On the occasion of her 80th birthday

Sarah Mahler Hughes

Sarah Mahler Highes is Associate Professor of Music and College Organist at Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin, where she has taught since 1989. She holds degrees in music education (B.A., Olivet College, 1976), music history and literature (M.M., University of Colorado, 1979), and organ performance (D.M.A., University of Kansas, 1985). Dr. Hughes teaches piano, organ, harpsichord, and music history courses at Ripon as well as directing the Collegium Musicum. She is also Minister of Music at First Congregational Church in Ripon, where she directs children's and adult choirs and plays for services. Dr. Hughes has published articles on and edited music by women composers and is a regular contributor to THE DIAPASON. She recently studied in Vienna with Michael Radulescu of the Hochschule fuer Musik und darstellende Kunst.

Miriam Clapp Duncan, Emerita Professor of Music at Lawrence
University, Appleton, Wisconsin, celebrates 50 years of teaching and her 80th
birthday on October 26 (the same date as Scarlatti) this year. In honor of her
achievements, the Northeastern Wisconsin Chapter of the AGO has commissioned
from David A. Heller an organ
partita based on "Down Ampney," to be performed by chapter members at
their worship services during the succeeding year. Professor Duncan reflects
upon a long and satisfying career in an interview with Sarah Mahler Hughes.

Q: What was the first musical experience you can remember?

A: It was coming home from my father's funeral--I was five
years old--and playing the songs I'd heard on the piano. My family decided I
had to have lessons.

Q: How did you come to choose the organ as your principal
instrument?

A: I grew up in Anderson, Indiana. As a child, I listened to
radio station WLW from Cincinnati, which wasn't far away. They broadcast a
daily organ program from their studios which I listened to faithfully. I also
had an English aunt, a real character, who lived with us and who wanted me to
learn to play the organ. I started taking lessons at the age of 13 from a nun
who had gone to the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. That's what
influenced me to go there.

Q: Describe your education at the American Conservatory. Who
were your teachers?

A: As a music school, it wasn't the worst place, but it
wasn't the best place, either. I had excellent theory instruction, which really
helped later when I went to Vienna to study with Anton Heiller. I discovered
then that be and I spoke the same language as far as theory went.

Leo Sowerby taught theory, music history, and composition at
the Conservatory, and I'd like to talk a little about his classroom teaching
because as I get older I realize what an influence he had on me. He paid
enormous attention to detail. We had to analyze quantitities of works,
including a dozen string quartets by Beethoven. Sowerby believed in studying
the scores of whatever pieces you were playing. When he was young, he never
went to a concert without going to the library first to get scores of the
things he was going to hear. Who has that kind of self-discipline these days?
He believed you could teach yourself because he had taught himself very much in
that way. He made us write our counterpoint exercises in the old clefs so we'd
know how to read them. He'd sit at the piano and improvise chord progressions,
and suddenly he'd stop cold, point a finger at you, and ask, "What chord
is that?"

Q: Did you also study organ with Sowerby?

A: Yes, but not at the Conservatory. He wasn't allowed to
teach there because he didn't have a degree in organ. He hadn't studied with
anyone famous--in fact, he hadn't even studied! He taught himself to play the
pedals by drawing a pedalboard on a piece of brown butcherpaper which he put
under the piano. I took lessons from him privately, at St. James' Episcopal
Church, where I played the big 1925 Austin organ. It was mostly his own works
we studied, and some English works that he liked to play for church. I learned
a lot about service-playing in the English tradition from him.

Q: Your first teaching job was at Wheaton College, was it
not? How did that come about?

A: One of my organ teachers at the Conservatory was Frank
van Duesen, who had been a student of Guilmant. Mr. van Duesen had surgery for
glaucoma in 1945, and I ended up teaching for him at Wheaton for two years.

Q: After teaching at Wheaton, you finished your M.M. degree
in 1947, and you and your husband moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where be began
teaching piano and theory at Lawrence University.

A: Yes, and I didn't teach at first because Lawrence, like
most liberal arts colleges in those days, bad a rule that wives couldn't teach
in the same department as their husbands. However, the GIs had arrived after
the war, and by 1949 they were desperate for another organ teacher. LaVahn
Maesch, the Dean of the Conservatory and the principal organ instructor, came
to my house one Sunday afternoon and said, "I need you at the
Conservatory, because I know you taught at Wheaton, and we really do need
somebody with experience to teach." So I was in business. I had 26
students that first year, and for the whole year of teaching I was paid $600. I
never dreamed then that I would end up being chair of the organdepartment and a
full professor.

Q: Seemingly your course was set. Yet something happened in
the 1950s--a sort of musical awakening?

A: Yes, and not just for me. It began, I think with the
Haarlem Academy, which the Dutch government sponsored in order to show off the
great organ at Haarlem. College teachers from this country, dozens of them,
went there to study and bring back the gospel of performance practice to their
students. The faculty was the best: Anton Heiller, who did all the Bach
teaching, Marie-Claire Alain, Luigi Tagliavini, and Gustav Leonhardt for
harpsichord. I never attended the Academy workshops, but I heard the Haarlem
organ and learned about what went on there. What the Academy did was bring
people up to date on performance practice, and its influence on organ teachers
has changed organ playing in this country--I don't think that's an
exaggeration. We know things now, and people play very much more intelligently than
they did 35 or 40 years ago.

Q: Were there other significant musical experiences for you
during these years?

A: Yes, two in particular. I spent two summers--1950 and
1951--as a student at the Organ Institute of America in Methuen, Massachusetts,
where the old Boston Music Hall organ had been moved thanks to the efforts of
E. Power Biggs, Arthur Poister, and Carl Weinrich. The organ--a Walcker, I
believe--was a beautiful instrument with a very handsome case. The faculty at
the Institute were all the major organists in the United States. We practiced
in the mornings, had lectures in the afternoons, and heard recitals at night on
that gigantic, four-manual-plus organ. For the first time, we learned what
organo pleno meant, because every division had a plenum. I date my interest in
the organ music of Bach from these sessions.

Sowerby once told me he'd like to go to the Organ Institute
for a summer. Imagine the challenge of trying to explain organum plenum or
tierce en taille to America's first Prix de Rome winner and Pulitzer Prize
winner two times over. Sowerby's Toccata for Organ was the first piece he wrote
after this long conversation with me (accompanied by martinis, of course) about
Baroque organ music.

Q: How did you make the connection between the Organ
Institute and study in Europe?

A: One of my fellow students at the Institute one summer was
Rudy Kraemer, who now teaches at the University of North Carolina. He told me
about his study with Anton Heiller in Vienna. Rudy had gone there on a
Fulbright, but he didn't know about Heiller at first. One day Rudy had walked
into a cafe on the Schwartzenbergplatz and discovered Gustav Leonhardt having
coffee with H. Robbins Landon. Rudy got to talking with them both, and they
told him to go to Heiller, that be was the only organist in Vienna who knew
anything about Bach and early music. Heiller at that time was less than 30
years old, but he'd already established himself as a player and scholar. I
decided that I wanted to study with Heiller, too, and in 1954-55, my husband
and I went to Vienna, thanks to a Ford Foundation grant. I worked with Heiller,
and also with Leonhardt on harpsichord.

Q: What were your impressions of Heiller?

A: He had a very good voice--his first job, in fact, was as
a baritone in the chorus at the Volksoper. He sang a lot at my lessons, and I
never would have learned to play appoggiaturas expressively if be hadn't sung
them first. He also had a fantastic ear. He could pick out a 4' flute in a
plenum and say, "Get that flute out of there!"

Heiller, of course, and Marie Claire Alain, and Tagliavini,
were pioneers in the historical performance practice movement that began in the
'50s and changed the organ world forever. All of these people believed
thoroughly in getting your hands on a photocopy of the original music--the Orgelbüchlein
style='font-style:normal'>, for example. They didn't even trust what somebody
else had written because they didn't know what his scholarship was like. And
they didn't trust trying to play as you heard someone else play. Although
Heiller used to say, "I'm no scholar, but I have friends who are." He
was so modest; however, he had plenty of imitators.

I can't overemphasize Heiller's influence on organ-playing
in this country. Let me give two examples. In 1962, be appeared at the AGO
National Convention in Los Angeles. It was the first time be came over to the
U.S., and he lectured on the Orgelbüchlein normal'>. People were transfixed--they didn't know there was so much to be
known about this collection. They became interested in it again--most of them
had been bored out of their skulls when they'd had to study it, and they
acknowledged that. Heiller toured the country after that, stopping in Appleton,
among other places. He played the entire Orgelbüchlein
style='font-style:normal'> on a little eight-stop Schlicker practice organ at
Lawrence, and he wowed 'em--even the band students, who like all the others,
had been required to go. That's an artist, who can make people interested in
difficult music!

