Minnesota Musforum at St. Olaf College

Susan Powell

Susan Powell, composer, conductor, and organist, is passionate about making artistically robust music accessible to amateur and developing musicians through engaging performances, community ensembles, and new compositions. She is currently pursuing graduate studies at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where she lives with her husband Mike (a fellow organist), and their three children, Jacob, Meredith, and Joshua.

Held on St. Olaf College’s beautiful hilltop campus in Northfield, Minnesota, June 13–14, the 2019 Musforum conference was “for, about, and by women.” Participants from around the country ranged from those at the peak of their careers to young artists still studying at collegiate and graduate institutions.

I had the privilege of being one of three performers in a recital showcasing young women. I thought it only fitting to program a piece by Libby Larsen, who I first encountered during my studies at St. Olaf College. Returning to my alma mater to work and network was a heady experience. As I have reflected on the conference this summer, I have grown increasingly grateful for the opportunity for friendships old and new and for the lasting impression of the depth and talent of women in my field, past and present. The music I encountered has taken root in my sense of my own emerging career and inspired me to intentionally honor the work of women, whether in selecting choral anthems by Cecilia McDowall and Judith Weir, programming recital repertoire by Judith Bingham and Jeanne Demessieux, or studying the compositions of Melissa Dunphy and Odile Pierre as I hone my own craft.

The days of the conference were jam-packed from morning to night with lectures, recitals, and lecture-recitals, breaking only for meals together and a few opportunities for conversation. WindWorks, an all-female quintet of local music professors, and See Change Chamber Choir, a new women’s choral ensemble from the Minneapolis area, provided a delightful opportunity for us to hear collaborative music. While we organists can be uniquely solitary creatures, we are almost invariably tasked with the nurturing of communal song through work with congregations and choirs. Presentations on these aspects of our profession were a highlight of the conference for me. During Therees Hibbard’s interactive lecture, “Creating Community through Singing,” we sang selections from the new Justice Choir Songbook with their composer, Abbie Betinis. The following afternoon, I had the opportunity to converse with hymn-poet Susan Cherwien after her overview of women hymn writers. I felt lucky to get to meet a writer whose texts I have long wanted to set.

Lecture-recitals were the main component of the event. Marie Rubis Bauer, who commissioned Dan Locklair’s Windows of Comfort, presented an ambitious program, shaped around the way women have inspired and participated in organ culture over half a millennium. Earlier that morning, immediately following Karen Black’s polished and virtuosic lecture-recital on the music of Pamela Decker, Kathrine Handford presented us with an impressive list of women who have contributed to the corpus of organ literature in twentieth-century France alone. I was struck not only with how formidable all these figures were—from Nadia Boulanger to Cecilia McDowall—but how formidable my own contemporary colleagues are. Rubis Bauer, Black, and Handford are cultivating careers at the top of our field, and their performances were brilliant. Handford inspired me with passing descriptions of her own practices as a teacher and performer. For example, she demands that her majors bring a self-taught piece of serious repertoire appropriate for use as a church voluntary to every weekly lesson, resulting in an acquisition by the end of four years of an anthology of learned music large enough to supply them with voluntaries for an entire year of services. I have since begun to develop my own repertoire in a similar way.

Lyn Loewi’s keynote lecture, “From the Exiled Edges: Women Composers and the Episcopal Church,” presented us with the results of her yearlong experiment as interim director of music at Saint John’s Cathedral in Denver, Colorado, during which she programmed compositions by female composers on average once per week. We came away with an extensive resource list and a more accurate picture of the immense scope of the work of composers like Elizabeth Poston, a prolific composer known widely for only a single anthem, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. (If you would like access to this list or other resources from the conference, you will find them available on Musforum’s website, www.musforum.org.)

One of the first moments of the conference was Nancy Ypma’s account during her lecture-recital of Fanny Mendelssohn’s wedding march. Fanny wrote it on the very eve of her wedding, since her brother Felix accidentally left behind the score to the march he had written when he traveled home to attend the ceremony. Known to us as Prelude in F Major, it is every bit as compelling as the works of her brother. Fanny was a world-class musician during an epoch when women were not even given consideration as professionals.

