TENET Vocal Artists

"She presented herself as a communicative player with no shortage of imaginative ideas, with
fingers fully capable of backing them up, and with feet which are not just nimble on the pedals, 
but every bit as expressively articulate as her fingers." (Michael Dervan, The Irish Times)

Hailed by The New York Times as “splendid,” and “one of New York's finest organists,” Renée Anne Louprette maintains an international career as organ recitalist, collaborative artist, conductor, and teacher, and is director of the National Competition in Organ Improvisation. She is associated with several distinguished music programs in the New York City area, having served as Associate Director of Music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Associate Director of Music and the Arts at Trinity Wall Street, Organist and Associate Director at the Unitarian Church of All Souls, and Director of Music at the Church of Notre Dame.

Ms. Louprette is a U.S.-Romanian Fulbright Scholar who spent the Fall 2022 season in Brașov, Transylvania, completing research on historic Romanian pipe organs. She is Assistant Professor of Music and College Organist at Bard College and a member of the faculty of Bard College Conservatory, where she directs the Bard Baroque Ensemble and leads an annual Bach cantata series. She has directed the organ program at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University since 2013 and is a former faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, The Hartt School of the University of Hartford, and the John J. Cali School of Music of Montclair State University. 

Ms. Louprette’s European festival recital appearances include Internationaler Orgelsommer, Stuttgart, Germany; Magadino, Switzerland; In Tempore Organi, Italy; Ghent and Hasselt, Belgium; Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Uppsala and Lund cathedrals, Sweden; Bordeaux Cathedral and Toulouse Les Orgues, France, and Organ Nights in Brașov, Romania. In 2018, she made her solo debuts at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. She has performed throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, including at Westminster Abbey and the Temple Church in London, St. Giles Cathedral Edinburgh and Dunblane Cathedral (Scotland), Galway Cathedral and Dún Laoghaire (Ireland). 

Her recording of J. S. Bach’s "Great Eighteen Chorales" on the Metzler organ of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, was named a classical music Critics' Choice 2014 by The New York Times. “Une voix française | A French Voice”—her recording of 20th-century French organ repertoire on the Mander organ of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York—received top reviews in British journals Choir & Organ and Organists’ Review and the Dutch journal Orgelniews. Her current recording of Bach’s Clavier-Übung III performed on the Craighead-Saunders organ of Christ Church, Rochester, New York, is scheduled for release in 2023. 

As a collaborative keyboardist, Ms. Louprette has performed with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the American Brass Quintet, Voices of Ascension, Clarion Music Society, American Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Dance Project, The Dessoff Choirs, Oratorio Society of New York, and Piffaro, among many other ensembles. She has partnered with traditional Irish musician Ivan Goff, with whom she debuted at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles presenting the world premiere of a new work for uilleann pipes and organ by Eve Beglarian, commissioned for the Louprette-Goff duo by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The duo released their album “Bright Vision” to critical acclaim in 2019. The 2021-2022 season featured a join recital in Cluj-Napoca with Romanian saxophonist Zoltán Réman, concerto debuts with The Orchestra Now at the Bard Music Festival “Nadia Boulanger and her World” and with the Auburn Symphony Orchestra at Benaroya Hall in Seattle for the national convention of the American Guild of Organists. 

Ms. Louprette has conducted performances by professional choirs in the greater New York City area accompanied by members of Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola, including the acclaimed U.S. premiere of John Tavener’s Requiem as co-conductor with Kent Tritle. She was selected as a conducting fellow of the Mostly Modern Festival in 2019, premiering several new works with the New York-based American Modern Ensemble. 

Renée Anne Louprette holds a Master of Music degree in conducting from Bard College Conservatory, a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude in piano performance and Graduate Professional Diploma in organ performance from The Hartt School, University of Hartford. She was awarded a Premier Prix - mention très bien from the Conservatoire National de Région de Toulouse, France and a Diplôme Supérieur in organ performance from the Centre d’Études Supérieures de Musique et de Danse de Toulouse where she studied with Michel Bouvard and Jan Willem Jansen (interpretation) and Philippe Lefebvre (improvisation). She completed additional studies in organ with Dame Gillian Weir, James David Christie, and Guy Bovet.