The second monumental event was Heiller's dedication of the
Fisk organ at Harvard in 1967. That's a magnificent organ, and his playing
matched it--I'll never forget his performance of the Reger Wachet auf
style='font-style:normal'>. Every great organ teacher in the United States was
there--Gleason, Craighead, and others. I think some of us realized for the
first time what organ recitals could be. That organ sent ripples across the
entire country and influenced a whole generation of builders and students.

Q: What did you learn from Gustav Leonhardt?

A: Leonhardt was a great teacher--extremely knowledgeable,
and fluent in several languages. The first thing he did was explain to me his
idea that there was no such thing as a German Baroque style because it was all
borrowed from the French and Italian practices. The only German contribution to
a Baroque musical tradition was the chorale. That was a pretty strong
statement, but it illustrates an important fact--the existence and appreciation
of various national styles in this period. For example, once you know the
unique characteristics of these national styles, you can pick out passages in
Buxtehude that sound like Frescobaldi.

Q: What happened when you returned from Europe in 1955?

A: Well, first I had to cope with an old Kimball organ,
which actually seemed like a pretty good instrument because it had replaced one
that was even worse. But the main thing was that when I came back to Lawrence,
I started teaching repertoire outside the French Romantic school, which
dominated the American organ world at that time. I taught Buxtehude, Bach, and
Hindemith and music that I liked and thought was important. And by golly, the
students liked those things, too. I think I began to have a following because I
was not teaching Robert Elmore's "Donkey Dance." People didn't know
what I was up to--they thought I was either mad or trying to undermine Mr.
Maesch.

It's hard to believe, but at that time only a handful of
Bach works were played on recitals, mostly the big preludes and fugues. Nobody
taught and played the Clavierübung or the chorale preludes--the music was
considered too serious. Of course, part of the problem was that there weren't
many organs that could "play" the music well. The French organ
symphonies were known, but only
the "Toccata" from Widor's Fifth was played a lot. I think many
organists were afraid to play something they thought people wouldn't like.

Anyway, I ran afoul of Mr. Maesch, who had studied with
Dupré in Paris, not only because of the repertoire I was teaching but
because I was playing faster and with more articulation. He--and lots of other
people, too--believed that everything should be played legato. Organ music was
like spaghetti--long lines of legato notes--with swell shades used for contrast
and expression. I told him, "It may surprise you to know that Austrian
organists do play at a good clip." He said, "How can they do that in
those acoustics?" I replied, "They play cleanly and they
articulate." This was a new concept!

Q: Obviously, you have been committed to historical
performance practices in your teaching and playing. How did you continue your
studies in the following years?

A: Well, in 1966 I spent a sabbatical in France, Germany,
Italy, and Vienna, listening to and playing old organs, and taking lessons. I
took lessons from Marie Claire Alain at her house, because I wanted to get the
goods on the French Classical school, and I worked with Tagliavini on
Frescobaldi.

Q: You also spent some time at the Newberry Library, didn't
you?

A: Yes, on another sabbatical in 1973, I researched Baroque
treatises in the Newberry Library in Chicago. The Newberry is one of the great
music libraries in this country, which many musicians don't seem to realize.
They have very interesting seminars as well as more early music scores than any
library in the United States. Why bother digging through treatises? Well, many
treatises were written in the Baroque era, not instructing you how to play, but
describing how the playing was done. So it's possible to learn a very great
deal about performance practice by reading, and I don't think anyone is ever
going to be a knowledgeable organist playing Baroque music unless they read
about it.

Q: Your study in Vienna really convinced you of the merits
of mechanical-action organs, did it not?

A: Absolutely. I had to bide my time, but by the mid-60s
tracker organs were becoming popular. I managed to convince my organ majors at
Lawrence that tracker organs were superior even though they'd never heard one
(there weren't any in northeastern Wisconsin). I took a group of students to
Boston in 1967 to bear the Fisk, and we wore our "Tracker Backer"
[modeled on the NFL "Packer Backers"] buttons. E. Power Biggs came
onstage for a recital, and he said, "Welcome, all you Tracker Backers and
all you non-Tracker Backers." I'm still amazed at how many people have
beard of us. People hear 'Lawrence' and they say, "That's where the
Tracker Backers are from." But behind it all was a very serious
appreciation for tracker organs and a longing for one at Lawrence.

Q: And finally that dream did come true.

A: It took 30 years, but in 1995 the Brombaugh Opus 33 was
dedicated in the Memorial Chapel at Lawrence. I truly feel that this is the
culmination of my whole teaching career. I feel like everything has finally all
come together. It's been an inspiration to see it come to fruition because I
know it's the right thing to do, musically and in every way.

Q: You've had a strong committment to teaching, not only
college students, but other people in the community. You were heavily involved
in the OROCO program in the Fox Valley of Wisconsin, for example.

A: That was my idea, and I helped to organize it. The
Outreach Opportunity for Church Organists program started about 1970 to give
people lessons who wouldn't otherwise have had access to training. Many people
were (and maybe still are) playing the organ in church and had never had a
lesson in their lives. We--Mr. Maesch, Clinton DeWitt, an organist from Oconto,
and I--traveled around to churches in northeastern Wisconsin recruiting
students. Originally, we sent teachers, including Lawrence students, out to
these communities to teach group lessons. But then, thanks to a $10,000 gift,
we were able to award scholarships to individuals, and they made arrangements
to study with designated teachers in Appleton, Green Bay, Oshkosh, and Ripon. I
think the program was very successful--many of the OROCO graduates are still
active in church music. I think we turned out at least 45 new organists, and
the program continues to this day.

Q: Officially, you retired in 1985, yet you're still active
and visible in the organ world.

A: I don't think musicians ever really retire--I know I
haven't. Lawrence wouldn't let me retire--I've taught both organ and
harpsichord for sabbatical replacements, and I still have 15 community
students. There seems to be a steady stream of people over the age of 35 who
want to learn to play the organ. In fact, I have a waiting list! But that's
good news for church music. I resist the recent trend of "canned"
music to accompany singing in church, and I hope most other organists do, too.
I think we have to have live music if we're going to have viable church music.
We need to all hang in there and produce more and better organists.

Q: What advice do you have for organ teachers today?

A: Develop patience--it's a slow process to develop organ
technique. Be interested in your students not only as musicians but as people.
And don't expect your students to play the way you do. Many of my teachers just
did what their teachers had done. I think that's a curse. Students who just
play the way they're taught will never make it as performers.

I still think mechanical-action organs are the best for
training organists, but teachers should never allow themselves or their
students to play mechanically. Teach musicianship! It's hard work, but it can
be done. But don't neglect a reliable technique in favor of sleazy
"expression." Don't kid yourself! The most beautiful music is made
more beautiful by impeccable technique.

Teaching organ must be the most wonderful vocation for a
woman organist. I have had great success as a teacher but it's hard work. I've
had some failures. I could never get my students to believe that their senior
recital pieces were not necessarily the most godly music to play for church,
though a case could be made for the godliness of all organ music. Too many
organists, I fear, seek supreme godliness in their own playing rather than in
the purpose of the Supreme Being.

I'm very proud of my students--all of them. Hardly a day
passes that I don't get a phone call from one of them. They call me
"Mother Duncan," and they're all over the country and even overseas.

Q: What would you advise organ students to do?

A: Practice. And learn to listen to your own playing. Don't
rely on CDs and how other people "do it." And, of course, study your
scores and learn as much as you can about music theory and history.

Q: Do you have any thoughts about the future?

A: I'm glad I'm 80 years old this October. At least I can
look forward to hearing some fine organ playing in heaven, and maybe I'll be
able to give J.S. Bach the chance to explain some performance practice to me.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>

Chronology

Born October 26, 1919, in Anderson, Indiana

1942, BMus, American Conservatory of Music, Chicago

1945-47, Instructor of Music, Wheaton College

1947, MMus, American Conservatory

1949, Part-time Intructor, Lawrence University

1950-51, Summer Organ Institute, Methuen, MA

1954-55, Sabbatical in Vienna, study with Anton Heiller

1962, Chair, Organ Dept., Lawrence

1963, First woman organist to perform at St. Norbert's
Abbey, DePere, WI

1964, Full-time Instructor, Lawrence

1965, Assistant Professor

1966, Sabbatical in Germany, Italy, Vienna; study with
Marie-Claire Alain in Paris

1967, Began lobbying for mechanical-action organ at Lawrence

1971, Received tenure

1972, Associate Professor

1973, Sabbatical, Newberry Library, Chicago

1979, Full Professor

1985, Retirement

50 years of teaching at The University of Michigan, Part 2

by Dennis Schmidt

Part 1 of this interview appeared in the October issue of The Diapason, pp. 16-21.