That epoch has given way to a new one, and there is important work to be done even as we celebrate the progress that has afforded increasing recognition and opportunity to women in our field. There is still a significant gender disparity in our churches and academies, and Musforum hopes to be a rallying point and a clarion voice. Our third biennial conference closed with a gala recital featuring three performers, bookended and filled with outstanding music by women. Catherine Rodland opened the evening with new compositions by Mary Beth Bennett and Augusta Read Thomas; Shelly Moorman-Stahlman shared her passion for South America through a tango by Francisca Gonzaga; and Nicole Keller’s stunning performance of Florence B. Price’s Suite No. 1 for Organ concluded the entire conference. Our intention as members of Musforum is to promote each other and to serve each other, encouraging our colleagues while enriching the world with an increasing awareness of the work of this formidable sisterhood.

University of Michigan 58th Annual Organ Conference, September 29–October 2

Joy Schroeder

Joy Schroeder holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from University of Michigan in organ performance. She is currently a student, ABD, at the University of Oregon in music theory.

The fifty-eighth annual organ conference at the University of Michigan celebrated women’s contributions as performers, composers, educators, and builders of the organ, harpsichord, and carillon. Distinguished guest artists and lecturers from North America and Europe joined University of Michigan faculty, students, and alumni in presenting an impressive range of events, beginning with the annual improvisation competition and concluding with the restaging of three choreographies by the American modern dance pioneer, Doris Humphrey, set to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The conference explored not only the music, performance practices, and pedagogy of women in the field, but also how their individual careers in a male-dominated profession have helped shape the current landscape.

A prelude to the conference

Jennifer Pascual, director of music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, performed a recital at the First Presbyterian Church of Ypsilanti on September 23. The performance was presented by the Ypsilanti Pipe Organ Festival and the Ann Arbor Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Her program included a mixture of well-known organ works by Bach, Guilmant, Duruflé, Yon, Ravel, and Cherubini (both arranged by Machella), lesser-known pieces by Hakim and Lidon, and music by women composers Clara Schumann, Jeanne Demessieux, Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, and Sr. Mary David Callahan, serving as an introduction to the conference the following weekend.

Saturday, September 29

The First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor hosted the Seventh Annual Improvisation Competition, and three contestants had been selected to enter the final round. The contestants improvised on the hymntune, Wondrous Love, and a selected chromatic theme. First place and audience prizes were awarded to David Simon, currently a student at Yale University; second prize to Alejandro D. Consolación, II, from Manila; and third to Christopher Ganza from Minnesota. The judges were James Biery, Ann Labounsky, and Anne Laver. Kola Owolabi chaired the event with assistance from preliminary round judges Joseph Gascho, Darlene Kuperus, and Stephanie Nofar-Kelly. Timothy Huth of the American Center of Church Music provided historical anecdotes along with host representative Richard Ingram.

Sunday, September 30

First Presbyterian Church hosted a hymn festival titled “Sing Justice! Proclaim Justice! Hymnody in Word and Song by Women Poets and Composers.” Scott Hyslop served as the organist, while the Reverend Kendra Mohn gave several meditations on injustice, with support from the First Presbyterian Choir and interim director of music, Richard Ingram. The program featured works by Catherine McMichael (prelude), Jane Marshall (anthem), with hymn texts by Mary Louise Bringle, Carolyn Winfrey Gilette,
Shirley Erena Murray, Jaroslav Vajda, and Rusty Edwards, arranged by Alice Parker and Hyslop.

That evening, the faculty recital featuring works by Pamela Decker, Rachel Laurin, and a world premiere of a work by Catherine McMichael was presented at Hill Auditorium with Susan Clark Joul, soprano; Joan Holland, harp; James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi, organ. McMichael’s The Apostle: A Symphony in Three Linked Movements drew thematically from the biblical character of Paul of Tarsus—persecutor, poet, and apostle. The last piece by Rachel Laurin, Fantasy and Fugue on the Genevan Psalm 47, op. 62, was a duet performed by Kibbie and Owolabi. The work has contrasting registrations and themes utilizing four manuals and pedal of the organ.

