Nunc Dimittis

John Ogasapian, of
Pepperell, Massachusetts, died in Los Angeles on July 11, shortly after he was
diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas and liver. He was 64. Dr. Ogasapian was
professor of music at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, where he had taught
since 1965. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organ
and a Ph.D. in musicology from Boston University, where he was a student of the
late George Faxon. He was organist and choirmaster of St. Anne’s
Episcopal Church in Lowell 1961-99, and interim organist and choirmaster
of All Saints Church in Worcester, Massachusetts 2002-03. He authored or
edited eight books and published over a hundred articles, essays and reviews in
many journals including The Diapason. The Organ Historical
Society honored him with its Distinguished Service Award in 1994 and the
designation of Honorary Member in 2000.

Dr. Ogasapian served as editor of The Tracker: Journal of
the Organ Historical Society
(1993’2000) and was a contributing editor of Journal of Church
Music (1985’1988). He was chairman of
the 1978 OHS national convention in Lowell, Massachusetts, and chairman of the
2000 OHS American Organ Archives Symposium in Princeton, New Jersey.

His books include Litterae Organi: Essays in Honor of
Barbara Owen (edited by Ogasapian and
others; he also contributed an essay; OHS Press, 2005); Music of the
Colonial and Revolutionary Era (Greenwood
Press, 2004); The Varieties of Musicology: Essays in Honor of Murray
Lefkowitz (edited by John Daverio and John
Ogasapian, Harmonie Park Press, 2000); English Cathedral Music in New
York: Edward Hodges of Trinity Church (Organ
Historical Society, 1994); Church Organs: A Guide to Selection &
Purchase (Baker Book House, 1983, AGO &
OHS collaboration, 1990); Henry Erben: Portrait of a
Nineteenth-Century American Organ Builder
(Organ Literature Foundation, 1980); Organ Building in New York City:
1700’1900 (Organ Literature
Foundation, 1977). He was working on a ninth book, Music Culture in
the Guilded Age: Civil War to World War I,
at the time of his death.

He played his last recital on May 25 at Methuen Memorial
Music Hall, featuring works by Paine, Buck, Chadwick, Foote, Parker, Hovhaness,
Still, Rogers, Beach, and Matthews. His memorial service was held at All Saints
Church, Worcester, on July 30. He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Nancy,
their daughter and son-in-law, and two grandchildren.

L. Robert Slusser
died May 29 in San Diego at the age of 83. He had served as minister of music
at La Jolla Presbyterian Church in California from 1968 to 1989. Born October
13, 1921, in Chicago, he studied piano and organ at the American Conservatory
of Music and was assistant organist to Leo Sowerby at St. James Cathedral.
During World War II he served as a lieutenant in the Navy. He earned a
bachelor’s degree in music at San Jose State College and served as
organist and assistant choirmaster at First Presbyterian Church, San Jose. He
received a master’s degree in organ from Northwestern University in 1953
and served as minister of music at First Presbyterian Church, Birmingham,
Michigan until 1968. In 1960 he was co-chair of the AGO national convention in
Detroit. When he was appointed to La Jolla Presbyterian Church, he developed
multiple choirs, string and brass ensembles, a Christian dance group, and a
Choir Festival series. Slusser was dean of the San Diego AGO chapter
1971’72 and was responsible for bringing many famous organists to San
Diego. In 1986 he received an honorary doctorate from Tarko College in St.
Louis. He is survived by his wife Shirley, two daughters, a son, two
grandchildren and two great-grandchilden. A service celebrating his life was
held on July 16 at La Jolla Presbyterian Church.

Ruth Virginia Sutton
died April 19 at her home in Ypsilanti, Michigan, after a long battle with
cancer. She was 59. Born May 12, 1945 in Detroit, Michigan, she graduated from
Wayne Memorial High School and then attended Capitol University. She
transferred to Eastern Michigan University where she earned bachelor’s
and master’s degrees in music. Mrs. Sutton served as a local piano
teacher for over 40 years, was organist at various area churches, accompanist
for the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers, and also the Walled Lake and Ypsilanti High
School choir programs. She is survived by her husband Ronald Sutton, two
daughters, and a granddaughter. Funeral services took place on April 22 at
First Presbyterian Church, Ann Arbor.

