Ken Cowan at Rollins College

Michael Ging is a church musician, organist, and  entrepreneur. 

On the concert stage, Michael garners critical and audience acclaim for his virtuosic technique, sensitive interpretations, and charismatic stage presence. His performance career takes him to venues in Europe and North America, notably the Orgelkunst Series in Magdeburg (Germany) and L’Église de la Madeleine (Paris). Recent domestic recitals were performed in Dallas, Houston, Excelsior, St. Paul, Worcester, Charleston, Princeton, Austin, Washington, Spartanburg, Atlanta, Orlando, Winter Park, and Santa Fe. As an orchestral soloist, his repertoire includes Barber’s Toccata Festiva (Houston Civic Symphony), Howard Hanson’s Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Percussion (New Hope Festival Orchestra), and J. S. Bach’s concertos for multiple harpsichords (Bach Society Houston). His festival credits include appearances at the 11th International Organ and Early Music Festival (Oaxaca), the Leipzig in Houston Festival, the Houston Early Music Festival, the University of Alabama Piano and Organ Festival, and four solo recitals at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. He is an advocate for new music and has premiered compositions by Ryan Gagnon, Daniel Sigmon, Peter Mathews, Thomas J. White, and Daniel Knaggs. 

Michael is Adjunct Professor of Organ at Rollins College, where he teaches on the rebuilt Aeolian-Skinner Organ (Opus 858) housed in Knowles Memorial Chapel. His current and former students are church musicians, teachers, and performers. He has coached high school students through college applications receiving offers of admission from Yale University, Stetson University, Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music, University of Denver, Ball State University, University of Houston, among others. 

He has maintained his vocation as a liturgical musician since his appointment as Organist/Choirmaster at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church (Folly Beach, SC) at age fourteen. He currently serves as Director of Music & Parish Organist at All Saints Episcopal Church (Winter Park, FL). His previous calls include a decade of ministry at New Hope Lutheran Church (Missouri City, TX) as well as at Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopal churches in South Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. 

Michael is an experienced consultant. He is currently advising St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church (Charleston, SC) through the design and installation of a four-manual French symphonic organ by R.A. Colby. Previous projects include instrument acquisitions and ministry personnel solutions for Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist, and Methodist congregations in Florida, South Carolina, and Texas. 

He is the Co-Founder/Managing Partner of Seven Eight Artists, an artist management agency specializing in the promotion of organists and their performance activities. The roster of Seven Eight Artists includes leading performers based throughout the United States, Canada, Scotland, and Germany. 

Michael is a graduate of prestigious academic institutions. He earned the Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Houston where he studied organ with Robert Bates, conducting with Betsy Cook Weber, and wrote his dissertation, “Orchestrations and Transformations: Guilmant, Widor, and the Emergence of Music for Organ and Orchestra in France,” under the guidance of Matthew Dirst. He holds a Master of Music from Rice University, where he studied with Ken Cowan as the recipient of the Frederick Royal Gibbons Memorial Scholarship, generously funded by ZZ Top’s lead singer Billy Gibbons. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Jack Mitchener. Additional studies include harpsichord with Matthew Dirst and improvisation with George Baker and Sigurd Øgaard. 

Michael Ging is represented by Seven Eight Artists: SevenEightArtists.com/ging 

Gail Archer is an international concert organist, recording artist, choral conductor and lecturer who draws attention to composer anniversaries or musical themes with her annual recital series including Max Reger, The Muse's Voice, An American Idyll, Liszt, Bach, Mendelssohn and Messiaen. Ms. Archer was the first American woman to play the complete works of Olivier Messiaen for the centennial of the composer's birth in 2008; Time Out New York recognized the Messiaen cycle as "Best of 2008" in classical music and opera. Her recordings include her new CD release (August, 2020) Chernivtsi, and A Russian Journey, The Muse's Voice, Franz Liszt: A Hungarian Rhapsody, Bach: The Transcendent Genius, An American Idyll, A Mystic In the Making (Meyer Media), and The Orpheus of Amsterdam: Sweelinck and his Pupils (CALA Records). Ms. Archer's 2019 European tour took her to the British Isles, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Poland, Russia and Malta. Highlights include St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland, the Basilica of Loyola, San Sebastian, Spain, St. Mary’s Cathedral, Cracow, Poland, Holy Cross Church, Lublin, Poland, the Philharmonic of Lviv, Ukraine, and the Lutheran Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, Moscow, Russia. She is the founder of Musforum, www.musforum.org, an international network for women organists to promote and affirm their work.

