Jonathan Blumhofer wins First Baptist Church, Worcester, Mass., 2012 anthem competition

David Arthur Sansome Gell, 70 years old, died March 2, 2014, in Santa Barbara, California. Born in Alberta, Canada, his musical journey began at age 8 as a boy chorister in an Edmonton, Alberta, church. After immigrating to Alhambra, California, he began organ lessons at age 13.

Gell attended California State University at Los Angeles, majoring in history and music; he graduated in 1966 from Azusa Pacific University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music, studying organ and theory with Gerald Faber. He did graduate study at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, the University of Hawaii (Manoa), and with Emma Lou Diemer at the University of California at Santa Barbara. During the Viet Nam conflict, he served on board the USS Klondike, and as organist and assistant to the Pacific Fleet Chaplain in Pearl Harbor. 

David Gell served as organist and choirmaster at churches in Monrovia, California, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, First Congregational Church, and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Santa Barbara. His greatest distinction was as Minister of Music, Organist and Composer-in-Residence of Trinity Episcopal Church, Santa Barbara. During his 30-year tenure, he helped create several community concert series, including an Advent Series, Old Spanish Days Fiesta with La Música Antigua de España, Young Artists Concerts, and music and organ demonstrations to school children. He served as organist-in-residence at major cathedrals in Britain during five concert tours with the Santa Barbara Boys Choir. 

Active in the American Guild of Organists, he had served as dean, sub-dean, and treasurer of chapters in Hawaii and Santa Barbara. He performed in Canada, Louisiana, Hawaii, and California, including at Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles and AGO regional conventions. He established the local chapter of the Choral Conductors Guild and served as founder, first conductor, and president of the board of the Santa Barbara Master Chorale.

David Gell composed works for orchestra, vocal solo, choral anthems and cantatas, concertos for instruments, fanfares, an organ sonata, string quartet, chorale preludes, and hymn introductions and intonations for the Episcopal Church’s 1982 Hymnal. Gell generously shared his scores, interpretation ideas, and ingenious methods of registration and of managing multiple pages of scores. His memorial service included music by his favorite composers—Buxtehude, Stanley, Handel, and Emma Lou Diemer. Two of his own organ compositions were included: “Meditation on Picardy” and “Toccata on ‘Only begotten, Word of God.’” In honor of his service in the Navy, Taps was played. 

David Arthur Sansome Gell is survived by his wife of 45 years, Carolyn Gell. Memorial contributions may be made to the Azusa Pacific University School of Music, Organ Scholarship Advancement, P.O. Box 7000, Azusa, CA 91702-7000.

—Charles Talmadge

Perry G. Parrigin, 88, passed away December 26, 2013, in Columbia, Missouri. Born in Paintsville, Kentucky, he received his bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Kentucky in 1947 and his master’s degree in organ from Indiana University in 1949. Following his military service at Fort Knox, Kentucky, as a chaplain’s assistant, he studied under Robert Baker at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and at the University of Colorado. Parrigin moved to Columbia in 1953 to teach music theory and organ at the University of Missouri; he retired from the university in 1989 as Professor Emeritus, and became organist and choirmaster at the Missouri United Methodist Church, serving in that role from 1953–1963 and from 1980–1997 as organist. During his tenure he oversaw the renovation and expansion of the church’s Skinner organ. He was named Organist Emeritus in 2000. Parrigin was a longtime member of the Kiwanis Club and the American Guild of Organists. Perry G. Parrigin was preceded in death by his wife of 32 years, Elizabeth, and is survived by several nieces and nephews. 

