William Teague dead at 97

Richard Bond, 73, died in Portland, Oregon, February 17. Bond first became interested in organbuilding at age fifteen. After graduating with a degree in engineering science from the University of Redlands, Redlands, California, he began his organbuilding career in the company of other builders in Los Angeles, including Manuel Rosales and Michael Bigelow. In 1976, Bond and his wife Roberta moved to Portland to found their own firm. Under his leadership, Bond Organ Builders, Inc., has built thirty-six new organs and maintains instruments throughout the Pacific Northwest, as well as in California and Montana. The firm has also completed numerous rebuilds, additions projects, restorations, and relocations of significant historical instruments. For many years, Richard Bond was curator of the famous hanging Casavant organ at Portland’s Lewis & Clark College. More recently he took up the care of the Rosales organ at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, also in Portland, where he and Roberta sang in the choir. In addition to his membership in the American Institute of Organbuilders, Bond served on the Historic Organs Committee of the Organ Historical Society. Bond Organ Builders, Inc., holds membership in the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America and the International Society of Organbuilders. Richard Bond is survived by his wife Roberta and a son Tim.

John C. Gumpy, 80, of Macungie, Pennsylvania, died September 29, 2019. Born in 1939 in Danville, Pennsylvania, John owned and ran Lehigh Organ Company for over thirty years, building and rebuilding organs. For sixteen years, he also served as organist for Trinity Episcopal Church, Easton, Pennsylvania, home to his Opus 128, a three-manual instrument of thirty-six ranks. His home congregation was Grace Church, Bethlehem. He was a founding member of the American Institute 
of Organbuilding. For his projects, Gumpy generally favored electric-valve windchests and open-toe nickless voicing for chorus work; he was a skilled recycler of older pipes as well. Some Lehigh projects included Opus 30 at First United Church of Christ in Reading, Pennsylvania (1986), in which a 1958 M. P. Möller organ was expanded to 80 ranks, including a new Great division and other material. John C. Gumpy is survived by his wife of fifty-seven years, Margery; son, Edward J. Gumpy and wife Kathryn of Vernon, New Jersey; daughter, Katherine E. and husband Jeffrey Crawford of Golden, Colorado; and grandson, Logan Gibson Gumpy. A memorial service was held October 4, 2019, at New Goshenhoppen U.C.C. in East Greenville, Pennsylvania.

Homer H. Lewis, Jr., a reed voicer who worked for both M. P. Möller and his own firm Trivo, died May 4 in Hagerstown, Maryland. Known familiarly as “Junie,” Lewis was 93. In 1942, while still a high school senior, Lewis began employment at Möller doing defense work. In 1943, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving aboard the USS Bronstein, a destroyer escort, as a fire control man, Third Class, in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. At the conclusion of World War II, Lewis returned to Möller to become a reed voicer alongside his uncle, Adolf Zajic (1909–1987), who had come to Möller from Welte-Tripp in 1931. In 1963, Lewis, Joseph E. Clipp, and Edward Lushbaugh founded the Trivo Company, initially as a part-time enterprise. In 1969, the partners incorporated the business as Trivo Company, Inc., to provide voicing and reconditioning of reed stops, as well as new pipes. Lewis retired from Möller in 1972. While continuing to work part time at Trivo, he taught principles of electricity at Victor Cullen Reform School for Boys in Sabillasville, Maryland, a correctional institute run by the State of Maryland. In 1974 when the state relocated the school, Lewis switched to full-time work at Trivo, and in 1983, Lewis and Clipp bought out Edward Lushbaugh’s share of Trivo. Lewis retired in 2012 at age 86. His career in the organ business spanned seven decades. Lewis was a member of the Improved Order of Red Men #84, Williamsport, Maryland; Washington County Amvets (Post 10), Hagerstown; and the American Legion. He was a founding member of the American Institute of Organbuilders. His wife, Nancy, who frequently joined her husband at AIO conventions, died last year.