Q: I just wonder how you get all your energy.

A: Well, maybe it's because I'm from Oklahoma. I do exercise a lot. I walk quite a bit and I used to bike a lot, too.

Q: Does everybody in Oklahoma have energy like that?

A: It depends on the genes. They're always friendly, I know that.

Q: What suggestions do you have for young organists?

A: There might be some suggestions which are based on my own experience. One of them is the Boy Scout motto: "Be prepared," because as I look back the break that I had was in 1950 when the Boston AGO called me to say "Robert Ellis was to play and he cannot play. Will you play the Schoenberg 'Variations' for us?" I had less than two weeks to prepare this piece. But fortunately I had been prepared. I'd had my lessons with Schoenberg. I'd been preparing the piece and playing it for some time. I had it memorized.

The second thing is to be flexible. That is, if someone asks you to play, don't say, "I won't play because we don't have four manuals." Don't say, "I can't play because there's only two manuals."  Roll with the punches, be willing to fit into the situation. It's better to be playing a recital and have to make a few compromises than not be playing at all.

The third thing, very important, is be dependable. If you say you will be there, if you say you will do such and such, be there, do it. Be known for your dependability and your accountability.

Don't procrastinate. That comes along with being dependable. Don't put things off. I have a very fine colleague in the organ department--James Kibbie. He is the splendid example of this. He never procrastinates. If I suggest something or if I ask him to do something, he does it immediately. I think that's an important aspect of our work. If for any reason I might have to put off something, it's because my inner sense of the whole situation says "wait." We all know of situations where if you had waited a little bit things would have worked out a little better than if you had gone ahead immediately. So I say procrastination with a grain of salt--using your own judgment.

These four things matter: to be prepared, to be flexible, to be dependable, and not to procrastinate.

Q: Please tell about the Fisk organ here which is named "The Marilyn Mason Organ."

A: The organ which stands in the Blanche Anderson Moore Hall in the School of Music is a result of a lot of thinking and consulting and wondering what was going to happen next with our department. Robert Clark was teaching with us at the time we were thinking and trying to decide. He had just made his first trip to what was formerly East Germany. We knew that we were going to have this fund started by Judith Barnett Metz. She told me, "I would like to do something in your honor. Would you like a Marilyn Mason scholarship?" I said, "Well, we need an organ more than anything." So she gave Michigan the initial funds. Bob Clark said, "We should have a copy of one of those beautiful Silbermanns because we don't have anything like that." At that time, about 1979-80, there was nothing like that in the States. So he was the one who gave us that marvelous idea, and the whole faculty--Robert Glasgow, James Kibbie & Michele Johns--thought it was the right thing to do. So, that's what we did. The interesting thing is how it came about. I went to our Dean, Paul Boylan (and he had just become the Dean in 1979). I said, "We're going to have this money for an organ, but we can't have an organ without a place to house it." He said, "I want to have a rehearsal/concert hall for musical theater, because we're expanding that wonderfully." Then he said, "Can't we think about combining the two?" which is of course what we did. So we arranged to visit President Shapiro (this was during his very early days in office) and called on him together with this proposal. He said, "I'll be glad to help you and I think it a good idea." So he was very helpful in getting us funds from the legislature. Then there was other money which helped us get the Palmer Christian Lobby. People donated for that. The Earl V. Moore people donated for that. Bill Doty, Mildred Andrews and Franklin Mitchell also donated to the lobby. The hall is named for Blanche Anderson Moore (wife of Earl V. Moore) who was a very devoted patron of the arts. She came to many organ recitals. I remember seeing her at Hill Auditorium when some of us were playing. And so we named this hall in her honor. The organ contract was signed in 1980 with Charlie Fisk, who said, "I won't have the organ for you until 1985." We said, "Oh, it will never come." He said, "It will be here quicker than you can realize." That was really the truth--it was here very quickly. We dedicated the organ on October 4, 1985, and it was a special occasion.

Q: Was the organ named for you at that time?

A: No, that was a few years later. Dean Boylan said that it should be named for me because the initial funds had been given by Judith Barnett Metz in my honor. This was a very nice gesture, and I appreciate it very much.

The organ is modeled after a Silbermann, but there is no specific organ which it copies. We would not want, and  we could not make a perfect copy simply because the hall is different and the time is different. We're no longer in the 18th century. In most of the churches where the Silbermanns stand the organ is in the west gallery, while this one is in the front. We have a very nice situation the way the hall is built. There are tiers of steps that go up to the organ. Last night, as part of our Institute, there was a choral concert with James Abbington, conductor. The singers were standing on these different steps, and it was nice for the 20 singers to be heard that way in  acoustics quite sympathetic for the voices.

Q: The Fisk organ has provided the students there with an opportunity to encounter historic organ building principles that they wouldn't have in other places.

A: Exactly. It's been a big impetus for us. I am especially glad that we could provide the original type winding: the bellows may be hand pumped and a recital could go on despite an electrical storm, and Michigan has them. With this organ, our teaching organs and the organ at Hill Auditorium, we feel very blessed. We have 16 practice organs plus 3 teaching organs and 2 performance organs. We have the magic number of Bach--21.

Q: Would you talk about your family?

A: My first husband was Professor Richard K. Brown. Many of my students knew him. He was a true gentleman, a wonderful engineer and teacher, a man whom I had first met in 1945. We were married in 1949 (long enough time for him to see me in action, so to speak, and he knew what he was getting). He continued teaching at the University of Michigan until he retired in 1987.

We have two sons. The first is Merritt Christian Brown (named after my father and Palmer Christian), born in 1955. He's a scientist who earned his Ph.D. here at Michigan. He took classes with his father in engineering. He would come home and tell his father, "You could make that course even more strict. You have some very gifted students in there." Richard would say, "But I'm aiming for the middle students as well as the gifted ones." Then he would say to his son, "Please, don't go into engineering." Our son played the violin just wonderfully, studying with Gustave Rosseels at Michigan. When he would finish practicing, I would say, "Oh, Chris, you play so beautifully, but please don't go into music." So, here was this young man with opposing directives, so he chose acoustics. After earning the Ph.D., he continued research in the Kresge Hearing Laboratory. Later, he read a paper at an acoustical conference in Los Angeles. An engineer who heard him there said, "We would be very interested in having you join our research at Massachusetts General Hospital." Chris was intrigued with the work they were doing, so he joined that research group. His mentor there was Nelson Kiang. Dr. Kiang later invited him to teach at Harvard. He is Associate Professor at the Harvard Medical School where he teaches physiology. His specialty has been the inner ear. His music and his engineering led him into this.

To me, that's a lesson that young people must know. You must explore the options, and how better to explore the options than to go to school. If you're a freshman or sophomore in school and not happy with what you're doing, it may be that the Lord in telling you to go in a different direction.

I had a wonderful student, Weston Brown. After his sophomore year, he said, "You may be mad at me, but I think I want to change my major." I said, "No, I want you to do what you want to do." He said, "I am making straight A's in German and I am making a B in music history." I said, "The Lord is trying to tell you something." He said, "I love German." He earned the Bachelor's and Master's and later a Ph.D. from Columbia in German and musicology. That's a fine example of how you can find options if you keep watching. The best advice is to watch for the options and hope to find something that you enjoy doing. Try not to think about money. If you think only about the money you will make, you may end up doing something that you don't enjoy .

Our second son is Edward Brown, a wonderful young man who's a free-lance photographer. He lives in California. He likes California because the light is always wonderful there. But I think he loves it because there's no snow, fog or ice.

Q: Did either son have an urge to play the organ?

A: Not really, probably because they heard so much playing. It didn't turn them off, but they probably thought one organist was enough. I practice the piano a lot a home. Once one of our neighbors, Mary Sinnott, said to our son Edward, aged 10, "What's your mother doing?" He said, "She's playing the piano." The next day, Mrs Sinnott said, "What's she doing now?" He said, "She's still playing the piano." They got used to that.

When they were younger, I put them to bed with organ music on the house organ which my husband and I assembled in 1955. I gave that organ to two doctoral students, Howard & Marie Mehler. We purchased a small Walker tracker for practicing. My family has always been very supportive but also understanding with my schedule. The dishes may not get done or the beds made if I have to practice.

