David Jonies recitals

Richard Hillert died February 18. He was Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus at Concordia University Chicago, River Forest, Illinois, and was best known for his work as a composer and composition teacher. One of his most noted works is Worthy Is Christ, of which “This is the Feast of Victory” has been widely published in various worship books.
Hillert received his bachelor’s degree in education from Concordia, and master’s and doctoral degrees in composition from Northwestern University. He also studied composition with Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi. Hillert taught at Concordia from 1959 to 2003. He edited eleven volumes of the Concordia Hymn Prelude Series and was associate editor of the journal Church Music (1966–80).
Hillert’s compositions and publications include liturgical music for congregation, choral motets, hymns and hymn anthems, psalm settings and organ works, concertatos, and cantatas, including settings of The Christmas Story According to Saint Luke and The Passion According to Saint John. Richard Hillert is survived by his wife Gloria Bonnin Hillert, and children Kathryn Brewer, Virginia Hillert, and Jonathan Hillert.

Rev. Richard D. Howell died January 26 in Dallas, Texas. Born June 24, 1932 in Great Bend, Kansas, he earned a master of sacred music degree from Southern Methodist University, and was ordained a deacon in the United Methodist Church. He started playing for church services at age 13, and went on to serve numerous United Methodist congregations in Texas and taught elementary music for the Richardson and Dallas school districts. He played for children’s, youth, and adult choirs and directed handbell choirs, serving as the chairman of the Dallas Handbell Festival. He was active in many organizations, including the American Guild of Organists, Choristers Guild, and the Fellowship of United Methodist Musicians. Richard D. Howell is survived by his wife of 52 years, Bradley Sue Howell, children Mark and Teri Howell, Celeste and Martin Hlavenka, and Jane Walker, along with grandchildren, sisters-in-law, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Richard Proulx died February 18 at age 72. From 1980 to 1994, he was organist–music director at the Cathedral of the Holy Name in Chicago, where he was also responsible for the planning and installation of two new mechanical-action organs for the cathedral: Casavant II/19 (Quebec, 1981) and Flentrop IV/71 (Holland, 1989). Before coming to Chicago, he served at St. Thomas Church, Medina/Seattle (1970–1980), and was organist at Temple de Hirsch Sinai. Previous positions included St. Charles Parish, Tacoma; St. Stephen’s Church, Seattle; and 15 years (1953–1968) at the Church of the Holy Childhood in St. Paul.
A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, he attended MacPhail College and the University of Minnesota, with further studies undertaken at the American Boychoir School at Princeton, St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, and the Royal School of Church Music in England. He studied organ with Ruth Dindorf, Arthur Jennings, Rupert Sircom, Gerald Bales, and Peter Hallock; choral conducting with Bruce Larsen, Donald Brost, and Peter Hallock; composition with Leopold Bruenner, Theodore Ganshaw, Bruce Larsen, and Gerald Bales.
Proulx was a widely published composer of more than 300 works, including congregational music, sacred and secular choral works, song cycles, two operas, and instrumental and organ music. He served as consultant for The Hymnal 1982, the New Yale Hymnal, the Methodist Hymnal, Worship II and III, and contributed to the Mennonite Hymnal and the Presbyterian Hymnal.

Phyllis J. Stringham, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, died February 12 at the age of 79. Born January 30, 1931 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Calvin College and a Master of Music degree in organ performance at the University of Michigan. Her organ teachers included John Hamersma, Robert Noehren, and Marilyn Mason. She pursued additional study at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, studying with Nadia Boulanger and André Marchal. In 1966 she studied with Marie-Claire Alain and Anton Heiller at the Summer Academy for Organists in Haarlem, Holland. While on sabbatical leave in 1972, she spent five months studying at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria. Further study was done at the Eastman School of Music with Russell Saunders, and with Delbert Disselhorst at the University of Iowa.
For 43 years, Stringham was Professor of Music and College Organist at Carroll University, Waukesha, Wisconsin (1959–2002). After retirement from teaching, she retained her position as College Organist and Curator of the Organ. In 2007 she was named Organist Emeritus. Her earlier teaching career began at Chatham Hall, an Episcopal school in Virginia. She is listed in Who’s Who in the World of Music. From the late 1960s to 2007 she operated the Phyllis Stringham Concert Management agency. She served the AGO as dean of the Milwaukee chapter and as Wisconsin State Chair.
Phyllis Stringham is survived by her brother James A. (Gladys), nephews, many grandnephews, nieces, other relatives and friends. A memorial service was held February 18 at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Waukesha.