Ms. Archer's recordings span the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries, a festive discography that highlights her musical mastery on grand Romantic instruments as well as Baroque tracker organs. Her most recent CD  (August, 2020), Chernivtsi, recorded on a Rieger-Kloss organ at the Armenian Catholic Church, Chernivtsi, Ukraine, features contemporary Ukrainian composers including Bohdan Kotyuk, Tadeusz Machl,  Mykola Kolessa,  Svitlana Ostrova, Victor Goncharenko,  and Iwan Kryschanowski.  This recording was made possible by generous grants from Barnard College, Columbia University, and the Harriman institute, Columbia University.   Her 2017 CD, A Russian Journey, includes Russian organ literature from the 19th–21st century by Glasunow, Cui, Ljapunow, Slonimski, Shaversashvili and Mussorgsky. The Muse's Voice  features music by women composers—Jennifer Higdon, Judith Bingham, Nadia Boulanger and Jeanne Demessieux. During the 2012–2013 season, Ms. Archer released her recording of masterworks and transcriptions by the great Romantic keyboard artist and composer, Franz Liszt, Franz Liszt, A Hungarian Rhapsody.   Bach, the Transcendent Genius celebrates the brilliant improvisations on Lutheran hymn tunes of the "Great 18" chorale preludes. The release on Meyer-Media, is the first recording on the Paul Fritts tracker organ at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. An American Idyll, released by Meyer Media in August 2008  and recorded on the E. M. Skinner/Randall Dyer organ at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, features American organ music from 1900 to the present, including music by Joan Tower and a work commissioned by Ms. Archer, Praeludium super Pange Lingua by David Noon. Her centennial concerts in honor of Olivier Messiaen also produced A Mystic In the Making recorded on the Aeolian-Skinner organ at Columbia University, which includes two complete cycles, L'Ascension, and Les Corps Glorieux. Her solo debut CD, The Orpheus of Amsterdam: Sweelinck and his Pupils, recorded on the Fisk organ at Wellesley College, was released in 2006 by London's CALA Records.

Ms. Archer is college organist at Vassar College, and director of the music program at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she conducts the Barnard-Columbia Chorus and Chamber Singers, and is a member of the faculty at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. She serves as director of the artist and young organ artist recitals at historic Central Synagogue, New York City.

For information: http://www.gailarcher.com/.

Martha M. Bowlus, 91 years old, died September 9 in Ventura, California. Mrs. Bowlus served as organist at churches in Ohio, Chicago, and at St. James Episcopal in New York City. She was organist at El Montecito Presbyterian Church in California from 1974 until her retirement in 1987. She and her husband, singer, conductor, and composer Robert Bowlus, gave the gift of music to many during their 22-year joint tenure on the faculty of Ohio Wesleyan University until Mr. Bowlus’s sudden death.
Mrs. Bowlus relocated to southern California, teaching and studying at CSU, Northridge and earning a Master of Arts degree in organ performance. She studied with several of the world’s leading organists. As professor of music, she taught organ and piano to countless students over the years, both at Ohio Wesleyan University and privately, supplied liturgical music for many churches, and performed in many concerts and recitals playing both organ and viola, an instrument she mastered as well.
—Emma Lou Diemer

Walter Daumont Kimble died April 25 in Winter Park, Florida, at age 97. Born in Philadelphia, he moved at an early age with his family to Titusville, Florida, where he played a Wurlitzer theatre organ, accompanying silent films and vaudeville shows. He graduated from the Rollins College Conservatory of Music in 1935 with a bachelor’s degree as a student of Herman F. Siewert, and earned a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, studying with Palmer Christian.
After returning to Florida, he became music director at radio station WDBO and included a daily 15-minute program of organ music. Kimble served many churches in central Florida, including Orlando’s First Methodist and Broadway Methodist, and Winter Park’s First Congregational, which he served for 36 years and where he assisted in the installation of the church’s Aeolian-Skinner organ. He was preceded in death by his wife Hallie, to whom he was married for 72 years, and is survived by a son, Robert, and several grandchildren.

William Weaver died June 23 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was 78. A graduate of the University of Florida, he studied organ there with Claude L. Murphree, along with religious studies and speech. He continued organ studies at the Eastman School of Music, with Catharine Crozier. In Atlanta he served as organist-choirmaster, beginning at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Decatur in 1953, and from 1960–1983 at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, where was responsible for selecting a Flentrop organ.
Weaver was an organ instructor at Georgia State University, music critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and served as president of the Atlanta Music Club and chairman of the 1966 AGO national convention that was held in Atlanta. He was also a hand weaver, owning an eight-harness floor loom, and was a member of the Chattahoochee Hand-weavers’ Guild. William Weaver is survived by his partner and companion of 57 years, Douglas Johnson.

