my piano recitals and invited me to study organ with him. What an honor! I began my studies with him on the beautiful Flentrop organ at Salem College, and the next year continued my work as a high school student at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Dr. Mueller’s enthusiasm and the range of timbres available on the Flentrop organ sparked my passion for the organ.

What works were some of your first favorites?

I was very enamored of French music from the start, Alain’s Litanies and Franck’s Choral III being two of my early favorites.

You received a full scholarship from the British government for your graduate work at Oxford. Is that unusual for an American?

Each year, the British government awards up to 40 “Marshall” Scholarships to Americans to pursue graduate degrees at British universities. The Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission was set up in 1953 as a gesture of gratitude to the United States for the Marshall Plan. Scholars in many fields have studied on Marshall Scholarships—Thomas Friedman, William Burns, and Nannerl Keohane, to name three—but there have been very few musicians in the 60-year history of the awards. Perhaps the common family name helped me, although I’m not aware of any direct link to George C. Marshall.

You had a contract with the BBC. What did that entail?

This was part of my St. Albans prize, and it started with a recording of my prizewinner’s recital that was later broadcast on BBC. The first contract meant that I was on the books, so to speak, and I was later asked to do other projects, such as recordings at Birmingham Town Hall and London’s St. John’s Smith Square.

You’ve done a great deal of work in the areas of medieval and Renaissance organ music. What are the elements of early music that appeal to you?

My interest in early music was sparked by my experience with historical organs while an undergraduate in French conservatories. As a high school student working with John Mueller at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, I had focused mainly on Bach and French romantic music, which led me to continue studies with Louis Robilliard at the Lyon Conservatoire. Every day, I practiced Franck, Liszt, and Messiaen on the beautiful Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. François-de-Sales—it was a marvelous time in my life! After gaining the Médaille d’Or in Lyon, I decided that I should spend some time in Paris working on early music. I was planning to study privately with André Isoir, whom I had met during one of the Salem College summer organ academies, and whom several of my fellow French students had recommended warmly. 

I remember arriving early for the Sunday morning Mass at St. Germain-des-Prés, hoping to go up to the tribune with him, when who should appear but Isoir’s colleague, Odile Bailleux, who hurriedly invited me up the stairs so that she could start the prelude. During the course of the Mass, she played a number of French and English baroque pieces. I loved her playing and her personality and impulsively asked if I might study with her. She agreed, and so I began having lessons in early music with Bailleux at St. Germain. I also went to hear Chapuis play at St. Sévérin in the Latin Quarter whenever possible, and I attended Saturday workshops with him and Jean Saint-Arroman at Pierrefonds, near Compiègne, on an organ built in historical style by Jean-Georges Koenig in 1979. This was a terrific initiation into the performance practice of French Classical organ music, which, with Buxtehude and Pachelbel, was the first pre-Bach repertoire I learned.

So you began with French Romantic repertoire and then started playing the tape backwards, so to speak, moving back into French Classical. What specifically appealed to you about medieval and Renaissance works? 

Again, I was inspired to learn about Renaissance music because of my experiences with historic organs. I remember visiting the gorgeous Piffaro organ (1519) in Siena’s Santa Maria della Scala with Umberto Pineschi and Joan Lippincott in the late 1980s. We were enchanted by the gravitas of the 12′ Principale, by the shimmering beauty of the ripieno, and by the delicacy of the Flauto. But Joan and I didn’t know what type of music would have been composed for this instrument—the four-octave compass began at F (without low F# or G#) and was not conducive to baroque music. So we improvised and relished the sounds. Then I started doing some research, uncovering a treasure trove of 16th-century Italian music, including the first “St. Anne” Fugue, composed before 1570! (I published this in my Renaissance anthology for Wayne Leupold Editions, 2004.) 

The desire to demonstrate a historical organ with corresponding repertoire also motivated my research into Arnold Schlick. Years ago, I had the opportunity to perform on the 16th-century Genarp organ in the Malmö Museum, for which Schlick’s music is well suited. I’ll never forget that pedalboard because the sharps were so high that it made playing Schlick’s Ascendo ad patrem meum (with four parts in the pedal) easier than usual, although I had to take my shoes off to do it!

My interest in medieval music obviously did not come from playing historic organs, but rather from my study with John Caldwell at Oxford. As part of my course, I researched the early history of the organ, and I was naturally curious about the sort of instrument that would have accommodated the first surviving keyboard music—the Robertsbridge Codex, circa 1360. Caldwell is an expert on medieval music and English keyboard music, and he encouraged my efforts, giving me insightful suggestions about possible sources and the meaning of obscure Latin references. Another formative influence was my thesis advisor, Christopher Page, who founded Gothic Voices just a year before I began my studies at Oxford. Listening to Margaret Philpot and Rogers Covey-Crump recreating the music of Machaut and Dufay in New College Chapel transported me to new musical horizons. I was taken by the strange beauty of the music, and I wanted to reclaim the organ repertoire from this time. Page was the perfect mentor for me, a scholar/performer of the first order who was able to sell out major concert halls with a program of medieval motets and Renaissance chansons. I was inspired to include 14th- and 15th-century keyboard pieces on my own concert programs. 