Gail Walton, director of music at the University of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart, died February 24 in Indianapolis after a long illness. She was 55 years old. Dr. Walton had served as director of music in the Basilica since 1988, directing the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir as well as the Basilica Schola, which she founded in 1989. She held degrees from Westminster Choir College and the Eastman School of Music, where she earned the doctor of musical arts degree in organ performance, and was awarded the performer’s certificate. Before joining the basilica staff, she taught organ at Goshen College.
Gail Walton performed throughout the midwestern United States and played concerts in the German cities of Bonn, Heidenheim, Mainz, and Rottenburg/Neckar in the summer of 1991. In the summer of 1995, she took the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir on a tour of Italy, giving performances in Florence, Milan, Assisi, and Rome. She frequently played duo recitals with her husband, organist and Notre Dame music professor Craig Cramer.

Allan Wicks, a leading cathedral organist of his generation, died February 4 at age 86. He played a crucial role during the 1950s and 60s in bringing modern works by Messiaen, Maxwell Davies, Stravinsky, and Britten into the regular cathedral repertory. Born in Harden, Yorkshire, on June 6, 1923, the son of a clergyman, Wicks became organ scholar at Christ Church, Oxford in 1942, where he studied under Thomas Armstrong. He became sub-organist at York Minster in 1947, then in 1954 organist and master of the choristers of Manchester Cathedral. During his time there, he oversaw the rebuilding of the war-damaged organ, and championed the music of Peter Maxwell Davies and Malcolm Williamson. He also regularly conducted Stravinsky’s Canticum Sacrum.
In 1961 he was appointed organist and master of the choristers of Canterbury Cathedral, a post he held until 1988.There he regularly performed music by such composers as Messiaen, Ligeti, Tippett, Lennox Berkeley, and Alan Ridout. Wicks made several recordings, released on LP but yet to be issued on CD, of works by Alan Ridout, Messiaen (notably La nativité du Seigneur), Bach, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Franck, Widor, Alain and Reger. Wicks retired from Canterbury in 1988, having served under three archbishops and taught several generations of choristers.

Sister Marie Theodore Girten, OP, died November 3, 2009, at St. Dominic Villa, Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. Sister Marie Theodore made her first religious profession as a Sinsinawa Dominican August 5, 1946, and her final profession August 5, 1949.
Sister Marie Theodore taught music and served as principal organist for the parishes at which she taught for 23 years. She ministered as principal organist at the Motherhouse in Sinsinawa for 36 years and as an assistant in the Motherhouse pharmacy for 20 years. She served in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, and as principal organist at St. Raphael Cathedral, Madison, while teaching at St. Raphael School and at the Motherhouse, 1969–2005.
Sister Marie Theodore was born March 20, 1923, in Chicago, the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Hoss) Girten. Her parents and a brother, Theodore Girten, preceded her in death. She is survived by two sisters, Ruth Mieling and Therese Breiter; a brother, Walter Girten; nieces, nephews, and her Dominican Sisters with whom she shared life for 63 years.

Markwell James Perry died October 5, 2009, at Brantford General Hospital in Ontario, Canada. He was 93. A former president of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, he was named honorary president in 2005. He was past president and an honorary member of the Ontario Registered Music Teachers Association and past vice president of the Canadian Federation of Musicians. For 53 years he served as music director at Colborne Street (Heritage) United Church in Brantford, and for more than 40 years as chapel organist at Beckett-Glaves Family Funeral Centre in Brantford.