Monday, October 1

The day began with two lectures. Michael Barone discussed women organists past and present (including music presented during the conference) in “Ladies Be Good: One Guy’s Overview of Women Organists and Composers.” Sylvia Wall presented “Call Me Fran: Harpsichordist Frances Elaine Cole.” An American harpsichordist, Frances Cole (1937–1983) was a musician from Cleveland, Ohio, who taught at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, and died in New York. She organized numerous harpsichord festivals, and her life was commemorated in the lecture by Wall and by Cole’s niece, Mia Cole Washington. Following, Annie Laver discussed and performed “An Introduction to the Organ Works of Judith Bingham.” Bingham has written about 300 works of which some twenty are for organ.

In the afternoon, conference attendees heard music in a program entitled “Élizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Claveciniste Extraordinaire,” including the Chamber Sonata in D Major, the Harpsichord Suite in A Minor (played by Nico Canzano), and the dramatic cantata Semelé. The recitalists, Nico Canzano, Ellen Sauer, Leah Pemick, Leo Singer, Antona Yost, Alyssa Campbell, Alex Baker, and Neil Robertson are all students of Joseph Gascho.

Following the performance, a lecture, “Sylvia’s Little Black Book: an Intimate View into the Pioneering Life of Harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe,” was presented by Christina Scott Edelen. Marlowe (1908–1981) was an American harpsichordist who commissioned many works from leading composers and performed Baroque repertoire. This recital included works by Virgil Thomson, François Couperin, Vittorio Rieti, and Henri Sanguer. Italian virtuoso Letizia Romiti completed the afternoon’s events with a recital, “Women, Italy, and the ‘Queen of Instruments.’” The program featured works by Andrea Gabrieli, Merulo, Majone, Frescobaldi, Madame Ravissa de Turin, a manuscript from the Convent of Notre-Dame de Vitre, and Clara Schumann.

The evening began with a carillon recital at Burton Memorial Tower performed by Margaret Pan of Boston, Massachusetts. The pieces played were mainly by late twentieth-century women composers and included Reflections from the Tower (1990) by Emma Lou Diemer. The evening concluded with a recital at Hill Auditorium, “Music by Women Composers,” presented by students of James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi, including Jenna Moon, Kaelan Hansson, Joseph Mutone, Sarah Simko, Joseph Moss, and Julian Goods, with featured works by Pamela Decker, Judith Bingham, Libby Larsen, and Florence Beatrice Price.

Tuesday, October 2

The last day of the conference began with Ana Elias and Sara Elias presenting “An Evolution of Women’s Role in the Carillon World and Its Implications for Arts Entrepreneurship.” Starting with the historical evolution of women’s role in the carillon, the current state of the profession in Portugal was discussed. Female entrepreneurship was encouraged, and the presenters’ traveling carillon was exhibited. Following, “Florence Price: The First African-American Woman Composer Successful in Classical Music: Newly Found Organ Works” was presented in lecture and recital by Calvert Johnson. In particular, Johnson discussed Price’s Passacaglia and Fugue of 1927.

Later that morning, the panel “The ‘Solo’ Keyboardist: When You’re the Only ____ In Your Workplace—Professional Perspectives” was moderated by Tiffany Ng, university carillonist, and featured panelists Anne Laver (Syracuse University), Susan Tattershall (ID Project at Colorado Legal Services), Elena Tsai (freelance harpsichordist and technician), Colin Knapp (Michigan Opera Theatre), and Anne Huhman (associate director of University of Michigan Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center).

In the afternoon, students of James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi played music by women composers at the First Congregational Church. The recitalists were James Renfer, Matthew Durham, Allison Barone, Samuel Ronning, Clayton Farmer, and Emily Solomon performing the music of Pamela Decker, Ruth Zechlin, Erzsébet Szönyi, Brenda Portman, and Efrida Andrée.

“Living Legends . . . Lasting Legacies: Emma Lou Diemer, Marilyn Mason, and Alice Parker” was presented by Darlene Kuperus and Marcia Van Oyen, with music by Diemer, Parker, Larry Visser, and Joe Utterback, along with videos and remembrances of each “legend.” The afternoon concluded with a presentation of “The Work of Dana Hull, Organ Builder & Restorer” by Tom Curry and Elgin Clingaman, followed by a reception in honor of Hull.

Tiffany Ng began the final evening with a carillon recital that utilized added electronics. The recital, “Women Who Rock the Bells,” was divided into sections: “#METOO: The Movement to Support Survivors and End Sexual Violence” (music of Pamela Reiter-Feenstra); “Breaking the Tower Ceiling: Black Composers” (music of Yvette Jackson and Jessie Montgomery—both Michigan premieres); “Frontiers of Space and Imagination” (music of Laura Steenberge, Margo Halsted, Agniezka Stulginska), and “Not Your Quiet Model Minority” (music by Carolyn Chen).