In 1991 my husband had enjoyed four years of retirement. Gardening was one of his interests and his beautiful rhododendrons still bloom. He suffered a stroke on May 7, 1991. We had to take him to the hospital. We thought he would recover from this, but on July 23 he slipped away. Both of our sons were extremely supportive of me at that time. Even though I had this great loss, I still had my teaching which was a comfort to me. I had become organist of the First Congregational Church in 1984. There, Tom Marshall had been my trusty assistant. I had the inspiration of the Wilhelm organ at the church and we had the Fisk here.

In the autumn of 1991, I felt more settled. Music was a great support to me. One of our good friends, Jim O'Neill, formerly chairman of the French department, called. "We have a dear friend and he would like for you to play a memorial service for his wife who died some time ago." Other friends, Mary and Bill Palmer, arranged dinner where I met William Steinhoff. Later, he came to the house to discuss music he wanted--mostly Bach and Mozart. I played for that service in January of 1992. After that, we had lunches and dinners. It was satisfying to spend time with someone who was not in music and yet who was very supportive. It's important to have a sympathetic person near you, someone who understands you. He is an emeritus Professor of English Literature at Michigan. Although he had taught here for 30 years, I had never met him. We were married on May 8, 1993. Someone said, "What did you do about music?" I said, "I played for my wedding!" We were to be at the church Saturday morning at 11:00. My sons were there along with Bill's nephew and niece. No one else was present. I said, "Well, I'm just going to play the prelude." So I played the Guilmant March on a Theme of Handel. Bill came in, saying, "Am I late?" So, Terry Smith performed the service for us. Then I moved to the organ and played the Widor "Toccata." That was a fine ending for our wedding service.

Q: Do you have brothers and sisters who are musical?

A: My brother James Clark Mason was musical. He was a wonderful family man, and loved his four children and wife. He died two years ago. My sister, Carolyn Mason Weinmeister, is active in computers and computer programming.   She enjoys music and sports. She lives in Oklahoma City and has one daughter and son.

Q: How do you keep your positive attitude?

A: A lot of this is based on the loving care that we had as children. Both our mother and father were supportive of us. My mother always did the cooking and dishes so that I could practice the piano or go to the church and practice the organ. A loving home, to be surrounded by such love, and a religious home, to be surrounded by Presbyterian Protestantism--these things are what you cannot take away but also what you can't buy. Parents must be aware of this when raising children. That religious upbringing that I was given is something that no one can ever take away and I hope I never forget.

Q: You continue to be a church organist, and you've been a church organist for a long time along with your teaching. Have you been an organist at several churches in Ann Arbor?

A: I was a substitute organist at the Presbyterian Church where we belonged for many years. When Zion Lutheran needed an organist, the music committee invited me to play there. I was the organist for many years in the early sixties. John Merrill was the choral conductor. I enjoyed the liturgical service and the Lutherans. I enjoy being a church organist and I like to play hymns.  I sometimes remind the students that if they are church musicians the title "church" comes first, with the flexibility and dependability that I mentioned earlier. And, after all, that is usually where the best organs are!

We were out at our lake cottage one Labor Day weekend, and I had to return for church on Sunday at Zion Lutheran. I went to the Schantz organ, saw the bulletin and #15 for the processional hymn. I opened the hymnal and found "Joy to the World." This was on Labor Day weekend! I thought--these Lutherans, if they want "Joy to the World" they're going to have it! I really gave it the full treatment. The choir came down the aisle with their books under their arms. Not a person was singing. When they arrived in the chancel the minister announced, "And now we'll have the opening hymn, number such-and-such." I had misread it and the "15" was the page number for the order of service. Regardless, I enjoyed the Lutheran service very much.

In 1963, I had a fine student, Donald Williams, who was just graduating. I recommended that he take over and he was invited. Dr. Williams was the organist/choirmaster at Zion Lutheran for over 30 years.

We need not frown on church and service music. As I said, that's where the good organs will be. We have at First Congregational a wonderful conductor, Willis Patterson, who inspires us all. My assistant, James Nissen, is Associate Director of Music. He is so versatile that he can play if I am gone or conduct if Willis is gone. That is good.

Q: The fact that you keep active in church music is a testimony to your own students and a good way that you can tell your students what they are going to experience when they go out to church jobs as well, because you know just what they will encounter. I think a lot of organ teachers in colleges are detached from that.

A: I don't want to ask my students to go into church music without experiencing it myself. We must not be detached from church music. We must be right in the swing.

One thing I do tell my students who move into church positions: You're a new organist and choir director in a church. If you don't hear anything, you're terrific. Keep telling yourself that. You'll always hear when somebody doesn't like it. When they don't like it, you must smile and try to agree. Don't be defensive. They may have a reason for saying so.

Q: I'd like to know when the cooking requirement came into the DMA program.

A: All my students, even Master's degree students, are invited to cook a meal for us. That idea came in the '50s. One of the nice meals that was prepared was by John McCreary and Phil Steinhaus. They knew that Jean Langlais was coming. They said, "We'll prepare a Master's dinner." So they prepared a wonderful dinner for us. It's referred to on page 15 of the book, Hommage à Langlais, in Langlais' diary, where he says, "We've had a dinner with the students and Marilyn Mason and her husband." That dinner was memorable because there was a pot roast which was luscious. The flavoring on the meat, the carrots and onions were delicious, but the potatoes had been added too late and they were hard. Langlais was trying to eat them with his knife and fork and said, "Is this some new vegetable in the United States that we don't know about?" Poor John was so chagrined. Those potatoes will always be remembered as the ones that didn't make it. That was the beginning of that requirement. And I am now so proud of Phil, his wonderful career as organist/choirmaster and his work with Aeolian-Skinner, and with John, too, 30 years in the Cathedral in Honolulu as Organist/ Choirmaster! I do feel we had that cooking requirement especially for the men, but we must all learn to cook.

Q: You're certainly well known for your jokes. For many years you had a joke book that you lost along the way.

A: No--it was stolen at Riverside Church. I was playing a recital there. The organ console had two large mirrors so the audience could see while you play. I thought I would put my purse right behind me. That purse had my joke book and some jewelry. Someone reached in behind and took the whole thing. Someone said, "What nicer way to lose it than to have it stolen from Riverside Church." But I've kept a lot of stories in my head. Along with flexibility comes a sense of humor--mostly to be willing to laugh at yourself. If we can have the light touch as we go along, I think that helps.

Q: Along with that, can you think of some humorous incidents in your travels that would be interesting?

A: I can think of some humorous things that happened here in Ann Arbor. I was playing for freshman convocation in the first week in September for about 4,000 new students. I had played the prelude, but they asked me to play a special piece. I chose the Haines "Toccata," which is something that I enjoy playing and can play without too much extra practice. The Dean of the Faculty, Charles Odegaard, looked over at me and said, "And now our organist will play --Miss Marilyn Monroe." All of these students just howled, and he was so embarrassed. He said, "Oh, I'm sure Miss Mason will do just as well." Then I did play and it was fun.

Another thing that happened at Hill Auditorium occurred in 1985. I had scheduled a series of 16 recitals of the music of Bach (1985 was 300th anniversary of Bach's birth). So I was doing that series here at the Fisk organ every Sunday afternoon at 4:00. But I was also supposed to play for a graduation ceremony at Hill Auditorium at 2:30. So I said to my colleague Sam Koontz (our organ technician at Hill Auditorium who knew the organ like the back of his hand and who had been one of my Master's students), "Will you please play the final hymn, which is the Michigan hymn, and then a postlude?" Sam said, "I'll be glad to." I played the opening prelude, the processional and "The Star-Spangled Banner." The console was in the corner on the far stage left. By this time it was about 3:00 and I needed to leave. So I left, and Sam was on the bench. I got to the Fisk on time and played the Bach recital in the afternoon. But I heard afterwards, the Vice President of the University, Richard Kennedy, had said at Hill (which he had never done before) "We're so happy to have our organist today--please thank Marilyn Mason." He looked back at the console. Sam threw up his hands in dismay, because I wasn't there. After that, when I was thanked for these occasions, Mr. Kennedy always looked back to see me.

Q: You mentioned that there have been 111 doctoral students. Do you have any idea of the total number of students you have taught?

A: No, I don't. But in over 50 years there were a lot of students. I wish I'd kept track, but at the time that is not the most important thing. Actually, we have graduated 600 organists in the Bachelor's and Master's programs since the first ones in 1932.