Marvin Garrett Judy, 76, founder of Schudi Organ Company, died February 29. Born in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1943, he moved with his family to Dallas, Texas, in 1952. He studied ’cello through high school and college years. After attending Southern Methodist University for several years, he left in 1963 to work for Robert Sipe and Rodney Yarbrough at the Sipe-Yarbrough Organ Company, Texas’s second 20th-century builder (after Otto Hofmann) to concentrate on mechanical key action. When Sipe went to the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company in that firm’s final years (1969–1972), Judy installed that firm’s organs in the south and southeastern states, a phase of his career that drew to a close with Aeolian-Skinner’s bankruptcy, Sipe’s return to Texas, and Judy’s founding of Schudi in Garland, Texas, in 1972. In all, the Schudi firm built twenty-seven new organs, primarily in Texas but also Oklahoma, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. Beginning with Opus 17 (1980), a two-manual tracker in Texarkana, Texas, the Schudi shop concentrated on mechanical action. Keyboards, slider windchests, key and stop actions, casework, and consoles were made in-house; pipes, blowers, and electronic components came from other firms. Schudi’s first instrument to draw national attention was a three-manual electric-slider instrument, Opus 6 of 1978, for St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, Dallas. Opus 6 was expanded in 1987 and became widely noticed that year for Todd Wilson’s recording of the complete organ works of Maurice Duruflé (DELOS 3047). As esteemed was the firm’s Opus 38 (1987) in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C. In addition to servicing Schudi organs, Judy maintained those by others, notably his twenty-two-year curatorship of C. B. Fisk’s Opus 100 at Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas. In all of the shop’s endeavors, Marvin was surrounded by considerable talent: the conceptual and creative input of George Gilliam early on; long-term staffers Charles Leonard, Jim Lane, James Stillson, Jonathon Maedche, Ivan Witt, Szymon Januszkiewicz, and Piotr Bolesta; also the now-deceased David Zuber, Moises Carrasco, and E. O. Witt; the periodic support of friend and colleague Mark Lively; and through it all, the business and logistical support of Nanette Gordon, initially hired in 1980 to carve pipe shades. She and Marvin Judy married in 1983. The financial downturn of the late 1980s and early 1990s dealt harshly with several organbuilding establishments, Schudi among them. Despite the loss of contracts and a reduction of scope, Judy persevered, with a genial nature and persistent work ethic that continued to the end. Even until his final months, he remained active in rebuilding and service work in the Dallas area. Marvin Judy is survived by his wife Nanette; his son, John Judy, of Savannah, Georgia; a daughter, Allison Gordon and Stephen Shein of Houston, Texas; and his brother, Dwight Judy, and sister-in-law, Ruth Judy of Syracuse, Indiana.  —Jonathan Ambrosino

David C. Scribner died April 16. Born September 21, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois, he received most of his organ instruction as a student of Arthur C. Becker and René Dosogne at DePaul University. At Saint Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, Scribner became Becker’s assistant and then successor as organist. During his time in Chicago, Scribner was a member of the Windy City Gay Men’s Chorus. Scribner would move to San Francisco, California, Pensacola, Florida, and finally Little Rock, Arkansas. His most recent organist position was at Christ Episcopal Church, Little Rock, as a substitute. He also served as a vestryman of that parish, where he freely contributed computer expertise to allow the church to spread its ministry through social media. Having previously worked for other organ firms, Scribner spent the last twenty years at Nichols & Simpson Organbuilders in Little Rock. David Scribner was an active member of the American Institute of Organbuilders, the Organ Historical Society, the American Guild of Organists, the Atlantic City Convention Hall Organ Society, the Organ Media Foundation, and Pipechat.org, the latter being his creation. All these organizations he served in numerous ways, much of which involved his expert computer technical knowledge. In addition to his passion for the pipe organ, Scribner was a lifelong railroad enthusiast, greatly enjoying travel on Amtrak and anything else with a connection to train tracks. In this vein, he supported numerous historical clubs and railway museums. Per his wishes, Scribner’s cremains were interred in Christ Church, Little Rock, on May 1, as near to the organ as possible. A memorial organ concert in his honor will be scheduled in the future at Christ Church, where memorial donations may be made in his name.