The conference concluded with University of Michigan Dancers, the University of Michigan Baroque Chamber Orchestra (Aaron Berofsky and Joseph Gascho, directors), and James Kibbie on organ, recreating choreography staged by Gail Corbin, Jillian Hopper, and Michela Esteban of Doris Humphrey (1895–1958) to the music of Bach. Non-danced music of de la Guerre was also included in “An Evening of Doris Humphrey and J. S. Bach:  Romantic Post-Modernism in Dance and Music.” The final piece, Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, was played by Kibbie with stunning choreography by Humphrey from 1938. Jillian Hopper and Christian Matijas-Mecca are directors of the Dance Legacy Project.

The conference was one of trailblazers, presenting music chiefly by women, many of whom are unknown. Indeed, the conference itself was a trailblazer in its presentation of women composers, the breadth and varied scope of the offerings, and the immense educational benefits to all attendees.

Photo credits: Sherri Brown

Organ and Church Music at The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas;

The twenty-fifth year of the Bales Organ Recital Hall and Hellmuth Wolff Opus 40

The Bales Organ Recital Hall and Hellmuth Wolff Opus 40

Organ study at the University of Kansas began in 1875. In 1898 the “Department of Organ Playing and Church Music” was founded. Since that time the organ and church music program at KU has grown to be one of the largest and most active programs in the country. It now boasts twenty-five organ and church music majors studying across a variety of different undergraduate and graduate programs.

A milestone in the history of the program occurred on October 9, 1996, when KU inaugurated the Bales Organ Recital Hall. This beautiful hall, with stained glass designed by Peter Thompson, boasts a 4.5-second acoustic. The centerpiece of the hall is the 45-stop organ built by Hellmuth Wolff. Beginning this month, we will be celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary year of this wonderful organ and hall. 

The twenty-fifth anniversary Alumni Conference and Reunion 

The culminating event in this year of celebration will be a three-day alumni conference held October 7–9, 2021. It will be led by KU organ and church music alumni, along with KU’s William T. Kemper Artist-in-Residence, Olivier Latry. In preparation for this conference and reunion, all KU organ and church music alumni are asked to relay their contact information, a picture, and a short biography to [email protected]. 

Facilities

In addition to the Hellmuth Wolff concert instrument, KU has seven practice organs, including organs by Fritts, Juget-Sinclair, Flentrop, Jaeckel (3), and Casavant. All of our instruments are trackers. Students also practice at the 22-stop Andover tracker at the Saint Lawrence Catholic Student Center on campus. The organ and church music academic classes are all taught in a lovely organ studio, which is set up as a conference room with technology appropriate to academic work. 

Degrees

KU offers the following degrees in the Division of Organ and Church Music:

• BM in organ and church music

• MM in organ

• MM in church music with a concentration in organ 

• MM in church music with a concentration in choral conducting

• MM in carillon

• DMA in organ

• DMA in church music with a concentration in organ 

• DMA in church music with a concentration in choral conducting

• Graduate certificate in organ 

• Graduate certificate in church music

• Graduate certificate in carillon

Curriculum

In the graduate organ curriculum, KU offers courses in:

• Organ literature and design (four-semester sequence)

• Organ building

• Organ pedagogy 

The graduate sequence in church music includes:

• Improvisation (one semester of German Baroque, and one semester of French symphonic; students all receive a private lesson and a class weekly)

• Choral conducting (two-semester sequence)

• The history of church music (three-semester sequence)

• The history of liturgy

• The Judeo-Christian tradition and the arts

• Issues in religion and the arts  

• Children’s choirs

• Handbells

• Liturgical chant

Undergraduate students have a four-year curriculum in organ and a separate four-year curriculum in church music. 

The Bales Chorale

The Bales Chorale is the resident student choral ensemble at the Bales Organ Recital Hall. Its purposes are to sing great choral literature appropriate to the superb acoustics of the Bales Organ Recital Hall and to train graduate church music students in the art of choral conducting. Performances include premieres of new works by students and faculty, and collaborative performances with other regional choral ensembles. 