Bob G. Whitley died
July 31 at his home in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania, from liver cancer. He was 76.
For more than 30 years he was organist and choir director at Fox Chapel
Episcopal Church. Whitley grew up in Oklahoma and was a 1951 graduate of the
University of Oklahoma at Norman. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to
attend the Royal School of Church Music, then in Canterbury, England. He also
studied organ at the Royal College of Music in London and played recitals in
Canterbury Cathedral and Dover Town Hall. He served in the Army during the
Korean War, and was organist and director of music at the Letterman Army
Hospital Chapel at the Presidio in San Francisco. After the Army, he was
appointed organist at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, San Francisco, where
he helped design and oversee the installation of a 55-rank Aeolian-Skinner
organ. In 1964, Whitley was appointed to Fox Chapel Episcopal Church. He also
directed the Pittsburgh Savoyards, a Gilbert & Sullivan opera company, the
Shady Side Academy Glee Club, and the glee club at The Ellis School. After
leaving Fox Chapel Episcopal Church in 1999, Whitley served as organist and choir
director at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fox Chapel, where he remained
until his retirement last year.

Joseph Edwin Blanton died at his home in Albany, TX on April 8. Born on March 8, 1908 in West Texas, he attended Central High School in Washington, DC, and received the BS and MFA in Architecture from Princeton University. During World War II he served in the Navy and was stationed in Italy for a time. After the war he taught in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas in Austin, and then returned to his home town of Albany to pursue private architecture practice. In 1957 he published The Organ in Church Design (Venture Press, Albany, TX), and seven years later, The Revival of the Organ Case (Venture Press). In 1971 and 1972 he published eight issues of a quarterly magazine, Art of the Organ, and in 1980 was made an honorary member of the OHS. Mr. Blanton's literary efforts were not limited to the organ. In 1936 he assisted his grandmother Sallie Reynolds Matthews in the writing and publishing of Interwoven, an account of life on the Texas frontier. In recent years he researched, wrote and published several books about various aspects of Texas history.

Wayne P. Drake died March 31 in Braintree, MA at the age of 47, following a long battle with AIDS and its complications. Born in Boston, he had lived all of his life in Braintree. He earned the Bachelor's degree from Eastern Nazarene College in Wollaston in 1969, and the MMus from Boston University in 1979. He served in the U.S. Army 1970-75 and was a member of the 7th Army Soldiers' Chorus in Europe. He taught music in the Abington schools up to 1994, and served as organist and choirmaster of St. John's Episcopal Church in Duxbury from 1978 until his death, and had also served as organist at Porter Methodist Church in Weymouth, the Church of the Good Shepherd in Dedham, First Congregational Church in Braintree, and St. Paul's Episcopal in Dedham. He was a member and former board member of the the Boston Gay Men's Chorus, a member of the Boston AGO chapter, and the Liturgy and Music Commission of the Massachusetts Diocese. He was a member of the steering committee of the Festival Organ Exhibit scheduled for fall 1995 at the Boston Museum of Science, and had been logistics and operations chairman of the 1990 AGO national convention in Boston. A memorial service was held April 22 at the Church of the Pilgrimage, Town Square, Plymouth Center.

Arthur Carkeek, professor emeritus of organ and theory at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, died October 19, 2003 at the age of 80. Born April 7, 1923, in Detroit, Michigan, he was a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral in Detroit. Following high school he attended Wayne State University and the Detroit Institute for Musical Arts simultaneously. While serving in World War II as a chaplain's assistant and waiting to be sent to Europe, Mr. Carkeek assisted in the maintenance of the organ in the Atlantic City Convention Hall, later writing his master's thesis on that unique organ. He also gave weekly radio recitals on the Convention Hall organ. Following his Army discharge, he completed his undergraduate work at DePauw University, graduating in 1948 and receiving his AAGO certificate the same year.

