Fenner Douglass died April 5 at Moorings Park in Naples, Florida. Douglass studied organ with Arthur Poister at Oberlin College, the beginning of a long relationship with the school. After earning a B.A. in 1942 and B.Mus. and M.M. in 1949, he joined the Oberlin faculty, where he remained until 1974. He then became university organist and professor at Duke University, where he had been consultant for the installation of the large Flentrop organ in the Gothic chapel.
Performer, teacher, and scholar, Douglass was a pioneer in the historical performance movement and pursued scholarly interests that focused on the organ traditions of France. His first book, The Language of the Classical French Organ (Yale University Press, 1969), became the standard reference work for organ music of the French baroque period; a revised edition was issued in paperback in 1995. Douglass also researched the work of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. He obtained most of the personal documents, correspondence, and contracts of Cavaillé-Coll, which became the basis for a two-volume work of 1,534 pages, Cavaillé-Coll and the Musicians (Sunbury Press, 1980). In 1999, Yale University Press produced a condensed and revised edition of the work, titled Cavaillé-Coll and the French Romantic Tradition. Douglass was also the editor of a two-volume work published by the Westfield Center honoring the organ builder Charles Fisk.
In recognition of Fenner Douglass’s scholarly contributions, William Peterson and Lawrence Archbold dedicated to him their book, French Organ Music from the Revolution to Franck and Widor (University of Rochester Press, 1995). Douglass delivered papers at numerous Westfield conferences. In 2001, Oberlin College awarded him with an honorary doctorate. Throughout his career, Douglass was a proponent of organ building based on historical traditions. He worked as a consultant on many organ projects, including instruments by Dirk Flentrop and Charles Fisk.
Russell Edward Freeman died November 26, 2007 in Greenville, North Carolina at the age of 61. A member of the Wilmington AGO chapter, Freeman was the music director at several churches, including St. George’s Episcopal Church, Fredericksburg, Virginia; Christ Episcopal Church, Capitol Hill; St. David’s Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C.; and St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, Capitol Hill.
Edith L. Wagner Meier, 86, died February 6 in Davenport, Iowa. She studied piano as a child, and became the organist at Zion Lutheran Church in Davenport at age 13, serving for 61 years. She was also Zion’s director of music for over 35 years. She graduated from Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, where she majored in organ and piano. Active in the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, the AGO, and the Fine Arts Club in the Quad Cities, Ms. Meier gave many performances and was honored with a concert in 2005, which included works composed in her honor. Edith Meier is survived by four daughters, nine grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, two sisters, and a brother.
John Howard Wilson died October 30, 2007, at age 67 in Long Beach, California. He worked for the Lewis & Hitchcock organbuilding firm for four years before going into partnership with Robert Pierce. The Pierce-Wilson organbuilding firm moved to New York City, where they installed a four-manual pipe organ in Virgil Fox’s home in Englewood, New Jersey. In 1965, Wilson authored the Handbook of Scaling Information for Organ Designers with Guy Henderson; this collaboration resulted in the formation of the Henderson & Wilson Company, which rebuilt and expanded the 1887 Steere & Turner instrument at the Wooster School, Danbury, Connecticut, and maintained the organs at Lincoln Center in New York City. Beginning in 1978, the firm installed and tonally finished many Ruffatti organs; Wilson and Henderson moved to California in 1979 to install the Aeolian-Skinner and the Ruffatti organs in the Crystal Cathedral. They remained as curators of the instruments. In 2004, Wilson, Henderson, and Brian Sawyers began working on the Aeolian-Skinner and Schlicker organs at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Long Beach. Mr. Wilson was an avid collector of recordings, in particular those of Arturo Toscanini. He transferred many of Virgil Fox’s LP recordings to CD, for release in the OrganArts Legacy series.