Renée Anne Louprette is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC. 
www.concertartists.com
E-mail:  [email protected]
Phone: 860-560-7800
10 Abbott Lane, Dearborn, MI 48120-1001

James Hejduk

James Hejduk, 79, died September 18 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Born July 26, 1944, in Madison, Ohio, he began playing church services as a ninth grader in 1958 in his hometown. Hejduk earned degrees from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, and Indiana University, Bloomington. He was awarded a succession of Rockefeller grants for post-graduate studies in choral conducting at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the Aspen Choral Institute, where he also sang in its chamber choir. He was the first musician awarded a Klingenstein Fellowship at Columbia University, where he studied organ and developed an interdisciplinary curriculum focused on J. S. Bach. He further studied choral conducting in Cambridge, UK, and organ in Paris, France, with Marcel Dupré.

Hejduk’s teaching career began at The Millbrook School in New York State in 1968. He began his 15-year tenure as director of choral music and chapel organist at Milton Academy in 1971, followed by 12 years at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1986 until 1998, where he was associate professor of music. Returning to the Boston area in 1998, he joined the faculty at Belmont Hill School as its director of music and resumed his position as organist-choirmaster at the Congregational Church of Needham, Massachusetts, that he held from 1974 until 1986. He served churches in Newark, New Jersey; Bloomington, Indiana; Lincoln, Nebraska; and New York City before moving to Massachusetts.

Hejduk was a past dean of the Boston Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and twice served on its executive committee. He was a past president of the Nebraska Choral Directors Association and served the Massachusetts ACDA as repertoire and standards chair for music and worship. He also served a term as a member of the choral panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. Hejduk sang four seasons with the Robert Shaw Festival Chorus at Carnegie Hall and prepared the Beethoven Ninth Symphony for Shaw for the dedication of the Lied Center for the Performing Arts at University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UN-L). With his choirs from Milton, Nebraska, and Belmont Hill, Hejduk toured Romania (three times), the Czech Republic, Latvia, England, Italy, as well as Québec and New York City. His University Singers from UN-L were invited to perform at several ACDA and MENC conventions. Locally, he performed organ recitals at Needham, Milton Academy, Memorial Church at Harvard University, Trinity Church, Boston, Old West Church, Boston, and The Brooks School.

After returning to Lincoln to retire, Hejduk maintained a life largely centered on music. He served two terms as sub-dean of the Lincoln Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and followed that with three years’ service on its executive board. He also made semi-annual trips to Princeton, New Jersey, where he served a six-year term on the alumni council of Westminster Choir College. He was also the class agent and fund-raiser for the college’s class of 1966. Hejduk was organist for many years at Lincoln’s First Church of Christ, Scientist, and continued to attend conferences, symposia, and conventions allied to choral and organ music. For the Lincoln Organ Showcase he served as a co-chair of its board.

James Hejduk is survived by his sister Laurel (Jim) Van Slyke; sister-in-law Kathy Hejduk; a nephew David (Sara) Van Slyke; and a niece Sandra (Joe) Todd. A graveside service was held at Fairview Cemetery, Madison, Ohio, on October 14. A memorial service was held at First-Plymouth Congregational Church, Lincoln, Nebraska, on October 29. Memorial gifts may be made to the music programs of Belmont Hill School, Milton Academy, or The Congregational Church of Needham, Massachusetts.
 

Dominic Joseph Radanovich

Dominic Joseph Radanovich, 85, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, died October 7; he was born November 6, 1938. As a young man Radanovich studied piano with Sophie Charlotte Gaebler (1862–1954), a student of Franz Liszt. After high school he entered the Basilian Monastery in Alberta, Canada, followed by a stint in the United States Air Force. In Milwaukee he established Radanovich and Associates Pipe Organ Builders.

Radanovich displayed interests in classical music, all things related to pipe organ building and playing, musical composition, Christian history and theology, world geography, trains, and model railroading. His life-long interest in Native American studies, especially of the Lakota people, motivated him to donate his time to rebuild and install a used pipe organ in Our Lady of the Sioux Chapel at St. Joseph’s School for Indian Children, Chamberlain, South Dakota. He co-authored the book Zuzeca the Snow Snake: A Native American Story for the Young at Heart. Later in life he regularly traveled to Philadelphia to work on the Wanamaker Organ. He was part of the team that readied the pipe organ for Wanamaker Organ Days concerts.