Arthur Carkeek graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1950 and returned to DePauw to teach at the bidding of his former teacher, Van Denman Thompson. Upon Thompson's retirement in 1956, Carkeek became the university organist at DePauw. During his 38-year teaching career at DePauw University, Arthur Carkeek produced many outstanding students, who went on to careers as organists, university professors, clergy, organ builders, competition winners and Fulbright scholars. He was active as a performer, lecturer, panelist and writer. Receiving grants from the Great Lakes Conference and the Ford Foundation as well as sabbatical leaves from DePauw, Carkeek studied organ building with Rudolph von Beckerath and organ with Charles Letestu. He performed many concerts on historic instruments in Germany, including a recital in Altenbruch.

Carkeek produced a number of scholarly articles, most notably a series of articles on his long-time friend Rudolph von Beckerath, published in four installments in The American Organist (1996). A further article on Beckerath will be published posthumously in the Encylopedia of Keyboard Instruments, Vol. 2, The Organ Encylopedia. In 1972 Carkeek made a recording of several organs by Charles Fisk at Harvard, Old West Church (Boston) and DePauw.

In demand as an organ consultant, Arthur Carkeek constantly supported the cause of many fine instruments. He acted in that capacity at Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis where a Hellmuth Wolff organ was installed in the chancel and a Taylor & Boody organ was installed in the rear gallery.

Arthur Carkeek served as the director of music at Gobin United Methodist Church and St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, both in Greencastle, Indiana. In 1998 a fire at St. Andrew's destroyed the existing pipe organ that Carkeek had nurtured over the years. That instrument was replaced in September, 2002 with Op. 1 built by Joseph Zamberlan and was dedicated in honor of Arthur Carkeek.

In 2001, Arthur Carkeek was given a lifetime honorary membership in the American Guild of Organists by the Indianapolis Chapter. He was also a member of Pi Kappa Lambda and the Association of Anglican Musicians.

A Solemn Evensong and Eucharist was celebrated on October 24, 2003 at St. Andrew's. Participants included former students, DePauw faculty, and members of the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis. The Arthur Carkeek Memorial Concert Fund has been established at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Greencastle, Indiana. He is survived by his wife Maureen  (McCormick) Carkeek, a daughter, a son, and two grandchildren.

--Richard Konzen

Halbert Scranton Gillette, chairman of the board and CEO of Scranton Gillette Communications, which publishes The Diapason, died on November 22, 2003, at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois, after a long battle with cancer. He was 81.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, June 29, 1922, the son of Edward Scranton Gillette and Claribel Reed Thornton, and raised in Chicago and Winnetka, Illinois, Mr. Gillette attended The Chicago Latin School and graduated from the Philips Exeter Academy. In 1944 he graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering and business. He was commissioned U.S. Navy 1944-1946, and served in the U.S. mainland during World War II and in the Naval Reserves. He was chairman of the board and CEO of Scranton Gillette Communications, Inc., which was founded in 1906 by his grandfather. Mr. Gillette started as a salesman for Gillette Publishing in 1947. In 1960, two-thirds of Gillette Publishing Co. was sold to Reuben H. Donnelley, which then was merging with Dun & Bradstreet. Mr. Gillette also moved to Donnelley/Dun & Bradstreet as a publisher and a vice president. In 1970, he rejoined his father's firm, then Scranton Publishing Company, and shortly become president of the firm, which was renamed Scranton Gillette Communications.

Mr. Gillette served as past president of the Chicago Business Papers Association, as well as on the board of several insurance companies. He was the former Chairman of the Board of Occidental Life Insurance. He served as alderman in Lake Forest, Illinois, 1979-1986, and served on the Public Safety and Waterfront committees. He was co-chairman of the committee that oversaw the creation of the city's current beachfront.

He was a member of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Lake Forest, and Church of the Holy Innocents, in Lahaina, Hawaii. He was also a member of the Onwentsia Club of Lake Forest; the Les Cheneaux Club, Cedarville, Michigan; and the Lahaina Yacht Club, Hawaii. Husband of Karla Ann Spiel Gillette; father of Anne, Susan, James, Halbert and Edward; grandfather of Alexander, Madeline, Carolyn, Julia, and Isabelle.