Although I have had the chance to perform concerts at Sion and Rysum, I usually play late-medieval music on modern organs, trying to evoke something of its original creation through my articulation and registration. As I tell my audiences, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to medieval replica organs to bring this music to life in the 21st century. What if we hadn’t played Bach’s organ music until we had the perfect Bach organ?

You put a great emphasis on recital program design. Tell us how you approach programming.

I am fascinated by the many different types of organs that have been created and try to share this fascination with my audiences through interesting programming. My concerts often have a theme, such as A Fantasy through Time, a CD/DVD of organ fantasies from the 16th to the 20th century, or Bach Encounters Buxtehude, exploring through organ music the ways in which the Lübeck master might have influenced the young Bach.

I very much enjoy finding ways to link disparate types of music or to help the audience understand the development of a genre or organ type. Organ music preserved from the early 16th century shows the emergence of national styles, as German, Italian, French, and English musicians began exploring the organs they knew. So it’s a great way to demonstrate the distinguishing characteristics of organs in different European countries, many of which also correspond to some national stereotypes of the people in those countries!

Of course, the organ that I am playing must always be the starting point for any program to be successful. I try to show as much of each instrument as I can, sometimes finding unusual combinations that highlight the geographic or chronological variety of the music. If there’s a beautiful Quintadena or Regal, I need to determine how best to feature it. Because the compass required for 14th–17th century music is usually much less than that of contemporary instruments, it is often possible to play pieces up or down an octave, thereby employing different registers of the stop(s) than are normally heard. Building fine programs is like managing a restaurant, determining from day to day the best menus to take advantage of fresh, seasonal foods while also creating a special atmosphere for the establishment. Registering organ music is like being the chef, knowing the intrinsic tastes of each ingredient and finding inspired (and delicious!) ways to combine them.

Has your methodology of programming changed over the years?

Yes, definitely. My changing approaches to programming relate to changing expectations of audiences during the past 30 years. When I started concertizing, I would try to include standards of the organ repertoire, always a major Bach work, another German work (perhaps Buxtehude or Pachelbel), something French (some Couperin, Grigny, Franck, Dupré, Alain, or Messiaen) and at least one “outlier,” some Spanish or Italian music, or a contemporary piece (Albright, Heiller, Sandresky, Ligeti). Organ music was more mainstream then, and audiences knew many of the major works. I would try to give them a sampling of music they would recognize and then add some rarer gems to spice up the program. 

As audiences for organ concerts became less familiar with the instrument and its repertoire, I decided that I needed to introduce verbally the music I was playing. This was difficult for me at first, but I forced myself to do it because I felt that it was important to make a connection with the audience and to tell them what excited me about a particular work. I got a lot of good feedback after concerts, when listeners would say, “I especially appreciated your comments,” or “You really helped me to hear things in the music that I otherwise would have missed.” So I persevered, always planning my comments meticulously and memorizing them. (I later discovered that Winston Churchill had similarly written out his speeches, even including indications concerning their delivery, and memorized them, so that it appeared to audiences that he had a natural gift for public speaking.) 

I found that it helped the flow of my comments to have an overriding theme for the concert, so I began to craft programs that related to a type of music (say, dances or organ fantasias) or that showed influence from one composer or national school to another (such as Bach and the Italian influence or organ music by female composers). With time, the speaking between pieces became easier and more natural, so that now, instead of dreading my time off the bench, I can enjoy looking out at the audience and communicating my ideas to them with words as well as through music. And my themes have become more imaginative, such as “War and Peace” (from early battle pieces through Messiaen’s Combat de la Mort et de la Vie), “Number Symbolism in Organ Music,” and “Bottoms Up!” (a program with my fabulous tuba colleague, Sam Pilafian). Sometimes I am asked to prepare a specific type of program for an event. This happened when I was invited to perform an organ recital for the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music in London two weeks before the 2012 Olympics. The festival organizers were using the theme of competition, so they asked me to recreate the competition between J. S. Bach and Louis Marchand that was planned but never took place. I believe that such a programmatic approach can help bring in new listeners for the organ as well as add new dimensions to the experience of organ enthusiasts.

Let’s discuss your teaching. How do you present historical contexts to your students? 

