University of Michigan 60th annual organ conference

Brooks Grantier, FAGO, is music director emeritus of the Battle Creek (Michigan) Boychoir, and was for thirty-eight years director of music at Trinity Episcopal Church in Marshall, Michigan.

The 59th annual University of Michigan conference on organ music took place on the Ann Arbor campus September 29 through October 1, 2019, with important pre-conference events on the Friday and Saturday preceding. The theme for 2019 was “Building Bach: His Foundations and Futures.” In view of (and din of) construction equipment all over the campus, the theme seemed exceptionally apt.

Pre-conference event: Isabelle Demers

In an impressive memorized program, Isabelle Demers set a high bar in her recital at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Detroit on Friday, September 27. Alongside a few familiar works, Ms. Demers offered colorful, varied fare from Swedish composer Oskar Lindberg and Australian-American composer Jason Roberts. Transcriptions included movements from Handel’s Fireworks Music, and a bracing reading of the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, bringing out all of the composer’s intent—tempo, rhythm, texture, and formal shape. The recital was brought to a bravura conclusion with Thalben-Ball’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini.

The Eighth Annual Improvisation Competition

On Saturday, September 28, three finalists played the very fine three-manual, fifty-seven-rank Wilhelm organ at Ann Arbor’s First Congregational Church, site of a number of conference events. With no combination action nor the assistance of registrants, the three competitors were on their own in impressive displays of contrapuntal prowess and formal tautness. Competing were Christopher Ganza (first prize), David McCarthy (second prize) and Héctor Salcedo (third prize). All three players showed themselves at the top of today’s outstanding class of improvisers.

Sunday, September 29

Julia Brown (Mayflower Congregational Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan) opened the conference proper with a recital on the two-manual, thirty-five-rank Silbermann-styled Fisk organ in the Blanche Anderson Moore (BAM for short) Recital Hall at the School of Music on the University’s North Campus. Serving up a meat-and-potatoes menu of Buxtehude, Scheidemann, Müthel, W. F. and J. S. Bach, Ms. Brown’s playing was marked by a gracious flexibility in rhythm, sensitive to the organ’s flexible winding and the intimate acoustics of the BAM recital hall.

Returning to the Wilhelm organ at First Congregational Church, Kola Owolabi’s faculty recital considered “Bach’s Circle: Musical Influences and Missed Connections.” Playing with astute finesse and a seasoned musical intelligence, Dr. Owolabi gave us music of Weckmann, Frescobaldi, Kerll, Corea de Arauxo, Buxtehude (the superb Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein), and Bach (the “Dorian” Toccata and Fugue).

Monday, September 30

The morning opened at the BAM Fisk organ with a lecture-recital by Kevin Bylsma (Mariner’s Church, Detroit) and Randall Engle (North Hills Christian Reformed Church, Troy, Michigan) on “Bach, the Teacher.” Mr. Bylsma gave the context of several pieces in Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. After each brief essay, the audience rose to sing a stanza of the chorale, followed by Dr. Engle’s performance of the Orgelbüchlein setting.

A recital by U of M organ students followed. Joseph Mutone, Arthur Greenlee, Samuel Ronning, Michael Mishler, and Sarah Simko (a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2017) played works by Bach and by Grand Rapids composer Larry Visser. The students were candidates for various degrees in organ and church music, and in some cases also for degrees in computer science and engineering—a sign of the times for organists in our age. All were players of fine attainment, carefully prepared, and confident in performance.

Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra displayed her many-sided musical interests in a lecture-recital called “Bach’s Nest.” Just as a bird gathers material from many places to build the nest, so Dr. Ruiter-Feenstra has borrowed from many sources to put together improvisations modeled on the works of Bach. After playing various works of Bach to demonstrate her own Bach-inspired improvisations, she concluded with an improvised French suite on the American tune, “We shall overcome.”

Accompanied by a box lunch (a “Bach’s lunch”) outdoors, we were treated to the first of two carillon recitals, this one by U of M carillonneur Tiffany Ng, playing the sixty-bell instrument located near the School of Music. Always an adventuresome programmer, Dr. Ng chose newly composed works written with some reference to Bach. The euphoniously tuned Dutch carillon was in contrast to its English companion on the U-M central campus, which we heard later that day.