Thyra Nichols Plass died on October 27, 2003, in Bryan, Texas, at the age of 89. She was born in Green Valley, Illinois, on April 8, 1914, and lived in Bryan since 1968. Mrs. Plass earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Chicago, and her doctor of sacred music from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. A retired organist and choirmaster, she was a member of the Brazos Valley Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, the Association of Anglican Musicians, and of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Bryan, Texas. In addition she was a member of The Women's Club, a founding member of the Arts Council of the Brazos Valley, co-founder of the annual children's symphony concerts, and a member of OPAS Guild. She is survived by her husband Gilbert Norman Plass, a daughter, and six grandchildren.

Donald Basil Austin (1933-2004) died September 17 of complications from emphysema. He was 71. Mr. Austin was long affiliated with Austin Organs, Inc., the firm originally founded as Austin Organ Company by his great uncles, John T. Austin and Basil G. Austin. Donald Austin's father, Frederic Basil Austin, became president of the firm in 1937 upon its reorganization as Austin Organs, Inc.

As a boy, Donald Austin grew up surrounded by pipe organs, in a factory created by his family and filled with the mechanical wizardry of his forebears. On his days off, he often accompanied his father to the shop, and in 1950 he began working there in his spare time. After service in the Korean War, Mr. Austin began full-time employment, simultaneously pursuing an undergraduate degree in business administration at the University of Connecticut.

Mr. Austin was one of the few members of the factory staff to apprentice in the traditional sense: apart from the pipe shop, he worked in every department, even alongside the ladies in the third-floor action department (affectionately referred to as the 'hen house'). Family connections spelled no favoritism; Donald was begun at minimum wage of sixty-five cents an hour. In keeping with a long-standing family tradition, Mr. Austin did not study voicing, but chose to assist in the management of the company and maintain the firm guidance and conservative spirit that had characterized the Austin Company from the outset.

In the work environment, Mr. Austin was a reserved man who avoided publicity and preferred one-on-one contact. With friends and staff, however, his conservative exterior became a platform for 80-grit humor. Once started, "Don" or "DBA" (as most of the staff called him) could be immensely lively and affable. With a cigarette between his third and fourth fingers, he would stride straight past the No Smoking sign and into the factory for his rounds. A born prankster, Mr. Austin gloried in the fax machine the way other cultures embraced antibiotics; whimsy, wit and droll assessments of other builders' work would routinely unfurl into incoming trays across the land. Mr. Austin's humor was matched by penmanship of near illegibility, but there was something in his curly scrawl that conjured up the hearty chuckle of the man himself.

Over the years, projects brought him into contact with many luminaries. He was particularly fond of Dr. Robert Baker, who acted as consultant on numerous prominent Austin installations from the mid-1950s to 1990. He also worked with Clarence Watters, Fred Swann, Lawrence Phelps, Nelson Barden, Douglass Hunt and Carlo Curley, among others. He relished some of the firm's more unusual projects: the 1990 restoration of the 1930 Austin in Hartford's Bushnell Memorial Hall, a personal favorite of his great uncle Basil G. Austin; the console rebuild of the famous Girard College Aeolian-Skinner, the core organ provided for a concert hall in Shiroishi, Japan.

When F.B. Austin retired in 1973, Donald Austin assumed the office of President, and in 1990 he became Chairman of the Board. In 1994, after forty-four years with the firm, he announced his semi-retirement, leaving daily management to his daughter, Kimberlee, who had trained in the factory much as her father had. Mr. Austin remained active in policy decisions and general guidance. He retired as President in 1999, continuing as a member of the Board and consultant. He was a past President of the American Pipe Organ Builders Association, and held membership in the International Society of Organ Builders and the American Institute of Organ Builders.

Outside the factory, Mr. Austin was heavily involved in the Bloomfield Center Fire Department and Fire District, joining in 1951 and ascending through the ranks from Private and Captain to Treasurer and ultimately Commissioner. He served on the Board of Directors of the Hartford Chamber of Commerce and was President of the Traffic Club Division, as well as being a 32nd Degree Mason and a member of Hiram Lodge 98, AF & AM. He served as Senior Warden of Old St. Andrew's Church in Bloomfield, and proudly donated a Trumpet stop to the Austin Chorophone there. As an active member of the Central New England Railroad group, he made many friends, several of whom lent friendship and support in his later years.