Q: I remember seeing the sea of people at your recognition dinner in 1986. All those people had been touched by your life, and also by the blue pencils that were given to each one.

A: I got the idea of the blue pencil from Palmer Christian. It's such a good way to mark music and it's easy on the eyes. It's a very important thing to mark fingering and how you're going to do things--not to have a Monday way, a Wednesday way, and a Thursday way. I have a student, Robert Jones, in Houston, who's fanatic about that. The strategy in the hand helps us to play. There are many people who say they're far too "creative" to mark their fingering. These are very often the ones who don't play as well as the ones who know where they're going.

The next thing is making the goals in your study. If you have a piece you want to learn, divide it into sections rather than trying to learn the whole thing all at once. Young people should have goals to learn certain music. In the semester system, we have juries for the music the student has learned. I don't know but that all of us don't waste time by being rather aimless. We waste time by not having an objective. That's why I've enjoyed teaching, because the goal is to be there and to have a plan.

Another goal I've had over the last five years is recording all the works of Pachelbel. He's such an imaginative composer. He doesn't have the rhetoric of the North Germans. He has a sweetness, placidity and strength in his music, and it has been a great joy to learn and play his music. These are recorded in the Musical Heritage Series. I began the series with the freely composed works, but then there were enough chorale preludes for three disks. The chorale preludes were written for services or as interludes for hymns. So we decided that the chorale would be sung first. A gifted tenor in the doctoral program, Robert Breault, sang the melodies. After  recording the chorales, we came to the Magnificats. I asked a Benedictine monk, Irwin West, to sing the alternation. There are more Magnificats written for the first tone than for any other. Dr. Tom Strode and his Boychoir sang the alternation for Volumes 7 and 8.

Q: Have you done some additional teaching elsewhere in addition to your teaching at Michigan?

A: I did some  teaching at Columbia University during summers while I was in doctoral studies. I taught at St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia, where Searle Wright was the organist. I also taught at Pomona College in Claremont and at the school in Brazil. But I love Michigan a lot. What's wonderful about teaching is that the clientele changes. I have had students for as many as four or five years. I have recommended that some of my students study with my other colleagues in the department. Prof. Glasgow, Dr. Kibbie, and Dr. Johns each have their own special things to offer.

Robert Glasgow excels in the nineteenth-century interpretations, while Dr. Kibbie enjoys the baroque and contemporary. Michele Johns with her expertise and experience has brought  much to our curriculum in church music practices. Her position as organist/choirmaster at Our Lady of Good Counsel, Plymouth, has given "hands-on" experience to so many of our students.

Q: Was there ever a thought that you would go anywhere else to teach?

A: I had a wonderful offer from USC  and Raymond Kendall in the '50s. But I talked to my husband and to Dean Moore and decided to stay here.

Q: In a job interview, someone once asked me what I would like written on my tombstone. What would you like to be remembered for?

A: You would like to think that the things you have done have been a blessing to other people and that you were kind. We all have our own opportunity to serve. So, for the stone, I have two suggestions: "She served and enjoyed" or "S. D. G."

Q: Thank you, Marilyn, for your 50 years of teaching at the University of Michigan and for the positive influence you have had on so many lives!

by Jason Overall

Jason Overall works with the pipe organ builder Goulding & Wood, Inc., in tonal design and project development. He graduated from Furman University of Greenville, South Carolina with a degree in music theory, studying organ with Charles Tompkins and composition with Mark Kilstofte. From there he went on to study composition with John Boda at Florida State University, also studying organ with Michael Corzine. In addition to his work with Goulding & Wood, Mr. Overall is an active church musician in the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis.

 

Robert J. Powell is one of the most recognized names in contemporary church music. He has a countless number of publications in every genre and has led sessions in conferences across the country. Since 1968, Mr. Powell has been organist-choirmaster at Christ Church, Greenville, one of South Carolina's oldest and largest Episcopal churches. During his nearly thirty-five year tenure, Mr. Powell has taken the program from a single children's choir that led the 9:00 am Morning Prayer service to a comprehensive array of adult and children choirs, instrumental ensembles and a thriving concert series. Prior to his position at Christ Church, Robert Powell served the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York as assistant organist and Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, Meridian, Mississippi as organist-choirmaster. Yet it is his compositions that have done the most to secure his reputation.

 

Mr. Powell has written well over 1,000 anthems and service music for the Episcopal church. His setting of the Gloria in excelsis is thought to be "The One True Gloria" by many people in the pew. Nearly every church musician has come to rely on the dependable, accessible music of Robert Powell, and with such an encyclopedic output, it is easy to find the perfect piece for even the most difficult situations.

If Bob's reputation is earned through his composition, it is his generosity of spirit that most touches those who know him. His warmth and genuine Christian spirit provide the basis of his career, his music-making and his composition. In his music, Bob weaves together a sensitive spirituality, no-nonsense practicality and a liberal dose of good humor.

At the end of 2002, Mr. Powell will retire from Christ Church, leaving behind a flourishing music program. He makes it clear, however, that he isn't retiring. Bob says that he is looking forward to spending even more time composing and the opportunity to try his hand at substitute playing.  In May, I was able to ask Bob about his career and experiences. Following is a portion of our conversation.

Who are some of the composers or teachers that inspired you?

Well, of course Alec Wyton was my mentor and he always encouraged me. He is a wonderful person, and he was always a great inspiration. In fact, when Abingdon Press was first starting their music publishing business, they asked Alec to send them an anthem. He said he didn't want to at that time, but that he had a young student--meaning me--that would send them one, and I did. They took "Ancient of Days" or some anthem that's out of print, so I sent them another. Pretty soon I sent them twelve at once, and they took about ten of them. Finally Earl Copes, who was one of the editors at that time, called up and asked, "How fast does (and he named an anthem) go?" By that time I had written fifteen others, and I didn't even remember it. He had to sing to me over the phone to show me how it goes. I never put [tempo markings] on pieces because speeds don't mean anything to me. I don't play the same speed anyway each time. If you ever see a piece of mine with a metronome indication, it is usually because publishers want it.

Who else besides Alec Wyton?

This will be a surprise: I came up in rural Mississippi playing in what was called a Union church. That is, it was Baptist two Sundays a month and Presbyterian, which I was, one Sunday a month, and Methodist the other Sunday with circuit riding preachers. It was wonderful, and of course all of the congregation came to all of the services, whether it was Baptist or Presbyterian or whatever. So I came up playing the Sunday School piano, like everybody does, it seems. They bought a Hammond organ and said "You can play the thing: it's got a keyboard!" I'd been taking piano lessons, but I said, "I can't play this thing." So I went to a town near us, Greenville, Mississippi, and found an organ teacher. He played at St. James Episcopal on an old two-manual Estey, and I learned how to play on that. He was a wonderful person who was also a band director and a good organist. His name was Walter E. Parks. I would go in for my organ lesson and do the usual things: Eight Little Preludes and Fugues and all of that. Then he'd say, "Now it's time for our composition lesson." And for the same price I'd have another three hours. We did Preston Ware Orem's book and the Prout books, the Percy Goetschius book of composition. It was wonderful fun for me. He was a great influence.

Did you keep up with him?

He died at the keyboard after I left high school. I went to Louisiana State University, and I ended up with Frank Page, the organist at the Catholic student center and a great teacher. He would give us assignments, like harmonize a melody, and I would transpose it and harmonize it six different ways. I was ambitious in those days--you learn not to be after a while, I guess--but it was fun. I studied composition and organ at the school and got degrees in both of them, then I went off to the Army. I went to Atlanta first and was a junior choir director: my first experience with a junior choir. My hometown church didn't have a choir of any kind. In fact, the first choir of any kind that I ever heard was the LSU concert choir. In the army, [I was stationed] first in Atlanta, then in Japan, which was a wonderful experience. The Korean conflict was over then, and I had a choir of Japanese women who worked at the Army base and American soldiers, which sang for chapel services. It was a great experience in choir training. As far as other people who have influenced me? Publishers particularly have encouraged me; I could just go down the line. All of them are encouraging, and of course that doesn't mean they take everything you send them. I'm used to rejections, because obviously everybody can't publish every piece. I understand that. Usually if an anthem is rejected twenty-two times or so, I change it into an organ piece and send it somewhere else. So you get organ pieces out of anthems sometimes. I try to recycle things.

Who are some composers you enjoy listening to?