Robert L. Town, professor of organ emeritus at Wichita State University, died on December 10, 2013. He was a master teacher, recitalist, and consultant during his long and productive career. (See Lorenz Maycher, “A Conversation with Robert Town,” The Diapason, May 2008.) Born October 31, 1937, in Waterman, Wisconsin, his interest in the pipe organ began at age three, when he attended church for the first time. At age 12, he headed a successful campaign to purchase a Hammond organ for his church, and at 15, he was appointed organist at First Baptist Church in Weedsport, New York. Town received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1960 from the Eastman School of Music, studying with Catharine Crozier. He entered Syracuse University as a master’s student of Arthur Poister, graduating in 1962 and continuing his studies there while filling a one-year vacancy in the department. Later, he continued his doctoral work with Marilyn Mason at the University of Michigan. At age 25, Town won the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition, over two finalists ten years his senior; this led to his national debut as a recitalist in a career playing in the United States, Canada, and Europe, including at the Kennedy Center, St. Thomas Church for the New York World’s Fair, and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. 

Town became chairman of the Wichita State University organ department in 1965 and taught until he retired in 2006. His students were successful in prestigious competitions over a 20-year period, including two winners at Fort Wayne in addition to nine finalists at the Ruth and Clarence Mader competition (Pasadena), the Gruenstein competition (Chicago), and the national undergraduate competition in Ottumwa (Iowa). Two students won international competitions and three were selected as Fulbright Scholars. Perhaps his greatest achievement was in securing the four-manual, 63-stop, 85-rank Marcussen tracker pipe organ at Wichita State University in 1987. Marcussen and Son had never produced an instrument in the United States but were persuaded when told that Wiedemann Recital Hall (named for the organ’s benefactor, Gladys Wiedemann) would be erected specifically to house the organ. In 1994, the Rie Bloomfield Recital Series was endowed on the campus.

Professor Town’s estate provided a bequest to establish the Robert L. Town Distinguished Professorship in organ, a position currently held by Professor Lynne Davis, and provided for the ongoing maintenance of the Marcussen. Ten years before his death, Town made an endowed gift to keep all of the practice organs on the campus well maintained. Memorials may be sent to Harry Hynes Memorial Hospice, 313 S. Market, Wichita, KS 67202 or the Marcussen Organ Maintenance Fund, c/o WSU Foundation, 1845 N. Fairmount, Wichita, KS 67260. 

Leonard Edwin Bearse Sr. died in Amesbury, Massachusetts on May 4, at the age of 73. Born in Hyannis, Bearse had his first church job at age 14, at the First Baptist Church there. He studied the organ in Germany while serving with the Armed Forces there, and studied choral conducting with Robert Shaw. He earned a master of music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, studying organ with Donald Willing. He was a public school teacher in various eastern Massachusetts towns, and held music positions in various churches, most recently as minister of music at the Congregational Church in Kensington, New Hampshire, where he played his last service on March 16. Leonard Bearse is survived by his wife, Ellen, and his children Leonard E. Jr., Bruce, and Stephanie.

Michael Cohen, age 69, died June 21 in Asheville, North Carolina. A native of Tampa, Florida, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from Florida State University–Tallahassee. He taught music in the Florida public schools for 39 years, and was organist-music director for the Church of the Holy Spirit in Apopka, Florida, for the past 17 years. A past dean of the Central Florida AGO chapter, he was a member of the Winter Park Bach Festival Choir. Michael Cohen is survived by his partner, Carl Brown; his brother Paul (and wife Donna), and brother Joel (and partner Barry Dingman).