KU Organ and Church Music Faculty

Michael Bauer, Professor of Organ and Church Music

Michael Bauer teaches organ, church music classes, choral conducting, and harpsichord at KU as well as overseeing the Bales Chorale. He has published the book Arts Ministry: Nurturing the Creative Life of God’s People (Eerdmans) and recorded several CDs, including the Brahms organ works, and a recent dedication CD for the new Juget-Sinclair organ in Fremont, Nebraska. Bauer has directed seven KU European organ study tours and performed throughout Europe and America. In 2020 he was awarded the Ned Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Kansas.

Elizabeth Egbert Berghout, Associate Professor of Music and University Carillonneur 

Elizabeth Egbert Berghout performs carillon recitals at the Lawrence campus each week. Many of her carillon students have passed the rigorous performance and certification exam offered by The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. Berghout lectures, teaches, and performs throughout North America and overseas. A proponent of new music, Berghout has commissioned and premiered numerous works for carillon and organ. 

James Higdon, Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ

James Higdon is Director of the Division of Organ and Church Music at the University of Kansas. He recently released a recording of the complete works of Jehan Alain, performed at KU and on the Alain house organ at Romanmôtier, Switzerland. He has played throughout Europe and America and adjudicated at many international competitions including Chartres, The Canadian International Competition, and the Tariverdiev Competition in Russia. His students have distinguished themselves with a host of accolades, including many Fulbright and Rotary awards as well as winning multiple international competitions. In 1997, he was awarded the W. T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence at KU. 

Olivier Latry: William T. Kemper Artist in Residence

Beginning in 2019, Olivier Latry, one of the world’s most renowned organists, a titulaire organist at Notre Dame Cathedral and Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatoire, joined the KU faculty as the William T. Kemper Artist in Residence. He is in residence each semester teaching private lessons, group lessons, and masterclasses as well as performing and participating in conferences on different aspects of French organ music. 

Kevin Vogt, Lecturer in Organ and Church Music

Kevin Vogt, is music director for St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Parish in Leawood, Kansas, and lecturer in organ and church music at the University of Kansas, where he teaches organ improvisation and service playing, classes in organbuilding and design, organ literature, liturgical chant, and a seminar on children’s choirs. He served previously as director of music at the Roman Catholic cathedrals of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Omaha, Nebraska.

Extra-Curricular Offerings:

Conferences

Over the years, KU has presented many conferences on organ and church music. In 2017, KU hosted the AGO National Pedagogy Conference entitled “Organ and Improvisation Study in the French Conservatory System.” In 2019, KU sponsored a conference entitled “Le Grand Siècle: Organ Music and Culture in 17th-and 18th-Century France.” Upcoming conferences will center on the works of specific major French composers with Olivier Latry as the featured artist and teacher. 

KU Students in Europe

From 2002–2016, KU sponsored seven KU European Organ Study Tours. Starting in 2016 KU’s European engagement changed. The university began to help our students attend the biennial Haarlem Organ Festival and Academy in the Netherlands. This evolved into a formal relationship, in which KU became the first academic partner institution with the Haarlem Organ Festival and Academy. 

Tariverdiev International Organ Competition

Beginning in 2011, every other year KU hosts the North American Round of the biennial Tariverdiev International Organ Competition. The winners advance to Kaliningrad, Russia, to compete in the final rounds of the competition. 

Bales Artist Series

Each year KU sponsors guest organists on the Bales Artist Series. Recitalists include university organ faculty and international competition winners. Guest artists play, teach, and lecture while they are at the university. Guest artists have included Guy Bovet, Susan Landale, Kimberly Marshall, Craig Cramer, Lynne Davis, Janette Fishell, Martin Jean, Hans Davidsson, Roberta Gary, John Grew, Jack Mitchener, Catherine Rodland, Robert Bates, Daniel Zaretsky, Carole Terry, Emanuele Cardi, Rachel Laurin, Richard Elliot, Charles Tompkins, and many more. 

The STAR series (Student Artist Recitals)

Each year, KU arranges recitals for our students on significant instruments located in Kansas and surrounding states. Students play group recitals, solo recitals, and split programs involving two players. 

Church Music Colloquium

KU sponsors church music colloquia that engage students in extra-curricular learning led by guest instructors.  