Lorraine Schramm died October 4, 2009, in Albert City, Iowa, at the age of 75. She earned a BA degree from Buena Vista College and did graduate work at the University of Minnesota. She had served at the United Methodist church in Storm Lake, Iowa, and since 1996 at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Elbert City. During the 1980s and 1990s Schramm operated Music Plus, a music store where she gave piano lessons and sold sheet music. She was a past dean of the Buena Vista AGO chapter.

Richard A. Starkjohann died October 13, 2009 in Riverside, California. He graduated in 1952 from Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, where he majored in music. After service in the U.S. Air Force, he taught music in public schools in Montana, and then moved to California, where he did graduate study at the University of Redlands. He served as pianist and organist at Unity of the Crossroads Church in Riverside, and at St. Bernardine’s Catholic Church in San Bernardino for more than 25 years.

Sister Cecil Steffen, OP (Edmund), died December 8, 2009, at St. Dominic Villa, Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. Sister Cecil made her first religious profession as a Sinsinawa Dominican August 5, 1946. She taught piano and music to elementary and secondary students for 26 years. Sister Cecil served as a professor of music, composer, and liturgist at Dominican University (formerly Rosary College), River Forest, Illinois, for 30 years, in addition to serving in Oklahoma, New York, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. She ministered as a musician and teacher at the Motherhouse in Sinsinawa from 2001 to 2005.
Sister Cecil was born March 21, 1919, in Chicago, the daughter of Richard and Frieda (Helmold) Steffen. Her parents and a brother, Richard Steffen, preceded her in death. She is survived by cousins and her Dominican Sisters.

Sally Slade Warner, organist and carillonneur, died December 4, 2009 at the age of 77, of cancer, in the Merrimack Valley Hospice, Haverhill, Massachusetts. Born September 6, 1932 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and raised and educated in Fitchburg, she majored in organ performance at New England Conservatory, and shortly afterward passed both the Associateship and Choir Master examinations of the American Guild of organists. As an organist, she was for some years associated with Everett Titcomb at the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Boston, eventually succeeding him after his death. After leaving that position, she served as a substitute organist and accompanist for the rest of her life. During the 1970s she studied carillon playing, first with Earl Chamberlain, and then at the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen, Belgium, where she received her diploma “with great distinction.”
In 1971 Sally moved to Andover, Massachusetts, initially as house counselor at Abbot Academy, but two years later she was hired as a music librarian at Phillips Academy, Andover, a position she held until her retirement 30 years later. During her tenure she is credited with having transformed a meager sound recording collection into one of the most extensive collections of its kind in any comparable school. Thanks to her encyclopedic knowledge of musical literature, she became a valuable resource to students and faculty alike, and was involved in many facets of the school’s musical life as an associate faculty member. Before long she also became carillonneur and carillon instructor at the academy, where she gave regular concerts and tutored a number of students in carillon playing, until the carillon tower was closed for structural reasons in the 1990s.
In 1985 she was appointed carillonneur of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Cohasset, Massachusetts, where she was responsible for both playing and engaging guest players for the annual summer series of carillon concerts, a position she held until the time of her death. She also composed a number of carillon arrangements popular with her fellow carillonneurs, and gave carillon recitals throughout North America as well as in Europe. In 1988 she received a medal for Distinguished Service to the Carillon from the University of California, Berkeley.
Sally was an active member of both the Boston and Merrimack Valley AGO chapters, having served both in several capacities, and was also an active member of the Guild of Carillonneurs of North America, from which she recently received a citation for her many contributions to the art of carillon playing. Since 1969 she had been a valued Trustee of Methuen Memorial Music Hall in Methuen, Massachusetts, serving for many years on the committee that plans and implements the summer recital series and other musical programs, and frequently playing the Great Organ for weddings and other events. During the year preceding her death, she was a productive member of the committee that organized a successful event commemorating the Music Hall’s centennial year.
—Barbara Owen