Robert E. Glasgow, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Music, noted concert organist, and one of the most widely respected artists in the field of organ performance and pedagogy, died on September 10 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was 83.
Professor Glasgow taught organ at the University of Michigan School of Music for 44 years. He received his B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Eastman School of Music in 1950 and 1951, respectively, earning Eastman’s Performer’s Certificate as well. At Eastman, he studied with Harold Gleason. From 1951 to 1962, he was associate professor of organ and college organist at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. He joined the University of Michigan School of Music in 1962 as assistant professor, and was promoted to associate professor in 1964, full professor in 1973, and professor emeritus in 2006.
In 1973, Glasgow was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree, honoris causa, by MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. The New York Chapter of the American Guild of Organists named him International Performer of the Year for 1997. Glasgow returned to his alma mater in January 2002, where he was given the school’s Alumni Achievement Award. On the same occasion, he taught a masterclass, influencing yet another generation of Eastman students. Glasgow’s faculty colleagues at the University of Michigan also recognized his pedagogical efforts by awarding him the Harold Haugh Award for excellence in the teaching of performance.
For over 50 years, he successfully combined a brilliant teaching career with an impressive career as a concert organist, both in the United States and abroad. He was best known for his stirring performances of the organ literature of the 19th century, and was regarded by some as the greatest living interpreter of Romantic organ music. He was a regularly featured performer for national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists as well as the International Congress of Organists. He was selected to perform and teach at the American Classic Organ Symposium on the occasion of the completion of the renovation of the great Tabernacle Organ at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Dr. Glasgow’s performances of the music of Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Widor, Vierne, and especially César Franck were legendary; in one review he was given the appropriate nickname “the Philadelphia Orchestra of Organists.” In addition to a number of broadcast recordings for the BBC, Glasgow made one commercial recording for Prestant Records in 1987, Robert Glasgow plays César Franck, recorded on the Aeolian-Skinner organ in All Saints Church, Worcester, Massachusetts.
A leading educator of uncompromising standards, Robert Glasgow helped to form some of the most gifted organists in the world. His students are to be found in important church and academic positions throughout the United States. He was an artist in the truest sense, and a teacher who constantly reminded his students that they must not strive merely to be organists, but always musicians— communicating musical ideas in spite of the inherent difficulty of the instrument.
Robert Ellison Glasgow was born on May 30, 1925 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the son of Floyd Lafayette Glasgow and Elizabeth Mary Jenkins. His death is mourned by his many devoted students, friends, and colleagues. (See the interview with Stephen Egler, “Robert Glasgow at 80,” The Diapason, May 2005.)
—Ray Henry
Rochester, Michigan

Walter A. Guzowski died September 17 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was 68. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, his career had a dramatic beginning. While still a high school student, he observed an organ technician tuning the Schlicker organ at his church, and informed the pastor that he could do what the technician had done, and save the church some money. Later, while doing some tuning, Guzowski slipped off the walkboard onto the chest below, crushing numerous pipes; to rectify this, his father brought him to Herman Schlicker, and Guzowski began working at the Schlicker Organ Company, where he worked (except for two years serving in the Army) until 1979. While at Schlicker he became head voicer and tonal finisher, working on a range of instruments, from two-rank residence organs to the large organ at First Congregational Church in Los Angeles. After moving to Fort Lauderdale in 1979, he founded a service business, which with John A. Steppe and Christopher B. Kane, became Guzowski & Steppe Organbuilders, Inc. in 1983. Walter Guzowski is survived by his sister Margaret, her husband Walter, and cousins and friends.

Gerhard Krapf died in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on July 2. He was 83. Krapf was renowned for his organ, choral, and vocal compositions, his scholarly writings on the organ, his teaching at the University of Alberta (1977–87, for which he was named professor emeritus), and for designing the 1978 Casavant organ there. He contributed significantly to the development of graduate programs in keyboard and library resources at the University of Alberta; in the 1960s, he had established and built the undergraduate and graduate organ programs at the University of Iowa’s School of Music. Gerhard Krapf is survived by his wife, Trudl, three daughters, a son, a brother, sister, and four grandchildren.