I have a three-pronged approach to this. We study surviving treatises and instruments to learn from them about playing styles. We then develop interpretations of pieces from different national schools and time periods at a specific organ, determining ways to adapt the historical material to real-life performance situations. Finally, I draw links between what is happening in a specific organ school and what was happening in the broader musical, political, and social contexts in which the music was composed. It is vital for my students to listen to great performances of vocal and instrumental music from each of the traditions we study, so that they have a sound ideal in their minds before they try to achieve it at the organ.

How do you integrate web-based information with traditional bibliographic research methods?

The most important web-based information in my teaching is the availability of fine recordings through the Internet. Our university subscribes to the Naxos Music Library, and my students are constantly finding new sources of recorded music (and not only organ recordings!) to inform their interpretations. I also investigate historical recordings as part of my research (as seen in my article in The Organ in Recorded Sound), so I use the International Historic Organ Recording Collection (www.ihorc.com) and the Centre for History and Analysis of Recorded Music at King’s College London (www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/music/research/proj/charm/) whenever relevant to a student’s interests. 

I think my students teach me more about what’s out on the Internet than I teach them, although I certainly add a critical element that can be lacking for the generation that grew up on Google. Just because there’s a video on YouTube doesn’t mean that it’s an authoritative performance! Of course, my students and I benefit daily from music editions available through the Internet, especially public domain scores through IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project: imslp.org). Again, one must exercise critical judgment about the context of the original edition, since many reflect the scholarship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is why they are in the public domain. In some cases the scholarship was very sound, but new sources and approaches during the second half of the 20th century may make old editions obsolete, so one must be cautious and not just latch onto the first edition that pops up in the browser.

Given the ubiquity of electronic devices and technologies, do you find that students have more trouble maintaining focus and patience? 

Since my teaching is specialized, I haven’t encountered this problem directly, but colleagues who teach more general courses often complain of the need to present material in “sound bytes.” Organists have great powers of concentration, so I’m not sure that my students are a barometer of what may be happening more generally with regard to attention spans in our culture. 

Do your students embrace early music as much as you do? 

Some of them do; others don’t. And that’s just fine, because each student is unique and has individual passions that I try to develop through my teaching.

You not only work to stay in shape yourself, but you have created short videos to educate others on ways of preventing pain and injury. What led you to promote exercises for organists? 

I am very committed to helping organists stay fit and able to play the organ without pain. To this end, I have been developing some simple exercises to combat the typical problems encountered by organists spending prolonged periods of time in bad positions.² By working to open the chest and strengthen the rhomboids—upper back muscles— it is possible to correct for the kyphosis (humped upper back) that often plagues organists. It is also necessary to make the hips more flexible and to strengthen the abdominal wall in order to have a stable core that grounds the body. [Kimberly Marshall has created a video for The Diapason demonstrating warmup exercises. Visit TheDiapason.com and look for Diapason TV.] With a strong core and good position at the organ, the arms and legs can move freely, enabling one to play for hours without repetitive strain.

How did you decide on the muscle groups to work on, and which exercises to do? Did you work with an exercise physiologist?

I have practiced yoga for about 15 years, and this has helped my flexibility and mindfulness. Breathing deeply is the key to so many aspects of our mental and physical performance, so opening wind passages and the diaphragm is top priority! I tend to gravitate towards restorative, yin poses in my yoga practice, so I try to balance that with strength training, especially for the core, shoulders, and arms. For the past two years, I’ve had the privilege of working with a fabulous trainer, Larry Arnold. Larry has his own gym in Phoenix and a unique approach to fitness that is rooted in his understanding of the body (his website is www.labodycraft.com). He trains athletes at a very high level, but he’s amenable to improving body function in other activities. I am definitely the first organist he’s worked with, and I’ve taken students to see him as well. We all have the same issues!

Since you have a heightened awareness of physical issues, do you assess any weaknesses with your students?

Yes, my students are often kyphotic (hunched upper back), and they usually have tight lower backs from the strength required to support themselves on the bench during hours of practice. These are problems affecting almost all organists, which is why I developed simple exercises to help offset them. Usually, organists need to strengthen the upper back (so that it holds the shoulders down and back, creating a long, free neck) and to strengthen the abdominal muscles (so that the opposing muscles in the lower back can loosen). Individual students sometimes have other physical issues, so I try to create ways to help them with alignment, strength, and/or flexibility. 

How do you maintain your own fitness when you’re traveling and concertizing?

This can be a challenge, but mainly because of time constraints. Preparing concerts takes a lot of time and energy, so I focus on flexibility rather than strength training when I am touring. I maintain good flexibility through stretches and poses that don’t require lots of space or special equipment, and I’ve even become rather adept at exercising on the plane. You can do small abdominal crunches in your seat to help stretch out the lower back. Neck, shoulder, wrist and ankle rolls help to keep the circulation going and to prevent muscle strains, especially on long flights.