A funeral Mass was celebrated on October 28 at St. George Melkite Catholic Church, Milwaukee. Memorial gifts may be made to St. George Melkite Catholic Church, 1617 West State Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233-1246 (byzantinemilwaukee.com), or Congregation of the Great Spirit Catholic Church, 1000 West Lapham Boulevard, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53204 (greatspirit.net).

Thomas Wikman

Thomas Wikman, 81, the founder and conductor laureate of Music of the Baroque, Chicago, Illinois, died October 10. A church musician, voice teacher, choirmaster, keyboardist, and orchestral conductor, he formally established Music of the Baroque in 1972, leading the organization for 30 years as music director. Beginning in 1984, he served a 30-year tenure as choirmaster at Church of the Ascension, Chicago, an Anglo-Catholic church known for its musical and liturgical tradition and the quality of its all-professional choir.

Born in 1942 in Muskegon, Michigan, Wikman started composing and playing piano at a young age, and by seven he was studying harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, and music theory with composer Carl Borgeson. He continued to expand his musical horizons in Chicago, working with Leo Sowerby, Stella Roberts, Jeanne Boyd, and Irwin Fischer, among others. He studied organ and Gregorian chant with Benjamin Hadley and undertook further vocal studies with Don Murray and Norman Gulbrandsen.

After serving as organist and choirmaster at St. Richard of Chichester Episcopal Church in the Edgebrook neighborhood of Chicago, in 1968 Wikman was offered the position of music director at the Church of St. Paul & the Redeemer, Episcopal, in the Hyde Park neighborhood. He offered free voice lessons to help build the choir. Next, he needed an orchestra. Composer Ralph Shapey’s avant-garde concerts at the University of Chicago led Wikman to violinists Elliott Golub and Everett Zlatoff-Mirsky, who agreed to lead 
the ensemble.

Music of the Baroque’s first official concert took place in 1972 at the Church of St. Paul & the Redeemer. Wikman led a chorus, a quartet of vocal soloists, and an orchestra of 28 in two Bach cantatas, drawing capacity audiences and paving the way for the ensemble to flourish in the decades ahead. Wikman took Music of the Baroque to New York in 1987, performing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio to critical acclaim. In the mid-1990s, Wikman led Music of the Baroque in a performance inaugurating the newly restored Library of Congress in front of an audience of cardinals as they opened the Vatican’s “Rome Reborn” exhibit. Music of the Baroque also appeared at the Ravinia Music Festival and the White House during his tenure.

Under Thomas Wikman’s direction, Music of the Baroque built a strong and lasting reputation for its performances of large-scale 17th- and 18th-century works, many of which were Chicago premieres. Among the highlights were Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Blessed Virgin (1610) and his operas L’Orfeo, L’Incoronazione di Poppea, and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria; Telemann’s Day of Judgment; Purcell’s Fairy Queen and King Arthur; Handel’s Alcina, Alexander’s Feast, Jephtha, Samson, Saul, Semele, Deborah, Athalia, and Theodora; and all of Bach’s major choral works. Wikman frequently went beyond the Baroque period, performing Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the Mozart Requiem, and Rossini’s Stabat Mater. He established a strong relationship with WFMT, Chicago’s classical music radio station, that continues to this day.

Thomas Wikman’s musical activities extended beyond Music of the Baroque. As a conductor, he led the Houston Symphony in Messiah, appeared at the Grand Teton Music Festival, worked with the Elgin Choral Union, and founded the New Oratorio Singers, the New Court Singers, and the Tudor Singers. He maintained an active voice studio, working with singers associated with the Metropolitan and Chicago Lyric operas, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, and major European houses, including La Scala, Bayreuth, Vienna, and Berlin. Wikman was also a recital accompanist for singers including Isola Jones, Frank Guarrera, Simon Estes, Judith Nelson, Tamara Matthews, Patrice Michaels, Richard Versalle, and Gloria Banditelli.

Active as an organist until the end of his life, Wikman played hundreds of recitals as the artistic director of the Paul Manz Organ series for the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago and the organist and artist-in-residence at the Chicago Theological Seminary. He toured Europe multiple times, giving organ recitals in France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Denmark, and Italy. In May 2002, Wikman was awarded the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts (honoris causa) from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

A memorial service is planned for spring 2024. Music of the Baroque dedicated its concerts on October 15–16 to his memory.