Amazingly enough, right at the moment I'm on a Dvorak kick. I think Dvorak was a great composer--underrated in a lot of ways. Mahler I have trouble with. Of course there's Bach. My old saying used to be "there are two categories of organ music: all the music that Bach wrote for organ and all the music that everyone else wrote for organ." Bach is always an influence, but you have to be careful with Bach because you can copy him easily and end up sounding like bad Bach. I try to listen to a variety of things, to check out all styles. I try just to sit there and listen and not do too much. I try to keep a balance. You can't do music all the time. I never take music with me on a trip or a vacation. I do not take any manuscript paper. I do not think about it.

When you're not on vacation, do you have set times for composing?

I try to get writing at about 9:00 and I go until about 11:00. Then I go out and have coffee with friends, come back around 2:00 and work a couple of hours, and that's it.

Do you compose four hours every day?

Well, it's like practicing. You lose it if you don't do it. I used to have a good time writing for junior choir when I had a junior choir to work with. Now it's difficult to write for junior choir. I do as well as I can with it, but it was much easier when I actually had one, even though we weren't singing my music, because you know what they can do. It's easy to write for SATB choir when you have one. It's more difficult when you don't. You're in a vacuum writing away.

What criteria do you look for in a text that you want to set?

It has to say something to the people who are going to be singing it and hearing it. If it's a regular anthem, something that rhymes well and makes good sense when it rhymes, and if it's a classical text, something I think I can set, I think that's basic. Also if it has some little dramatic thing in it like They Cast their Nets in Galilee, you can always make a little [motive] out of "nets." "Glory" is always a great word for me to use--"glorious" or something like that--because you can always make it soar out. So the text is very important in writing church music.

Although you have always been involved with the Episcopal Church, you've only done a couple of [settings of the] Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, one Jubilate Deo and of course the things that are in the hymnal. Was it a conscious decision to not write more canticles?

Not a conscious decision. I found that when I first started sending these canticles like "O be joyful" (the Jubilate Deo) or the Benedictus est, there were already many in the catalogs, and most of the publishers simply didn't want another one. How many "O be joyful"s can Concordia have after all?

Have you ever consciously tried to develop a Bob Powell style or a sound?

Heavens, no. I consciously try to make sounds like what the particular publishers publish. Obviously I wouldn't send a Concordia-type piece to a publisher that's used to publishing renewal music. So I have to study other composers' [pieces]--read them through and throw them away so I wouldn't be copying them, but just to get the general style of the music for a particular publisher. Also, I subscribe to a lot of these choral packets so I can see what Augsburg and Concordia or whoever is publishing, and I would write something like that.

With both the texts and with style, it seems like a very practical approach.

Yes, I write for small choirs, as you probably gathered. Choirs of twenty-five because that's what most choirs are. When you come right down to it, most choirs are not of Cathedral ability or size. I just can't write for fifty voices. I don't think in that way.

What about beyond that? Bach and Telemann and composers of their ilk weren't necessarily writing pieces that they thought would last for all eternity. They were writing music for next Sunday. Whereas people like Brahms and Beethoven were writing pieces that they intended to be around for a while.

No, I'm more on the Bach line. I know they're not going to be around forever. They'll be in print five years if you're lucky. If they don't sell, they don't sell. Then the publisher will put them out of print because they have to pay taxes on them whether they sell them or not. My pieces are all practical things and useful for specific occasions. Peace I Give to You, the Paraclete publication, is a Maundy Thursday text. I think the rector [at Christ Church] asked me to write something that we could use on Maundy Thursday, so I wrote that. Of course there are a few commissions here and there, and they want this, that and the other thing. So I say, "Sure, I'll do that." I don't know how to say no. I'm going to learn by the time I'm seventy-five. I might say no, but right now if anybody asks me to do anything I'd be glad to do it. It's fun.

How much lead time do you require to have something ready?

To write a piece? The Suite for American Folk Tunes was written in two weeks for Austin Lovelace. He said he needed something for organ and brass, and would I write him something. That was lucky. Sometimes it takes a month. The organ duet went along about six months.

What about a typical anthem?

A typical anthem is a week. I do like Searle Wright used to suggest. Just put it down quickly: everything that comes into your mind, put it down. You can always go back and fix it later.

How much editing do you do?

Very little. [laughs] Once it's in the ground there is very little revision made. It's not like Mozart where I hear it in my mind. I just keep improvising on the piano until it comes. I think John Ferguson said something like that--that you keep hitting away until it sounds right to you. And when it sounds right to you, then you go on to the next measure.

So you always compose at the piano?

Almost always. Sometimes at the organ. It's more difficult to compose organ pieces at the organ for me. It's easier to do it at the piano. All the choral pieces are done at the piano. Other people go out to the middle of a lake on a boat and write a piece, but I can't do that.

When you write organ pieces, do you ever . . .

Do I ever think of timbres? Not really. I hear a flute maybe once in a while, and maybe a reed here and there. But I never hear a timbre particularly, because it's all the notes. That's the important thing to me: the notes themselves, not the sounds. I leave it to good interpreters to decide what to make it do. They make it sound right. A good interpreter is really re-creating the music. The person that interprets it is like a composer. In fact, Walter Erich pays the same amount of royalty if you arrange a piece as if you write a piece, because an arranger is just as important as a writer and sometimes more important than the writer of the piece.

So in your view, a sensitive performer can be an arranger.

That's exactly right. I don't want them to change the notes, although, my notes are not written in stone. I have no problem with people who change a note here or there. They say, "Did you mean this?" I will usually say, "What do you want? What sounds good to you?" And they'll say whatever it is and I'll say, "That sounds good to me too, so let's just put it down." Everything is flexible in this world. That's because I'm a parish organist, and you've got to make concessions.

What is the typical process you go through in writing an anthem?

The first process is to find some kind of text. That's basic. Richard Rodgers did that, and I feel good about that. Richard Rodgers didn't think of "Oh! What a Beautiful Morning" without having the text in front of him. Then the second thing is how are you going to divide the text--will you divide it into verses, will it be a long piece that you'll have to divide into some kind of sections? You have to have breathing points, and you have to figure out where the poet meant it to come to the end of an idea. Next process is to see if the first line gives you any inspiration. Does that phrase give you a tune in mind? Then you get your tune and you have your first inspiration and then it goes from there. Then bang away, and after a while it begins to sound right and take shape. I usually write the middle part first then add the introduction after I've written everything else, because you have something to draw from then. I try to avoid clichés. It's so easy to get clichés when anthem writing, particularly in concertato writing. You just do the same thing: there's going to be brass playing an introduction and everybody's going to sing unison, then the second verse is going to be different, and the third verse will be a harmonized verse for the choir, and the last verse will be unison-descant-plus-coda. I try to avoid doing that. One great anthem is Harold Darke's Christmas anthem "In the Bleak Midwinter" which is a hymn anthem, but it's very cleverly done because you don't have this four-verses-of-the-same-thing. Each verse is very different from the others. To me it's a very good hymn anthem.

What is the balance between inspiration and craft in your composition?

Inspiration--that's a hard question. I think Rutter said at one of those conferences that once you get the first idea, the rest of it is easy. Which is quite true, but it's a whole lot better if you have a good first idea. The inspiration is the first thing you get--the first idea. If you're going to write a pastorale and you get a little pastorale theme--a measure or so, a motive--then that's the inspiration part. Then the rest of it is craftsmanship. Well, of course, all of it is inspiration, but the rest of it is extension of the idea.

I think it was Schoenberg that said composition is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration.

That's right. Exactly.

But do you feel that the first idea is always inspired? Or do you feel like you can craft a good motive?

Oh, I think it has to be a certain amount of inspiration. It comes from God, I believe. I have no idea where these ideas come from. If I had some great well that I could put my hand in and draw one out, I'd do it. But it just comes. And sometimes you sit down at the keyboard and you say, "Okay, I'm going to be inspired now." And I wait for inspiration to come, and it does not come. I think Austin Lovelace said once that this stuff cycles. Sometimes you can really hit it right off and other times you sit there for a day or two or a week and you have no idea--no ideas. It's funny.

Do you ever receive inspiration unexpectedly? The cliché is waking up in the middle of the night with this great idea that you have to write down, but perhaps also when you are driving around town or,

[interrupting] No. Well, actually that's true. I have driven around town and gotten a good inspiration, with the radio off, of course. Sometimes driving from home to work you can get an idea and then you go in and put it down. Sometimes you play a service, and services are really quite inspiring in more ways than is normally thought. Sometimes you get an idea in the service, and I used to write them down after the service was over, at least a snippet of it. For a while I recorded some of them then tried to transcribe it, which is difficult. I like to play church services because I don't get nervous there. You have to keep going. You can't go backwards. Improvisations often turn into real pieces. I think that happened with lots of composers, not just me.

