Organist and composer Michel Boulnois died on November 30, 2008, at the age of 101. He was buried at the Villemomble cemetery (near Paris). He was born in Paris on October 31, 1907. When Michel was 11 years old, his father Joseph Boulnois, also an organist and composer, died during the First World War at Chalaines par Vaucouleurs (Meuse). Michel Boulnois studied music at the Paris Conservatory (notably with Noël Gallon, Georges Caussade, Marcel Dupré and Henri Busser) and was awarded a First Prize in Organ in 1937. He also studied composition and harmonic analysis with Nadia Boulanger.
Inspector of Music Education for the City of Paris, he served as titular of the Grand Orgue at Saint-Philippe-du-Roule Church in Paris from 1937 to 1990. His wife, Suzanne Sohet, also taught music harmony at the Cours Normal of the city of Paris and directed the choir at the French Radio. She also wrote several educational methods.
Among his works for organ, Michel Boulnois composed a Symphony in 1944 (published in Paris by Lemoine in 1949), Variations and Fugue on the “Veni Creator” (1974, Orgue et Liturgie), Three Pieces for the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament (1952, published by Schola Cantorum in 1953), a Mass for the Feast of the Annunciation (1959–63, Orgue et Liturgie nos. 48, 52, 57, 62), and an Elegie for violin and organ (1976, Lemoine) as well as several piano pieces (Aria, Lullaby of the Young Negro, Lemoine). He also transcribed Three Pieces by his father for the organ (Fugue, All Saints’ Day, Chorale, Lemoine).
Michel Boulnois remained faithful to the memory of the life and work of his father and deeply admired his teacher Marcel Dupré; at the age of 94, Michel Boulnois so kindly came from Paris to attend my concert at the Rouen Cathedral on March 4, 2001, in homage to organists who gave their lives during the two world wars (I had performed Dupré’s Fugue in G minor, dedicated to his father).
—Carolyn Shuster Fournier
Paris, France
Thomas B. Dunn died October 26 in Bloomington, Indiana. He was 82. Born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1925, and reared in Baltimore, Dunn began as an assistant organist at the Third Lutheran Church in Baltimore at age 11; at age 16 he became organist, later organist-choirmaster, at Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation. He studied organ and conducting at the Peabody Conservatory with Charles Courboin, E. Power Biggs, Virgil Fox, Ernest White, Renée Longy, and Ifor Jones. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s from Harvard, where he studied choral arranging with Archibald Davison and fugue with Walter Piston; he received a Fulbright grant and studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory with Gustav Leonhardt and Anthon van der Horst.
In 1957 Dunn became music director at the Church of the Incarnation in New York City, and in 1959 was appointed conductor of the Cantata Singers, with whom he organized a series of summer concerts in Avery Fisher Hall that later was to become the Mostly Mozart Festival. An influential pioneer during the early music revival in the mid-20th century, Dunn became the artistic director of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society in 1967, during which time he became chief editor of E. C. Schirmer Music, where he worked to bring the catalog of compositions up to modern editorial standards. He taught at many universities and music schools, including Peabody, Ithaca College, Stanford, Westminster Choir College, Boston University, and Indiana University. His work as a conductor can be heard on the Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, and Sine Qua Non labels. Thomas Dunn is survived by his partner, David Manuel Villanueva, a nephew, and three nieces.
Ruth Milliken, age 86, died October 19 in Wilton, Connecticut. She began piano studies at age three and was a graduate of the Juilliard School in New York City, with degrees in choral conducting. She also studied choral conducting with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, and organ with Vernon deTar. Milliken served Wilton Congregational Church from 1960 to 1987, as organist-choir director and later as director of music; there she developed a graded choir program and a choral concert series with orchestra and soloists. She taught organ, piano, voice, and choirs for over 65 years, and served as a substitute organist while in retirement. The first woman to serve on the national executive board of the American Guild of Organists, Milliken was registrar, secretary, and then vice president, and a member of the editorial supervisory board of MUSIC/The AGO-RCCO Magazine. She was also the executive secretary for the World Health Organization mission to the United Nations for many years. The Ruth Milliken Scholarship Fund, a part of the AGO’s New Organist Fund, was established in her honor in 2003 by her students and friends. Ruth Milliken is survived by her brother, Francis, two nieces, and a nephew.
Cees van Oostenbrugge, director of Flentrop Orgelbouw of Zaandam, the Netherlands, died unexpectedly on December 10, 2008. Cees (pronounced “case”) was born in Gouda, the Netherlands, on July 25, 1947. After graduating Technical College, he worked for the organ builder Slooff in nearby Ouderkerk aan de Ijssel for two years, moving on to Flentrop in 1969. He became associate director of the firm in 1989 and in 1998 was appointed its director as successor of Hans Steketee, who in turn had succeeded D. A. Flentrop in 1976.
Under Cees’s leadership, the firm completed projects as diverse as the restoration of the 1511 van Covelens organ in Alkmaar (2000); the reconstruction of the 1875 Cavaillé-Coll organ in Haarlem (2005); and the restoration of the 1762 Bätz organ in The Hague (2007). In 2008 alone, Flentrop built a new organ (II/28) in a Romantic idiom in Foldnes, Norway; moved a typical Neo-Baroque Flentrop (1962, II/9) from Ijmuiden, the Netherlands, to Wellington, New Zealand; and all but completed the first phase—a Rückpositiv with 13 stops—of what would have been Cees’s magnum opus: the restoration/reconstruction of the large organ (IV/58) in the St. Katharinenkirche in Hamburg, Germany. The Hamburg organ will be a reconstruction based on the specification of Mattheson (1720).
Cees played organ, but enjoyed playing the piano more. He played both instruments in church services and was proud of a compliment he earned for his qualities as piano accompanist from a well-known professional singer he had the privilege to play for. He quietly enjoyed smoking his pipe and had a nice, somewhat understated, sense of humor. As director of Flentrop, Cees felt responsible for his employees in a very real way: when business was low for a while, he voluntarily took a 25% salary cut in order to keep things going.
I had the pleasure of working closely with Cees on Flentrop’s refurbishment in 2006 of the 1991 Bedient at Queens College of the City University of New York. All of us at Queens College’s Copland School of Music were much impressed with the remarkable mix of professionalism and friendliness of all the Flentrop employees involved, which was largely attributed to Cees’s leadership style.
A service of thanksgiving took place at Zaandam on December 16. Cees is survived by Francien, his wife of 38 years; their children and grandchildren; and his brother. At Flentrop, Cees is being succeeded by Frits Elshout, who has been with the firm since 1971. Responsible for the firm’s voicing for many years, Frits has been associate director since 1998.
—Jan-Piet Knijff