John S. Peragallo, Jr. died Friday, September 12 at the Hospice of New Jersey, Wayne, New Jersey, at age 76. Born in New York City and a lifelong resident of Paterson, he took several classes at the Newark College of Engineering, and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict as a chaplain’s assistant and in the honor guard.
As a boy he helped his father in the family business, the Peragallo Pipe Organ Company, founded by his father, John Peragallo, Sr., in 1918. John Jr. joined the company in 1949. He was responsible for the construction and care of many of the pipe organs of New Jersey and the complete renovation of the organs at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City. John Jr.’s sons, John III and Frank, have been actively involved in the family business since the 1980s and now have a fourth generation of Peragallos, Janine, Anthony and John IV, to work alongside them. The company has installed almost 700 new instruments and currently maintains approximately 400 instruments, up and down the East Coast of the United States, including the organs of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

Lucien Deiss, C.S.Sp., died on October 9. His funeral was celebrated on October 13 at Seminaire des Missiones in Larue, France. Best known to Roman Catholics in the U.S. through his scriptural songs such as “All the Earth,” “Keep in Mind,” and “Grant to Us, O Lord,” Fr. Deiss was also widely known in Europe and the United States as a scholar in the fields of sacred scripture and patristics. He was selected by Pope Paul VI to coordinate the Lectionary psalter following the Second Vatican Council. His Biblical Hymns and Psalms was one of the first collections of congregational music for Roman Catholics. For this he was given an honorary doctorate in sacred music from Duquesne University. An advocate of the reforms of Vatican II, Fr. Deiss dedicated much of his life to liturgical catechesis through workshops and the well-known “Deiss days” sponsored by WLP (then World Library of Sacred Music).

Czech composer Petr Eben died October 25 at his home in Prague at the age of 78. Born January 22, 1929, in Zamberk, Eben began piano study at age six and organ at nine. At 10, he composed his first musical pieces. As a teenager, he was imprisoned in the Nazis’ Buchenwald concentration camp. After the war, he studied piano and composition at Prague’s Academy of Music.
He taught for several decades, first at Prague’s Charles University, and later at the Academy of Performing Arts. From 1977–78, Eben was teaching composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. In 1990 he became professor of composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and president of the Prague Spring Festival.
Over his career he composed some 200 pieces, including works for organ and piano, orchestral and chamber compositions, oratorios, masses and cantatas as well as pieces for children. Among his best-known works were the organ cycle Job; the oratorio Sacred Symbols for the Salzburg Cathedral; Windows (four movements for trumpet and organ inspired by Marc Chagall’s stained glass designs for a synagogue in Jerusalem); and Prague Te Deum. He concertized around the world, performing his compositions as well as improvisations on organ and piano, including at Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, London’s Royal Festival Hall, and the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.
Eben’s music is regularly performed throughout Europe, the USA, Canada, Japan and Australia. He was awarded many prizes for his works: 1990, by the Czech government for his organ cycle Job; 1991, the Ordre Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French Minister of Culture; 1992, Professor (honoris causa) of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester; 1993, the Stamitz Prize of the German Künstlergilde; 1994, doctorate (honoris causa) from Prague Charles University; and in 2002 he received a high Czech decoration, the Medal of Merit. Eben is survived by his wife Sarka and three sons, Marek, David and Krystof.
Eben’s works for organ include:
Concerto for Organ and Orchestra No. 1 (Symphonia gregoriana), 1954.
Concerto for Organ and Orchestra No. 2, 1983.
Windows on the Pictures of Marc Chagall (trumpet and organ), 1976.
Fantasia for Viola and Organ Rorate Coeli, 1982.
Landscapes of Patmos (organ and percussion), 1984.
Tres iubilationes (brass and organ), 1987.
Two Invocations for Trombone and Organ, 1987.
Sunday Music, 1957–59.
Laudes, 1964.
Ten Chorale Preludes, 1971.
Two Chorale Fantasias, 1972.
Small Chorale Partita, 1978.
Faust, 1979–80.
Mutationes, 1980.
Versetti, 1982.
A Festive Voluntary (On Good King Wenceslas), 1986.
Hommage à Buxtehude, 1987.
Job (organ), 1987.
Two Festive Preludes, 1990, 1992.
Biblical Dances, 1990–91.
Amen, es werde wahr, 1993.
Momenti d’organo, 1994.
Hommage à Henri Purcell, 1994–95.