I remember coming over from Furman [University] to hear your service playing because it's so excellent. As you hear other church musicians play services--and struggle through services--do you have advice to share?

Well, in the first place I would say that relationships should be the first priority. Relationships are so important. After all the staff meetings and all the going to music conferences and all the practicing and all the choir training and all the other things, in the end the most important thing in all are the relationships. There are two ways of presenting God's word. One of them is by what the priest and the liturgy says. But equal to me is what the music says. It is an equal partner in proclaiming the word. It's another way of proclaiming Christ's gospel. Secondly, lots of people play too slowly for the church itself. Obviously if you are in a resonant building you have to play more slowly, but most churches are not resonant buildings. Some don't give the congregation a chance to breathe. Alec Wyton taught me a great thing: he said you must play with the text. So I was taught by him to play by the text itself no matter what the music does. Although I remember bad occasions when I've not done that. At St. John the Divine, when I was assistant there, [I played] 13 verses of "O come, O come Emmanuel" until people started looking at me wondering when I was going to quit. I had lost my place and wasn't playing by the text. So I learned the hard way. The other advice I have is to give the same amount of time between the verses each time. I also never ritard until the end of the last verse. I think if you ritard at the end of the introduction, you confuse the congregation. They don't know what speed it's really supposed to be.

What about larger issues in service playing? What about pacing the service, planning your registrations?

You have to be like you're on television. You have to be right with it right away. There are two [issues] there: you have to be with it when you're supposed to be with it and not have a grand pause while everybody looks for things or while you look for music, and people in general don't understand that silence is a part of music. A quarter rest is a beat of silence for example. And there are times in the services when there should be silence and not music. Silence is music in a sense.

Do you feel like there is a particular liturgical aspect that some weeks could be silent and other weeks could be musical? Or are there some times which should always be silent?

Depending on the service itself, I think there should be some moment of silence. Particularly in preludes that people play for funeral services when they want continual music or in a communion service where they want continual music. I don't want continual music in a communion service. If I were playing four pieces, there wouldn't be a modulation between numbers 1 and 2 or 3 and 4. I play one piece and put it down. You want to give people's ears a chance to breathe even though they're not singing. It comes back to participation. Participation does not always mean that people have to be yelling at the top of their voices. One form of participation is when we are all singing "Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven" and are just having a great time. We are participating--great. But if an organist is playing a great organ piece, like Bach, and we are all into it, we are also participating even though we are just sitting there. That's a form of participation.

That's something that in the liturgical world seems to divide the Roman church, which emphasizes active participation, and the Anglican world, with what you are talking about.

Yes, that's right. With Evensong, the congregation is not singing all the time, but they are involved in all kinds of ways: emotionally, spiritually we hope--every kind of way. And that's the point of these kinds of services to me anyway. That's a very difficult concept for many people. They only feel like if they are singing that they are participating in music making.

Are there ways musicians can foster that sense of visceral participation?

If they have a chance to write a little article in the bulletin or newsletter, that's always helpful. Tell it to the choir; tell it to the clergy.  The clergy listen and if they understand, the whole church ends up understanding.

How do you approach polishing a choir or your own playing but avoid it being a performance?

Automatically when the choir sings it's a performance of a sort. And of course you want the best; we all want the best of every kind of music. Every presentation of a choir or organist is a performance by the very nature of what it is, and you want it as perfect as possible. I'm not sure there is any sort of a thing as perfection in this world in this way, but anyway you want it as perfect as possible. Then you've got a good performance. But does it relate to the what's going on with the rest of the service or is it just a performance? You have to be very careful that it relates textually and that it creates the right ambiance. You must be a team player and not isolated. That's what I mean by relationships. You are related to the people who are in the service, the congregation, the clergy. You are related to proclaiming the gospel, and you are not just doing a little performance somewhere. This isn't something you can just slop around. You have to do it quite well. And hope for the best. Pray a lot.

If it is a performance, it sounds like Søren Kierkegard's idea that in a service the musicians and the clergy are just the prompters, the congregation are really the actors and the audience . . .

The audience is God. God is the audience and so you want to make sure that you do as well as you can to please God. And the congregation is involved in it too. When an anthem is sung or an organ piece is played, everybody in the church building is involved in some way. As long as you think of being involved with them and them being involved with you, then what you're doing is proclaiming God's and Christ's gospel. Then you're not doing performances. You are helping along their spiritual worship. Which is why choosing anthems is so important.

How much of your time throughout the year will be spent choosing anthems?

In my best days, I spent a long time and looked at a lot of pieces. Not only as a composer but to see what we could use--that's what I'm paid for. And it goes throughout the year. I'm kind of like the publishers in that in July I should have my Christmas music ready and at Christmas I should be at least beyond Easter, so you are always ahead of the game. You are never living in the present; you are always sort of living in the future in this business. That way if you're going to have brass you can get it arranged. You don't have to sort it out the last week, and they are out there with their stands open and no music on them.

How would you describe your technique for improvisation, and how do you prepare your improvisations for a Sunday service?

If I'm going to improvise a prelude, now this is a strange technique, I take the hymn book upside down, and the bass becomes a soprano part and improvise on that. Other times I take a part of the tune and change the keys and go into different sequences of that just like every hymn prelude you've ever seen: you do your introduction, you do your tune, you do your tune with echoes in between. There are hundreds of techniques. You just try to keep a little form so you don't keep splatting away. You just have to study books by Gerre Hancock, David Cherwien and others.

Do you consciously have to rein in your counterpoint to make sure your voice leading is good, or do you now find that natural?

I don't think about counterpoint or harmony or any other thing. The notes will lead you to another place. So you go down another path. That's the fun thing about improvisation: where the notes will lead you. As you're going along, you think, "I've got this note," you don't think, "This is B-flat and it's going to go to so and so." The note itself, the chords and the notes just kind of lead you to the next thing so you don't have to. And that's where form becomes very important, because then you don't just go wandering off anywhere. What you actually want to do is get back home sooner or later.

In your longer improvisations, is it common for you to do free improvisation not on a hymn tune?

Of course, I'll do that. You have to be sure in a longer one that you contrast things: soft and loud, fast and slow, high and low. That kind of contrast is very important. I remember I [played a service] once in Columbia, and they had an electronic organ there that only had two sounds: loud and soft. It was a long procession with all the priests in the whole Southeast it seemed like. It went on for about twenty or thirty minutes, dealing with this organ which only had loud and soft. That's all it was. And finally you get to just playing chords because you just run out of . . . [shudders]. It was one of those horrible experiences. I was glad when it was over.

In both improvisation and in composition, do you find it difficult to come up with interesting textures?

For me it is sometimes difficult to come up with interesting textures. Sometimes you have to use things that you would normally not find in a piece written for organ by Franck or somebody. Use the Vox humana not like a Vox humana is usually used, but like a snarly something. I'm pretty conservative, I'm afraid. I use strings and flutes and diapasons in a kind of normal way, but every once in a while I try to break out of it. High and low is important. Most of us play in the middle of the keyboard all of the time. Those Thalben-Ball preludes have a lot in the high register and in the low register. Obviously he was dealing with what I'm struggling with. Of course you want to use the tune in the tenor or in the bass rather than always in the soprano, and have little frills around it.

Is there anything else you want to say?

Well, I just hope we continue to get a bunch of great young organists coming along who are going to go into church music and who work as well as they can in choosing music. When you choose music you want the very best of every kind, whether it is renewal or not renewal or classical or not classical. You don't want to choose second-rate anything. As I said in a 1967 interview I was re-reading the other day, I don't think there is really any one style of church music. I certainly don't think in this day and age that there is any "Episcopal" church music as there was twenty years ago. I think the renewal is here and--I know my colleagues are not with me on this, and that's all right, I'm retiring anyway--I don't have a great objection to blended services--that is to say, [services] with some renewal music in it and classical as well. At Christ Church on Sunday at the big service, it occurs mostly in the communion sung by the choir alternating with classical hymns from the hymn book. A lot of it is played on the piano, and some of it is played on the organ. We almost never use guitars or the string bass or the recorders in the big service. There are two other renewal services in the week, where all renewal music is appearing. I don't have any problems with this because everybody doesn't like Bach. That's just a plain fact. Like all organists, I wish it were otherwise. Everything that I like--Tallis and Byrd and everybody--I wish everybody would like it as much as me, but they don't. Some of them really get a lot out of the different songs, and we think my colleagues here do it here very tastefully so the whole service blends, and I guess the word "blend" is about the right word for it. You have a service where something in it appeals to everybody. In the beginning I was resigned and thought, "Well, that's what it's going to be," but the truth is the whole service becomes an entity, a unity. Without the renewal music, that particular service isn't right. Now at the 11:00 service, which does not have any renewal type music, to put it in there would not be right. We're a big enough church that we can have five services on Sunday, so it's easy. People, like water, seek their own level; they find the service they like and go to it. In these large churches it's necessary that services have their own character--that every service doesn't sound like the last one anymore than every Episcopal church in Greenville should sound like the next one. This [individual character] is its appeal: the spiritual appeal of people. I feel that the renewal music has its place, at a certain time but not all the time. I don't mean just out at the campfire or something. I mean in a church service on a Sunday morning. I think it has an appeal and a place.