William Chandler Teague, 97, died June 27. He was born July 8, 1922, in Gainesville, Texas, where he began musical training at age three with his mother. At age 12 he became the organist for a large Methodist church. As a teenager he studied organ in Dallas, Texas, and entered Southern Methodist University at age 16. His studies were interrupted when Alexander McCurdy invited him to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His studies at Curtis were interrupted by World War II, as he joined the United States Army Air Force as a chaplain’s assistant. He returned to Curtis after the war to study and serve as McCurdy’s assistant, playing for Sunday oratorio performances at First Presbyterian Church. Accompanying Teague to Philadelphia was his young bride, the former Lucille Ridinger, whom he had married during the war. They had met at a Methodist camp when they were 12 years old. Teague’s organ teachers included Dora Poteet Barclay, Alexander McCurdy, Marie-Claire Alain, Harold Gleason, and Catharine Crozier. After graduation from Curtis in 1948, Teague came to Shreveport, Louisiana, to accept the position of organist/choirmaster at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church (now the location of The Church of the Holy Cross, St. Mark’s having relocated in 1954 and in 1990 became a cathedral) and a teaching position at Centenary College of Louisiana in the organ and sacred music departments. He taught for 44 years earning the rank of full professor. He was later designated Professor of Music Emeritus at the college, which granted him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree. He served as accompanist as he and his wife traveled with the Centenary College Choir to various countries including China. He served St. Mark’s Cathedral for 39 years before being designated Organist Emeritus. Teague maintained an active concert career, performing in such venues as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria, Westminster Abbey, Trinity Church Wall Street and the Riverside Church in New York City, National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and the armed forces academies. He was invited to play behind the Iron Curtain with concerts in East Berlin, Poland, and in other countries. He and Lucille were in East Berlin at the Wall when the first blows were struck to tear it down. He would perform in Japan, Australia, all over the United States and Europe, and in North Africa. In addition to solo organ concerts, William joined his son, Chandler, in presenting music for organ and percussion in concerts across the United States. Following his retirement from St. Mark’s Cathedral, Teague was interim organist for churches throughout the region. Teague was active in the American Guild of Organists, the Association of Anglican Musicians, the Sewanee Music Conference, and the Evergreen Summer Conference. He was a Fellow in Church Music at Washington National Cathedral. For ten summers Teague was summer organist at St. Ann’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, Kennebunkport, Maine. He was a founding member of Baroque Artists of Shreveport, founded the Great Masterpiece Series at St. Mark’s Cathedral, recorded a weekly organ concert for radio broadcast for eight years, trained thousands of choristers in the tradition of Anglican music, and played for hundreds of weddings, funerals, and festivals. Raven Recordings released a two-CD set of organ music performed by Teague at St. Mark’s Cathedral, The Aeolian-Skinner Sound (OAR-800), including works by Dupré, Messiaen, and Willan. In 1988, the City of Shreveport honored him with William C. Teague Day, and the Teague Music Scholarship was established at Centenary College. The Teague-Smith Scholarship Fund for young choristers was later established at St. Mark’s Cathedral. Teague is listed in volumes of Who’s Who including the International Who’s Who, and was recently honored by the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival. William Chandler Teague is survived by a son, Chandler Teague, and wife, Janis Adams Teague, of Shreveport, Louisiana; a daughter, Lynda Gayle Teague Deacon of Memphis, Tennessee; three grandchildren, Sandra Deacon, Clay Deacon, and Hunter Deacon; and four great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife of 77 years, Lucille Ridinger Teague. A combined service for Dr. and Mrs. Teague will be held at a later date. Memorials may be made to the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, 616 Jordan St., Shreveport, LA 71101; the Teague-Smith Scholarship Fund at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, 908 Rutherford St., Shreveport, LA 71104; or the Teague Music Scholarship Fund at Centenary College, 2911 Centenary Blvd., Shreveport, LA 71104.