Albert Fuller, harpsichordist, conductor, teacher and author, died September 22 at his home in Manhattan, at the age of 81. As co-founder in 1972 and artistic director of the Aston Magna Foundation in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, he was among the pioneers of the revival of playing baroque music on the original instruments for which it was conceived. A frequent recitalist, Fuller also recorded extensively, including the first American original-instrument complete set of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. The 1977 recording, made at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, became the initial release of the Smithsonian Institution’s recording program and went on to sell more than 100,000 copies.
Born July 21, 1926, Fuller grew up in Washington, D.C., where he was a boy soprano with the choir at the National Cathedral and studied organ with Paul Callaway. He went on to study harpsichord at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and at Yale University, where his teachers included Ralph Kirkpatrick and Paul Hindemith, and then went to Paris on a Ditson fellowship. He made his New York debut at Town Hall in 1957, and in 1964 joined the faculty of Juilliard as professor of harpsichord. He was also on the faculty of Yale University, 1976–79.
In 1972, Fuller founded the Aston Magna Foundation. Up to 30 performers gathered for several weeks each summer to study and play early music on the original instruments. Fuller left the Aston Magna Foundation in 1983 and went on to found the Helicon Foundation, a New York-based ensemble whose repertoire included music by Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms.

Rudolf “Rudy” O. Inselmann died July 6 in Newport Beach, California at the age of 72. He majored in piano at Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa, then attended Capital Bible Seminary and became an ordained Lutheran minister. He received an MA in organ from Indiana University and a doctorate in sacred music from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. After teaching music at the University of El Paso, he joined the faculty of Christ College, now Concordia University, Irvine, California. He served as organist at Church of the Good Shepherd in Arcadia; St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, San Clemente; St. Kilian Catholic Church, Mission Viejo; and Our Lady Queen of Angels, Newport Beach. Dr. Inselmann was dean of the Orange County AGO chapter from 1998–2000; he was also a longtime member of the Music Teachers Association of California.

Henry Ray Mann died June 30 in Greenville, Michigan. He was 72. A graduate of the University of Richmond, he earned a master of sacred music degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he served as organist-director in several churches and formed an organbuilding firm in partnership with Larry Trupiano. Henry Mann was known for his skill and artistry in the manufacture and voicing of wood pipes. He retired to Trufant, Michigan in 1992, subsequently serving as organist at Settlement Lutheran Church.

Bruce E. Mathieson died July 19 in Morgantown, West Virginia, from injuries sustained in an accident. He was 50 years old. Early in his 42 years of organ playing, he won two junior organist competitions. He was a graduate of Holyoke Community College with an associate degree in music. Mr. Mathieson served in the U.S. Navy for 24 years, and was the organist on the U.S.S. Enterprise during his service on that ship; he also played for Pope John Paul II while in Rome. After retiring from the Navy, he worked for West Virginia University and was organist at Point Marion Baptist Church in Point Marion, Pennsylvania; he also assisted the choir of Westover United Methodist Church in Westover, West Virginia. He was a charter member of the new Monongahela AGO chapter in West Virginia. Bruce Mathieson is survived by his wife of 29 years, Karla Landry Mathieson, a son, a daughter, his mother, two brothers, three sisters, and two grandchildren.

Roy G. Wilson died May 31 at the age of 92 in El Paso, Texas. A graduate of New Mexico State College, he earned a master’s degree from Texas Western College and focused his career on school administration in several El Paso schools. A lifelong musician, he served Grace United Methodist Church for over 50 years as organist, choir director, or as both. He regularly provided music for the Grace pre-school program and area school districts, and accompanied for solo and ensemble contestants. A member of the El Paso AGO chapter, he served as dean on several occasions. Mr. Wilson is survived by two daughters, a son, eight grandchildren, and eleven great grandchildren.