Richard Webb, lauded by the Bristol Herald-Courier as “a musician foremost,” concert organist, recitalist, lecturer, church musician, clinician/adjudicator and administrator, has performed solo concerts and appeared as guest artist with orchestras and ensembles throughout the United States, England, and Spain.  His informative and entertaining workshops and practical master classes in various performance practices have been particularly well received as a complement to his concert appearances. Highly regarded as a facile, sensitive and uniquely synchronous accompanist on all keyboard instruments, he is in significant demand as a collaborative partner for singers and instrumentalists.

 "...elevated the marriage of organ and brass to high art." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Milestone appearances have included the Inaugural Recital for the 50th Anniversary Season of the Central New Jersey AGO Chapter, a joint concert with the Echo Ringers of Japan by invitation of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights and the Inaugural Series for, at the time, the largest concert hall organ in North America at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.  

“Particularly outstanding...Richard Webb's virtuoso bash in Julius Reubke's Wagnerian Sonata, the great organ masterpiece of the 19th century for my ear." (San Francisco Chronicle)

His imaginative programing interests have led him to premiere the works of such noted contemporary composers as Daniel Lentz, Lewis Songer, Meyer Kupfermann, John Haussermann, Jan Hanus, Gertrude Martin Rohrer, Robert Copeland, Alvin Batiste, James Hanna, Dennis Johnson, Dinos Constantinides, Charles Lloyd, and William Grimes.  He has presented thematic recitals and workshops on the organ music of America, Asia, Russia, and Spain (including a New York recital for the Quincentenary of Christopher Columbus at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue), the organ and choral works of Siegfried Reda, the Church Music Renewal Movement and his passion, the life and works of Sigfrid Karg-Elert. Introduced recently at one of his all Karg-Elert recitals in New York as “an Evangelist for the music of  Karg-Elert,” he is a Life Member of the former Karg-Elert Archive in the United Kingdom and was a contributor to its publications.  

"The performance of the music of Karg- Elert by Dr. Richard Webb was inspirational. The lecture was excellent and the master class one of the best I have seen." (Rollins College/Central Florida AGO Inaugural Romantic Organ Music Conference)

"This was a most enterprising all-Karg-Elert program on the 151-rank Aeolian- Skinner organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.   In Dick Webb's skilled hands, this historic instrument demonstrated ideally the wide variety of styles comprising Karg-Elert's compositions, while avoiding the obvious.  A most appreciative audience heard some important later works, such as Legend, Voices of the Night and Preambulo from Music for Organ. (International Newsletter of the Karg-Elert Archive Issue 75 – January 2014)

"In a balanced, well-constructed program, Dr. Webb delighted the audience with technically brilliant, musically satisfying performances of a wide variety of organ works.  A clear aesthetic vision and confident command of both technical and musical demands were evident throughout.  His program was a clear indication of his stature both as an artist and educator.  The recital he offered was beautifully performed and both the instrument and the audience were very well served by this significant American organist." (Piccolo Spoleto Festival L’Organo, website - review by Roy Stewart)

"Master organist Richard Webb ran the gamut, musically speaking, from the Baroque to the present day. The fact that he is a noted and devoted educator comes through clearly in his programing ...featuring high-quality performances vastly different from each other in style and scope." (The Pacific Grove Monarch)

"His programs are a treat for people who wish to hear the gamut of the organ's effects. More important, however, is his ability to interpret so correctly and compellingly the organ literature from many periods of musical history.  Webb's love of music and of performance clearly impress the listener." (Kingsport Times-News)

Dr. Webb is Professor and Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Humanities at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, having served previously as Dean of the College and Chief Academic Officer at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey as well as Professor and Chair of the Departments of Music at San Francisco State University and East Tennessee State University.  He is a past Dean of the San Francisco, Franklin and Baton Rouge Chapters of the American Guild of Organists, a designee of the Louisiana Artist Roster and a recipient of the coveted Louisiana Artist Fellowship for excellence in the arts, Organist Emeritus at First United Methodist Church of Baton Rouge, LA and Organ/Harpsichord Principal of the Baton Rouge Symphony. He performs as a member of the Louisiana Touring Directory, appears as a collaborative artist and chamber musician under the auspices of Bach's Five Productions, is a featured artist on both www.Organiste.net and The Diapason Artist Spotlights and is pleased to be represented as a concert organist by Concert Artist Cooperative, https://www.concertartistcooperative.com/.

See his video with harpist Rebecca Todaro, playing Variations Pastorales by Marcel Samuel Rousseau. 

Mailing Address:  9155 Goodwood Boulevard – Baton Rouge, LA 70815-3140 
E-Mail:  [email protected]  - Cell Phone: (225) 235-6765 
Webb-Site:  www.richardwebb.org