David Stephen Boe died April 28, 2020, in Chicago, Illinois. Since 2012, he and his wife, Sigrid North Boe, had lived at a Chicago retirement community, where they moved to be near family.

David Boe was born in Duluth, Minnesota, and spent most of his early years in Eau Claire and Menomonie, Wisconsin. His father was a Lutheran pastor, and his mother was a singer and choral conductor. Boe received his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, in 1958, and his Master of Music degree in organ performance from Syracuse University in 1960, studying under Arthur Poister. He received a J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship for additional study with Helmut Walcha at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Frankfurt, Germany. It was while Boe was studying with Walcha at the Dreikönigskirche that he met one of the pastor’s daughters, Sigrid North, who became his wife. They were married by Sigrid’s father, Pastor Paulus North, on July 23, 1961; Walcha, a friend of the North family, served as organist. When the Boes returned to the United States, he taught organ for one year at the University of Georgia (1961–1962).

In 1962, David Boe joined the organ and harpsichord faculty of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio. He also became director of music at First Lutheran Church, Lorain, Ohio. He returned to Europe in 1968 while on sabbatical to study with Gustav Leonhardt and to conduct research on historical instruments in the Netherlands and northern Germany. Under Boe’s leadership, in 1970, First Lutheran Church, Lorain, awarded a contract to John Brombaugh for a new organ to be built according to historical principles. This landmark instrument and the church were destroyed by fire in 2014. Boe served the church until his retirement on Pentecost Sunday, 2002.

David Boe was appointed the ninth dean of Oberlin Conservatory in 1976 after having served as acting dean from 1974 to 1975. He later served as interim dean on several occasions. In the 1980s, he served as vice president of the American Organ Academy; completed a four-year term as national president of the American honor society in music, Pi Kappa Lambda; and was secretary of the National Association of Schools of Music, chairing music accreditation teams or serving as a consultant to music programs at over thirty-five institutions. He later served as trustee for the Westfield Center for many years.

As a performer, Boe was represented by WindWerk Artists and concertized in the United States and Europe. He recorded on the Gasparo and Veritas labels, and he appeared on the nationally televised program The Wind at One’s Fingertips. During his 1991 sabbatical, he served as visiting professor of organ for the spring semester at Florida State University, Tallahassee, and as visiting professor of organ at the University of Notre Dame during the fall semester.

David Boe played an important part in establishing the organ collection at Oberlin, including the installation of John Brombaugh Opus 25 (1981), a meantone organ in Fairchild Chapel, and C. B. Fisk, Inc., Opus 116 (2001) in Finney Chapel, built in the style of Cavaillé-Coll. Upon his retirement, he donated his residence organ, a one-manual, six-stop Brombaugh organ, to Oberlin, where it was installed in the front of Fairchild Chapel. He served as consultant for the 2004 organ built by Halbert Gober for First Church (UCC) in Oberlin and performed on the dedicatory recital.

As a 70th birthday gift in 2006, four of Boe’s former students commissioned a new two-manual and pedal clavichord built in Göteborg, Sweden, by Joel Speerstra, a former Boe student at Oberlin. For Boe’s 75th birthday in 2011, two alumni honored both David and Sigrid Boe with the purchase of the two-manual and pedal organ originally built for SUNY, Purchase, New York, by the Bozeman-Gibson Organ Company in the style of Gottfried Silbermann. In 2011, Boe’s undergraduate alma mater, St. Olaf College, awarded him its Alumni Achievement Award. At that time, St. Olaf recorded a video at the Boe residence in Oberlin that is available online: https://www.stolaf.edu/multimedia/play/?p=28 (the interview begins at 29:20). 

David S. Boe is survived by his wife Sigrid; their son Stephen and his wife Joo; their son Eric and his wife Lisa; their four granddaughters Sydney, Haley, Alexis, and Olivia; and his two sisters, Judith Boe and Carol Brann.