In addition to his wife of fifty years, Marilyn (Heeber) Austin of Bloomfield, survivors include two daughters, Sheryl Morales, of Fanwood, NJ, and Kimberlee Austin of Windsor Locks, CT; three grandchildren, George Austin, and Stacey and Rachel Morales; and several in-laws, nieces and nephews. Funeral services were held Tuesday, September 21 at Old St. Andrew's Church in Bloomfield, with burial in the Old St. Andrew's Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Our Companions Animal Shelter, P.O. Box 673, Bloomfield, CT 06002, or the Old St. Andrew's Endowment for Organ Maintenance, 59 Tariffville Road, Bloomfield, CT 06002.

--Jonathan Ambrosino

Janet Hall died on April 30 in Pueblo, Colorado. Born on October 25, 1923, she had served as a church musician for almost 50 years. She received a bachelor's degree from Smith College and a master's from Union Theological Seminary, where she studied with Vernon de Tar. After serving as organist and director of Christian education at St. Thaddeus Church, Aiken, South Carolina, from 1946-49, she moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, to take up the post of assistant organist and director of Christian education at Bruton Parish Church. From 1957 to 1988 she served as organist and choirmaster at Ascension Episcopal Church, Pueblo, Colorado, and was the founder of the St. George Men and Boys' Choir and the St. Cecilia Choir. From 1963 to 1972 she was assistant professor of music at the University of Southern Colorado. The niece of English composer Herbert Sumsion, Miss Hall was a prolific composer of choir anthems and recorder and handbell music. Her plainsong setting of the Kyrie eleison is published in The Hymnal 1982.

Kent McDonald died on May 18 in Phoenix, Arizona. Born on July 25, 1925, in Phoenix, he served in the U.S. Army in World War II, studied piano privately in New York City, and then earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the Eastman School of Music. In 1950 he was appointed organist and choir director at St. James Episcopal Church, Birmingham, Michigan, where he served for over 40 years. During that time he taught piano and organ privately and was an adjunct instructor at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He twice served as Dean of the Detroit AGO chapter and also as Michigan State Chairman. He was program chairman for the AGO national convention in Detroit in 1958 and directed choirs at two Episcopal Church triennial conventions. After his retirement in 1991, he and his wife spent half of each year in Arizona and half in Oscoda, Michigan. During summers in Michigan, he served as organist at Christ Church, East Tawas.

Donald Basil Austin
(1933–2004) died September 17 of complications from emphysema. He was 71.
Mr. Austin was long affiliated with Austin Organs, Inc., the firm originally
founded as Austin Organ Company by his great uncles, John T. Austin and Basil
G. Austin. Donald Austin’s father, Frederic Basil Austin, became
president of the firm in 1937 upon its reorganization as Austin Organs, Inc.

As a boy, Donald Austin grew up surrounded by pipe organs,
in a factory created by his family and filled with the mechanical wizardry of
his forebears. On his days off, he often accompanied his father to the shop,
and in 1950 he began working there in his spare time. After service in the
Korean War, Mr. Austin began full-time employment, simultaneously pursuing an
undergraduate degree in business administration at the University of
Connecticut.

Mr. Austin was one of the few members of the factory staff
to apprentice in the traditional sense: apart from the pipe shop, he worked in
every department, even alongside the ladies in the third-floor action
department (affectionately referred to as the ‘hen house’). Family
connections spelled no favoritism; Donald was begun at minimum wage of
sixty-five cents an hour. In keeping with a long-standing family tradition, Mr.
Austin did not study voicing, but chose to assist in the management of the
company and maintain the firm guidance and conservative spirit that had characterized
the Austin Company from the outset.