You heartily embrace new technology.

Although I’m of an older generation that actually did research in libraries looking at manuscripts and books, I have learned to embrace several aspects made possible by technological advances in the last 30 years. Scanning projects have made immediately accessible many of the musical sources that used to require air travel and long library stays. Manuscripts, music prints, and recordings are now accessible at the click of a mouse, and this facilitates aspects of my work. Nevertheless, one must be careful to verify information retrieved on the web and to develop a critical sense about the integrity of certain sites. 

I am currently collaborating with David Rumsey on a 4,000-article Encyclopedia of the Organ that provides articles on the history of the instrument in specific countries, with cross-referenced articles giving composers’ biographies, technical information, and organ specifications. We are investigating different online platforms for this in order to make it more user-friendly and to keep it updated. With the speed made possible by new technology, today’s readers are too impatient to look up articles in a book, so we hope to provide links that will pop up almost as quickly as the brain initiates the curiosity to investigate.

Of course, I am delighted to be able to share my own work through online articles, recordings, and videos. The facility of communication makes it easy to get feedback and to carry on stimulating discussions with colleagues. Very importantly, I can now give lessons via Skype with organists who want some tips on playing specific pieces or types of repertoire. This is a great boon to disseminating ideas and to giving instant feedback to those who are experimenting with new techniques.

How have the Skype lessons worked out? 

Remarkably well! I was a bit skeptical at first about whether I would be able to have a good idea of someone’s playing through Skype, and then to convey my ideas back to them. But I have found that Skyped lessons can provide an effective way for me to hear someone playing a specific repertoire and to give them input on aspects of performance practice, such as articulation, ornamentation, and rhythmic alterations. I would not recommend Skype sessions for feedback on registration when preparing a recital or as a substitute for an ongoing relationship with a teacher. There is nothing better than being in the same acoustical environment when working together. But Skype enables me to introduce someone to a new style of playing or to help him/her prepare a specific piece without having to make the trip to Arizona. (In some cases, it inspires them to make the trip later!) 

You have worked all over the world. Are you multi-lingual? If so, do you find it helps your work (or if not, does that hinder you in any way)? 

I am a firm believer that organists should know several languages, and as my students will attest, I make linguistic study a priority. Reading is of course the most important aspect for research, and I help prepare my students for reading exams at ASU. When we travel together to see organs in Mexico and Europe, they see how important it is to be able to speak the local language when I am setting up meetings with colleagues, working out travel details, teaching and introducing my concert programs in Spanish, French, Italian, or German. I haven’t yet mastered Dutch and the Scandinavian languages, but know enough to read about organs in them. I think Mandarin is going to become an important language for the future, as we work to foster an organ culture in China. I’ve been there twice, and I am optimistic about the potential for developing Chinese organists and an enthusiastic following for them.

Is there any other area or type of music that you would like to tackle next? 

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been relishing the opportunity to play a wide repertoire on many different types of organs. I’ve become known for my work in early music, which is very gratifying, but I don’t want to be confined to that, unless, of course, the organ I am playing dictates a specific style of music. I’ve always played romantic and contemporary music, so I’m coming back to some of the 19th- and 20th-century works that dominated my student days as an organist. Hopefully I’m playing them now with greater insight resulting from the intervening musical experience! What excites me about playing the organ is the amazing variety of sound possibilities available. What other instrumentalist can play 14th- and 15th-century music in Sion, Switzerland, and a month later (and 3,000 kilometers north) perform music from a seven-century spectrum on a futuristic organ with over 100 stops?³ 

Perhaps the most extreme example of this “stylistic schizophrenia” occurred this past summer. At the end of June 2014, I performed during the Boston AGO Convention on the Fisk organ at Wellesley College, in ¼-comma meantone tuning with short octave and split keys. Six weeks later, after a wonderful stay in southern France, I appeared on the Spreckels Organ in San Diego’s Balboa Park, complete with tibias and percussion, playing a program of music by Parisian composers. And that, in a nutshell, is why I love the organ. Vive la différence! ν

Notes

1. The Organ in Recorded Sound: An Exploration of Timbre and Tempo. Göteborg: Göteborg Organ Art Center, 2012. Available from the author or from www.ohscatalog.org.

2. Some of these may be found at https://www.facebook.com/KimberlyMarshall.
organist. 

3. “The ‘Organ of the Future’ in Sweden’s Studio Acusticum,” The American Organist (February 2013): 62–65. 

Kimberly Marshall’s forthcoming recording, A Recital in Handel’s Parish Church, features concerti and passacaglias performed on the new Richard-Fowkes organ in St. George’s, Hanover Square, London. All tracks will be available online in September.