Jane Parker-Smith, 70, died June 24 in London, UK. Born May 20, 1950, she studied at the Royal College of Music in London, soon earning a number of prizes and scholarships, including the Walford Davies Prize for organ performance. After a further period of work with Nicolas Kynaston, a French government scholarship enabled her to complete her studies in Paris with Jean Langlais.

She made her London debut at Westminster Cathedral at age twenty and two years later made her first solo appearance at the BBC Promenade Concerts in the Royal Albert Hall. She would proceed to concertize in concert halls, cathedrals, and churches throughout the world.

She recorded a wide range of solo repertoire for RCA, Classics for Pleasure, L’Oiseau Lyre, EMI, ASV, Collins Classics, Motette, and AVIE. In addition, she collaborated with Maurice André in a duo recording of music for trumpet and organ. She performed numerous times on radio and television with special feature programs on the BBC, German, and Swiss television.

Highlights in her concert career included performances in venues and international festivals such as Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall, London (both solo and concerto performances); Three Choirs Festival, City of London Festival, Bath Festival, and Blenheim Palace (Winston Churchill Memorial Concert) in the UK; Jyväskylä Festival, Finland; Stockholm Concert Hall, Sweden; Hong Kong Arts Festival; Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto; Festival Paris Quartier D’Été, France; Festival Cicio El Organo en la Iglesia, Buenos Aires; Festival Internationale di Musica Organistica Magadino, Switzerland; Cube Concert Hall, Shiroishi, Japan; Athens Organ Festival; Severance Hall, Cleveland, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, and Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles; Sejong Cultural Centre, Seoul, Korea; Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore; Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK; Mariinsky Concert Hall, St. Petersburg, Russia; and ZK Matthews Hall, University of South Africa, Pretoria. For the American Guild of Organists, she performed for the 1996 centennial convention in New York City, as well as national conventions in 2002 in Philadelphia and 2012 in Nashville. She was represented in the United States by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.

Jane Parker-Smith’s concerto repertoire brought her performances with many leading orchestras, including the BBC Symphony and BBC Concert Orchestras, London Symphony, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, Philharmonia, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Athens State Orchestra, and Prague Chamber Orchestra.

Jane Parker-Smith was an Honorary Fellow of the Guild of Musicians and Singers and a member of the Incorporated Society of Musicians. She was listed in World Who’s Who and International Who’s Who in Music and in 2014 was chosen as one of “The 1000 Most Influential Londoners” by the London Evening Standard newspaper.

Hampson A. Sisler of New York, New York, died May 25. He was born in 1932 in Yonkers, New York, and began his musical education at age 12, studying with David McK. Williams and Norman Coke-Jephcott. He earned a licentiate in organ and related subjects from Trinity College of Music, London, at age 16 and achieved the fellowship certification in the American Guild of Organists at age 17, the youngest ever to receive this distinction. Sisler spent more than 50 years as an ophthalmologist and oculoplastic surgeon in New York City. He was a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

Sisler began playing organ in church when he was eleven. He was active as an organist and choir director serving various churches, most notably Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn and Central Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. As a composer, he had more than 100 works to his credit, including pieces for organ, chorus, concert band, chamber and symphony orchestra. His works have been performed and recorded worldwide with orchestras in the United States as well as in Argentina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Israel, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, and Ukraine. As an organ recitalist, he performed in and around New York City, including the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

He was recently named “one of the significant composers of contemporary America” by The Organ magazine, London. His first works were published at age nineteen starting with H. W. Gray Co. as well as Jos. Fischer & Co., Belwin Mills, E. P. Adams, Inc., World Library Publications, Laurendale, and MorningStar Music Publishers. 

Hampson A. Sisler was predeceased by his spouse, Gene Iacovetta, in 2019. Survivors include a nephew, Thomas Sisler, two nieces, Carrie Kozikowski and Nancy Westphal, and a cousin, William Nodine.