In the work environment, Mr. Austin was a reserved man who
avoided publicity and preferred one-on-one contact. With friends and staff,
however, his conservative exterior became a platform for 80-grit humor. Once
started, “Don” or “DBA” (as most of the staff called
him) could be immensely lively and affable. With a cigarette between his third
and fourth fingers, he would stride straight past the No Smoking sign and into
the factory for his rounds. A born prankster, Mr. Austin gloried in the fax
machine the way other cultures embraced antibiotics; whimsy, wit and droll
assessments of other builders’ work would routinely unfurl into incoming
trays across the land. Mr. Austin’s humor was matched by penmanship of near
illegibility, but there was something in his curly scrawl that conjured up the
hearty chuckle of the man himself.

Over the years, projects brought him into contact with many
luminaries. He was particularly fond of Dr. Robert Baker, who acted as consultant
on numerous prominent Austin installations from the mid-1950s to 1990. He also
worked with Clarence Watters, Fred Swann, Lawrence Phelps, Nelson Barden,
Douglass Hunt and Carlo Curley, among others. He relished some of the
firm’s more unusual projects: the 1990 restoration of the 1930 Austin in
Hartford’s Bushnell Memorial Hall, a personal favorite of his great uncle
Basil G. Austin; the console rebuild of the famous Girard College
Aeolian-Skinner, the core organ provided for a concert hall in Shiroishi,
Japan.

When F.B. Austin retired in 1973, Donald Austin assumed the
office of President, and in 1990 he became Chairman of the Board. In 1994,
after forty-four years with the firm, he announced his semi-retirement, leaving
daily management to his daughter, Kimberlee, who had trained in the factory
much as her father had. Mr. Austin remained active in policy decisions and
general guidance. He retired as President in 1999, continuing as a member of
the Board and consultant. He was a past President of the American Pipe Organ
Builders Association, and held membership in the International Society of Organ
Builders and the American Institute of Organ Builders.

Outside the factory, Mr. Austin was heavily involved in the
Bloomfield Center Fire Department and Fire District, joining in 1951 and
ascending through the ranks from Private and Captain to Treasurer and
ultimately Commissioner. He served on the Board of Directors of the Hartford
Chamber of Commerce and was President of the Traffic Club Division, as well as being
a 32nd Degree Mason and a member of Hiram Lodge 98, AF & AM. He served as
Senior Warden of Old St. Andrew’s Church in Bloomfield, and proudly
donated a Trumpet stop to the Austin Chorophone there. As an active member of
the Central New England Railroad group, he made many friends, several of whom
lent friendship and support in his later years.

In addition to his wife of fifty years, Marilyn (Heeber)
Austin of Bloomfield, survivors include two daughters, Sheryl Morales, of
Fanwood, NJ, and Kimberlee Austin of Windsor Locks, CT; three grandchildren,
George Austin, and Stacey and Rachel Morales; and several in-laws, nieces and
nephews. Funeral services were held Tuesday, September 21 at Old Saint
Andrew’s Church in Bloomfield, with burial in the Old Saint Andrew’s
Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Our Companions Animal
Shelter, P.O. Box 673, Bloomfield, CT 06002, or the Old Saint Andrew’s
Endowment for Organ Maintenance, 59 Tariffville Road, Bloomfield, CT 06002.

--Jonathan Ambrosino

Janet Hall died on
April 30 in Pueblo, Colorado. Born on October 25, 1923, she had served as a
church musician for almost 50 years. She received a bachelor’s degree
from Smith College and a master’s from Union Theological Seminary, where
she studied with Vernon de Tar. After serving as organist and director of
Christian education at St. Thaddeus Church, Aiken, South Carolina, from
1946–49, she moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, to take up the post of
assistant organist and director of Christian education at Bruton Parish Church.
From 1957 to 1988 she served as organist and choirmaster at Ascension Episcopal
Church, Pueblo, Colorado, and was the founder of the St. George Men and
Boys’ Choir and the St. Cecilia Choir. From 1963 to 1972 she was
assistant professor of music at the University of Southern Colorado. The niece
of English composer Herbert Sumsion, Miss Hall was a prolific composer of choir
anthems and recorder and handbell music. Her plainsong setting of the Kyrie
eleison is published in The Hymnal 1982.