Application and Financial Aid

KU offers graduate teaching assistantships and significant undergraduate and graduate scholarships. Situated in Lawrence, Kansas, close to Kansas City there are many churches that offer employment opportunities to KU organ and church music students. For further information about the organ and church music program at KU, write [email protected] and visit music.ku.edu/organ.

1996 Helmuth Wolff Opus 40

GRAND ORGUE (Manual II)

16′ Montre

8′ Montre

8′ Flûte conique

8′ Flûte harmonique

4′ Prestant

4′ Flûte à fuseau

2-2⁄3′ Nazard

2′ Doublette

1-3⁄5′ Tierce

Fourniture VI (5-1⁄3′ engaged with 16′)

8′ Trompette

4′ Clairon

POSITIF (Manual I)

8′ Montre

8′ Bourdon

4′ Prestant

4′ Flûte à cheminée

2′ Doublette

2′ Flûte à fuseau

1-1⁄3′ Larigot 

Sesquialtera II

Fourniture IV

8′ Cromorne

Tremblant

RÉCIT EXPRESSIF (Manual III)

16′ Quintaton

8′ Flûte à cheminée

8′ Viole de gambe

8′ Voix céleste

4′ Prestant

4′ Flûte octaviante

2′ Octavin

Cornet V

Plein-jeu V

16′ Basson

8′ Trompette

8′ Hautbois

4′ Clairon

8′ Voix humaine

Tremblant

PÉDALE

32′ Soubasse

16′ Contrebasse

16′ Montre (G.O.)

16′ Soubasse

8′ Octavebasse

8′ Montre (G.O.)

8′ Bourdon

4′ Prestant

Fourniture V

16′ Trombone

8′ Trompette allemande

8′ Trompette (G.O.)

4′ Clarion (G.O.)

COUPLERS 

Récit–G.O.

Positif–G.O.

Récit–Positif

 

Tirasse G.O.

Tirasse Positif

Tirasse Récit

 

Anti-secousses

Solid mahogany case

Temperament:  ninth-comma meantone

Mechanical key action (suspended)

Electric stop action

John Allen Ditto

John Allen Ditto died March 9. He was born February 12, 1945, in Kansas City, Missouri. At the age three he showed great interest in the piano and was taught by Pauline Chaney and Lucille Hoover of Plattsburg. Beginning at age nine and continuing through high school years, he studied piano at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, with organ lessons beginning in 1961.

After graduating from Plattsburg High School in 1963, Ditto went on to earn a Bachelor of Music degree in organ and church music from Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. In 1969 he earned his Master of Music degree in organ and sacred music from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. From 1969 until 1972 he was director of music for First Presbyterian Church, Evansville, Indiana. In 1972 he began his Doctoral of Musical Arts degree studies at Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. 

After completing his doctorate, he returned to Missouri as assistant professor of organ, piano, and music history at Central Methodist University, Fayette, and organist at Linn Memorial United Methodist Church on campus from 1975 to 1982. He then began teaching at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory of Music, a position he held until his retirement in 2015. During this time Ditto served as organist/music director at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City. He was a member of St. Paul’s Church and continued to be involved after his retirement.

Throughout his career Ditto played numerous recitals throughout the country and was an artist with Phyllis Stringham Concert Management. He was an active member of the Kansas City chapter of the American Guild of Organists, attending and performing at conventions and pedagogy conferences. During summer months, Ditto spent time on Lopez Island, Washington, where he was organist at Grace Episcopal Church. 

Upon retirement Ditto volunteered at the Kansas City Free Health Clinic and St. Luke’s Hospital. He also served as chairman of the program committee on the UMKC Retirees Association Board. He was a lector and chalice bearer at Bishop Spencer Place, where he resided the final year of his life.

John Allen Ditto is survived by his sister Mary Alice (Larry) Roberts, nephew Zach (Ashley) Nelson, and his great-nieces, Lilly and Sylvie Nelson, all of Plattsburg, Missouri. Services were held April 16 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City. Former students Shelly Moorman-Stahlman and Robert L. Bozeman played prelude and postlude, all pieces learned as students with Ditto. St. Paul’s Choir sang movements from Durufle’s Requiem at the Holy Eucharist service. Memorial contributions may be made to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for the music program (stpaulskcmo.org), to the American Guild of Organists, New Organist Scholarship Fund in memory of John Ditto (agohq.org), or to John A. Ditto Memorial Music Scholarship, P. O. Box 136, Plattsburg, Missouri 64477.