Returning to the School of Music, Michael Barone (of Pipedreams renown) gave us generous samplings of recorded works commissioned and/or played by the late Marilyn Mason. Founder of the U of M organ conference and the longest serving faculty member in the history of the university (sixty-seven years), Dr. Mason enriched the organ repertoire with some ninety commissioned works.

Then, using the BAM Fisk, George Stauffer and Renée Anne Louprette (Rutgers University) gave a tandem lecture recital entitled “Bach Under the Influence.” Dr. Stauffer identified several compositional strands that came together in Bach’s organ music and in later works that flowed from his inspiration. Ms. Louprette then played works by Bach and later composers that strongly correlated Dr. Stauffer’s insightful points. Both artists deserve much credit for this thoughtfully devised, elegantly presented program.

Moving to the U of M central campus, we heard a second carillon recital, by Roy Kroezen (carillonneur of the Centralia, Illinois, carillon), on the fifty-three-bell Baird Carillon, given to the university in 1936 by athletic director (!) Charles Baird. This carillon is much in the English style, with the unusual harmonics of the bells given clangorous free play. Mr. Kroezen’s program included music by Bach, Buxtehude, and Kirnberger. Thus we were treated to two very distinct styles of carillon, two highly varied approaches to repertoire, and a pair of most artistic players. Who could ask for anything more?

Our day finished in the legendary Hill Auditorium, whose organ is an amalgam of Farrand & Votey, Hutchings, Skinner, and Aeolian-Skinner. A mongrel? Of course, but in this case a friendly beast, very much at home in the spacious acoustics and parabolic interior of Hill Auditorium. Steven Egler (Central Michigan University) played a one-composer program entitled “Organ Music of Gerald Near: Futurist Building on the Foundations of Bach.” Dr. Egler’s selection proved a strong case for bringing the essence of Bach’s style into our time in music of contrapuntal ingenuity and polished sonority. In the music of Bach, a composer can find no finer mentor, and in the playing of Dr. Egler, a composer can commend no finer advocate.

Tuesday, October 1

We began the day with three discussion programs back-to-back. First, a group of researchers in such arcana as “mathematics and computational medicine and bioinformatics” gave a presentation on mapping brain activity during performance of Bach’s trio sonatas. While the research is in its infancy—stay tuned. When linked with findings in neuroscience, the work will provide fascinating insights into how the brain processes information on several planes simultaneously, as in the trio sonatas. Isabelle Demers returned us to the organ as an expression of musical communication, with observations of the continuing persistence of Marcel Dupré’s articulation of Bach’s G Minor Fugue, through recorded performances spanning several decades.

The final discussion, led by Dr. Tiffany Ng, was on “Women and Organ Improvisation.” Three women from the conference roster plus jazz studies professor Ellen H. Rowe related how they came to the practice of musical improvisation. The panel noted that nearly all improvisation prizes are awarded to male performers, speculated on reasons for this, and highlighted improvisation among women players.

Matthew Bengston of the U of M keyboard faculty and Mark Kroll (professor emeritus, Boston University)presented lectures on the suites of Bach and Dieupart, and on Bach and Couperin, both using the harpsichord in superb illustration of Bach’s French style. Another recital by U of M students followed, using the Wilhelm organ. Performers Jenna Moon, Allison Barone, Kaelan Hansson, and Emily Solomon (a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2019) played music of Scheidt, Böhm, Müthel, and Tunder respectively. As in the first recital, all were carefully prepared, and all played with style and confidence.

The conference closed with Bach and Handel, played by U of M’s Baroque Chamber Orchestra in the spacious acoustics of Saint Francis Catholic Church, with its excellent Létourneau organ. The centerpiece was Bach’s Cantata 146, Wir müssen durch viel Trubsal in das Reich Gottes, featuring a quartet of singers and Dr. Owolabi playing the important organ part. Directors Joseph Gascho and Aaron Berofsky gave all that we could ask for in an edge-of-the-seat compelling performance.

As a welcome interlude, before the final performance, organ department chair James Kibbie invited everyone to gather at Ann Arbor’s Cottage Inn restaurant, a favorite haunt of the
U of M community, in a toast in memory of Marilyn Mason. As we raised our glasses, Dr. Kibbie offered his own brief salute, and then invited all in attendance to share their own “Marilyn” stories with those around us. It was meet and right so to do. And a fitting close to a memorable conference.

Photo credit: Colin Knapp

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

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