Kent McDonald died
on May 18 in Phoenix, Arizona. Born on July 25, 1925, in Phoenix, he served in
the U.S. Army in World War II, studied piano privately in New York City, and
then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Eastman School
of Music. In 1950 he was appointed organist and choir director at St. James
Episcopal Church, Birmingham, Michigan, where he served for over 40 years.
During that time he taught piano and organ privately and was an adjunct
instructor at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He twice served as
Dean of the Detroit AGO chapter and also as Michigan State Chairman. He was
program chairman for the AGO national convention in Detroit in 1958 and
directed choirs at two Episcopal Church triennial conventions. After his retirement
in 1991, he and his wife spent half of each year in Arizona and half in Oscoda,
Michigan. During summers in Michigan, he served as organist at Christ Church,
East Tawas.

Joy Anne Moore Marsh died peacefully at her home in Plano, Texas, on July 9. She was 69. Born in Dallas on July 19, 1935, she graduated from North Dallas High School in 1953. She earned her bachelor of music degree in organ from Southern Methodist University in 1957, studying with Dora Poteet Barclay, and then completed her master’s degree in music literature in 1961 at the University of Texas, Austin. Her thesis was “Form and Style in the Organ Works of Olivier Messiaen.” Mrs. Marsh taught music in the public schools of Midland and Dallas. A 40-year resident of Plano, Texas, she also taught private piano. She is survived by one sister, Mary E. Moore Skalicky, concert organist of Big Spring, Texas, three daughters and three grandchildren, and was preceded in death by her husband Noble Earl Marsh.

Jack H. Ossewaarde died December 30, 2004 at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He was 86. Born November 15, 1918 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Ossewaarde began his music training at age seven, and sang with the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Boys’ Choir in Kalamazoo. He became organist and director of music at North Park Reformed Church, Kalamazoo, at age 14, and also served as organist at Bethany Reformed Church while still a teenager.

After graduating from Kalamazoo Central High School in 1936, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from the University of Michigan. He was organist and music director at First Baptist Church, Ann Arbor, and an instructor at U-M before being inducted into the U.S. Army shortly before the United States entered World War II. After serving in the Army, Ossewaarde studied at Union Theological Seminary. In 1946 he was appointed organist and choirmaster of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The following year he was appointed organist at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City, where he served for six years. He then served Christ Church Cathedral in Houston for five years, before being appointed to St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York City, where he served for 25 years until his retirement. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Donna Ossewaarde, a daughter, a son, four grandchildren, one great-grandchild, a brother and sister-in-law, and a sister and brother-in-law.

Calvert Shenk died from cancer on July 9 at his home in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. He was 64. Most recently Mr. Shenk served as assistant professor of music at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. He also worked at Assumption Grotto Church in Detroit, where he assisted as organist, chant master and composer.

Born November 21, 1940 in Joplin, Missouri, Shenk earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organ performance from Northwestern University, and continued studies with Theodore Marier (Gregorian chant), Gerre Hancock (improvisation) and David Willcocks (choral conducting). He held music positions at St. Henry Parish, Chicago, Illinois; Armed Forces School of Music, Norfolk, Virginia; St. Philip Parish, Battle Creek, Michigan; St. Catherine Parish, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Cathedral of St. Paul, Birmingham, Alabama. In addition, he worked as adjunct instructor at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, as music critic for the Battle Creek Enquirer and News, as choral director at St. Philip Catholic Central High School, and as associate director, accompanist and composer-in-residence for the Battle Creek Boys Choir.

He played recitals thoughout the midwest, east and southeast, and performed at the 1986 AGO national convention in Detroit. Internationally, he presented an organ recital at Eglise Notre-Dame in Douai, France, and led the St. Catherine Church Choir on a tour of Italy in March 1987. Mr. Shenk was a Fellow of the AGO and served as dean of the Southwest Michigan chapter, as well as educational concerns chairman of the Birmingham, Alabama chapter. He was a member of the Hymn Society, the Church Music Association of America and the Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians.

A prolific composer, his works are published by MacAfee Music, GIA Publications and CanticaNOVA Publications, and he was co-author of the Adoremus Hymnal (Ignatius Press). A funeral mass was held on July 13 at Assumption Grotto Church, Detroit. Mr. Shenk is survived by his wife of 37 years, Ila Marie Connors Shenk.