—Robert L. Bozeman and Shelly Moorman-Stahlman

Paul S. Hesselink

Paul S. Hesselink, 82, died May 1. Born June 6, 1940, in Mitchell, South Dakota, he had been a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, since 1993. He had previously lived in Iowa, Nebraska, Washington, Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, and Virginia.

Hesselink was a graduate of Lynden (Washington) High School and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in music in 1962 from Hope College, Holland, Michigan, where he majored in organ. He studied musicology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, under a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship; earned a Master of Arts degree in organ pedagogy from Ohio State University, Columbus; and received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance from University of Colorado, Boulder. His organ teachers included Roger J. Rietberg, Wilbur C. Held, Arthur Poister, Everett J. Hilty, and Don A. Vollstedt. He studied harpsichord in Paris, France, with Davitt Moroney.

In 1966 Hesselink joined the faculty at Longwood College (now University), Farmville, Virginia, where for twenty-six years he taught organ, harpsichord, music theory, music form and analysis, church music, handbells, and music appreciation. He was named a recipient of the college’s Maria Bristow Starke Award for Excellence in Teaching, and he chaired the Longwood department of music for three years. During the 1978–1979 academic year he was a guest faculty member at the University of Colorado in the department of organ and church music. Upon early retirement from Longwood, he was named Professor Emeritus. He relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada, to become dean and chief executive officer at Nevada School of the Arts, a private, non-profit community arts school, holding that position for twelve years. He also taught organ as adjunct faculty at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, beginning in 1993.

As a church musician, Hesselink served as the director of music (organ, choir, and handbells) at Farmville Presbyterian Church, Virginia, for twelve years and as organist at Christ Church Episcopal in Las Vegas for six years. He was an active member of the Southern Nevada Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and he served as program chair of the AGO Region IX Midwinter Conclave, hosted by the Southern Nevada Chapter in January 2006. From 2005 to 2019 he managed the chapter’s organ recital series bringing nationally and internationally known organists to perform in Las Vegas. Upon his retirement from that responsibility, the chapter honored him by naming the recital series the Paul S. Hesselink Organ Recital Series. Hesselink also held memberships in the Organ Historical Society, the College Music Society, the American Musicological Society, and the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society.

Active during his entire professional life as an organ and harpsichord recitalist, lecturer, and workshop leader, he also performed as a duo-piano team member with Longwood colleague Frieda Myers. He was harpsichordist-in-residence with the Roxbury Chamber Players of New York for “Music in Historic Places” during the summers of 1984 and 1985. In 1996 he was harpsichord soloist for the world premiere performance of the Nevett Bartow Concerto for Harpsichord with the Nevada Chamber Orchestra; he later recorded the work with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava for the MMC Recordings label. Hesselink was the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar awards—at Yale University and later at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute at the University of Southern California. The seminars resulted in a ten-year research project regarding the commissioning, composition, and publication of Schoenberg’s only work for organ, Variations on a Recitative, opus 40. At the end of the second summer seminar, he was invited to publish his research in the Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the composition of the Schoenberg organ work, his article, “Variations on a Recitative for Organ, Op. 40: Correspondence from the Schoenberg Legacy,” was republished in The American Organist (October and December 1991).

Hesselink was a force in the acquisition of the Maurine Jackson Smith Memorial Organ installed in 2004 in Dr. Rando-Grillot Recital Hall, Beam Music Center, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This instrument, which was designed, fabricated, and installed by Rudolf von Beckerath Orgelbau, Hamburg, Germany, is the largest mechanical-action organ in Nevada. In 2013 he published “As I Recall: A History of the Maurine Jackson Smith Organ at UNLV.”

Paul S. Hesselink is survived by a brother, Philip Hesselink of Omaha, Nebraska; two sisters, Elaine Helmus of Jefferson, Iowa, and Ardys Hansum of Omaha. Also surviving is his former student, longtime friend, and partner of more than fifty years, Linda Parker. His ashes were interred in the family plot in the Gibbsville, Wisconsin, cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to the American Guild of Organists, the Southern Nevada Chapter of the AGO, or the Organ Historical Society.