You've drawn a clear distinction about doing it tastefully and not using guitars and so on.

That might be a failing. I know of churches which use guitars and flutes and violins and everything and dress it all up very nicely. In a sense we're bringing the secular world into the sacred and in a sense we're not. Music that Vivaldi wrote, the guitar concertos and so forth, was not a lot different than the Vivaldi Gloria. It was the same style in and out of the church. That has always swung back and forth as everybody knows. I think God uses all kinds of music to proclaim His gospel and to draw people to him. So I think that secular music--that gentle secular music--is useful. Songs such as "As the deer" and so on make an appeal that deals with the spiritual side of the person. I think it is important that we acknowledge that. These pendulums swing. A lot of the stuff the Roman Catholics had in the sixties has gone away, and some of the Roman Catholic churches that I know of are now swinging back to Gregorian Chant and to their heritage that they have from that, which I think is wonderful. I think classical music, like the Brahms motets, appeals to me, and if I were going to a service, not as an organist, I would go to Church of the Advent in Boston and hear the music played and sung there. As I said, people seek their own level in music. I know there is a terrible controversy raging about it. People say, "I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to have it." Well, it's not easy to say that. I think we have to deal with it the best way we can. We have to make it useful to God's purpose--not our purposes but God's purpose as we see it.

Given that there does seem to be such controversy about it, are you still optimistic about the church?

I am. Lots of my friends are not optimistic about church or church music, but I am because I know these things cycle. The really fine [examples] of any style of music or any style of worship is going to stay. It has stayed over the years. We still sing "A mighty fortress" for example. Any church should present the classical hymns: "A mighty fortress," "O God, our help in ages past," all the Lutheran chorales, the hymns in the 1982 Hymnal and the 1940 Hymnal. These should always be in the forefront of everything that's done. Then when the other music comes in, you actually have the icing on the cake in a sense. I am optimistic about church music. There are lots of great teachers, and there are lots of great players that really are church organists as opposed to performers. All you have to remember is to work with people--the relationships--that's the main thing. That doesn't just mean the choir members. It means the clergy and the staff, the program staff, the janitorial staff, all of them. And then you find out how things get done easily.

by Marcia Van Oyen

"English concert organist John Scott is recognized not only as one of his country's finest organists and musical leaders, but also as one of the most gifted of his generation of concert organists in the performance world today." So begins John Scott's biographical sketch in his management's brochure. Scott's stellar career includes serving as Director of Music at St. Paul's Cathedral and (formerly) Professor of Organ at the Royal Academy of Music, many tours and recordings with the St. Paul's choir and as organ soloist, and a dizzying array of other appearances and awards. In addition to an already demanding schedule, this year he served as a judge at the Dallas International Organ Competition, arranged an exchange with the choir of St. Thomas Church New York City in June, and is performing the complete works of Bach at St. Paul's in twenty-five recitals.

 

On his most recent recital tour to the United States, John Scott visited Glenview Community Church in Glenview, Illinois to play the inaugural recital for a concert series featuring the new Buzard pipe organ and to give a masterclass, "Accompanying the English Anthem." During the visit, he demonstrated a genuine love of his work and approached his tasks with the carefully-paced energy of a veteran performer. He is a most delightful person--confident but soft-spoken, business-like yet very polite, sincere and possessed of a slightly mischievous sense of humor. Following his electrifying recital performance, Scott was asked if constantly being praised for his work becomes commonplace. He responded simply with a smile, "I don't get tired of hearing compliments."

During one of our conversations, Scott began to reminisce about a childhood experience with organ music. That recollection became the stepping stone for a formal interview, an exchange during which he shared some of the details of his experience as a musician in a great English cathedral and how he got there.

 

MVO: During lunch on Saturday, you mentioned a recording that made a great impression on you when you were young--G.D. Cunningham playing the Bach D-minor Toccata and Fugue at Birmingham Town Hall. Was that one of your earliest experiences hearing organ music?

JS: Yes, I'm sure it was. It was a scratchy old 78 record that we had at home. When I was growing up the 78's were already out of fashion, but we had an old player at home that I was fascinated by--the wind-up sort of gramophone. I discovered this recording of G.D Cunningham and I was amazed that there could be such music. I had never heard anything like it. It was something entirely new to me and I couldn't stop listening to it. I think I wore the record out in the end.

 

MVO: How old were you at the time?

JS: I must have been about eight.

 

MVO: Were you already a chorister by then?

 JS: Yes, I became a chorister when I was seven. I had heard organ music, of course, but it was at about the same time that I discovered this recording.

 

MVO: At that time, you were singing in the choir at Wakefield?

JS: Yes. It was what we call a parish church cathedral--a church that had become a cathedral in the late nineteenth century. We had a very good choir of men and boys. All the boys were educated at the local grammar school where we had choral scholarships to help pay for our education. From an early age, I was exposed to a wide variety of good music.

 

MVO: When did you begin playing the organ?

JS: When I finished singing in the choir, I had already been learning the organ for a couple of years--first with Percy Saunders, who very much put me on the right lines and then with the new organist, Jonathan Bielby. He was a great influence on my playing. I studied with him from the age of fourteen to eighteen. He did more than anybody else to develop my technique and my stylistic awareness. He was a very fastidious and demanding teacher, and also a great inspiration. He had been organ scholar himself at St. John's College Cambridge under George Guest. It was he who encouraged me to go for that particular scholarship. I went to Cambridge at the age of eighteen and studied for two music degrees, leaving at the age of 21.

 

MVO: What were you studying in your lessons with Jonathan Bielby? Repertoire or accompaniment?

JS: A mixture of both. To begin with, the main emphasis was on accompanying. I was in the extraordinary situation of finishing in the choir one week, and the following Sunday I was drafted in to play for the services. I guess my organ playing had become suitably proficient. I went literally from being in the choir one week to accompanying it the next week. After a period of some months, during which I was being tried out, it became a regular process. I was eventually appointed assistant organist at the cathedral. I can remember that first Sunday because we sang an anthem by Basil Harwood called "O How Glorious Is the Kingdom," which has quite a difficult organ part. I dread to think now what it sounded like, but I must have been able to cope with it.

 

MVO: In the United States, organ study tends to be very repertoire-based, although the vast majority of organists are going to play in churches and need to accompany, not be solely concert artists. I have the impression that your training had an emphasis on accompanying.

JS: That's right. I was a pupil-assistant to Jonathan Bielby. His main job was to direct the choir; I would do most of the service playing. That meant it was in his interest for the success of the choir that the accompaniment be really well-rehearsed and moulded. We spent a lot of time in my lessons working on the cathedral music. That's not to say that we didn't do repertoire. I remember doing a lot of pieces during the four years that I studied with him. When I went to Cambridge, although I was expected to play for services and accompany the choir on a daily basis, I didn't have any specific instruction in that. My music degree was purely academic. I was working on harmony, counterpoint, history, orchestration--that sort of thing. For the first two years, my studies included no practical part whatsoever other than keyboard harmony. Only in my third year was the practical part significant. During that year I had to play a half-hour recital, but it only counted for ten percent of my final marks. During this time at Cambridge, I began studying with Gillian Weir. It was a profound and remarkable experience to study with someone of her eminence and inspirational quality. But it was very much left up to me whether I wanted to study with anybody and indeed, who that person should be. It wasn't a requirement for my university course at all. The same at Oxford. You could be an organ scholar for three years and never have an organ lesson. It's crazy.

 

MVO: That's incredible! Is that the way it is today?

JS: I'm not sure. I think things must have changed quite a bit since I was there. I think the whole syllabus is not quite so academically based. Practical musicianship has rather more emphasis now. It does seem strange, looking back.

 

MVO: Based on your experience as a cathedral musician, if you could design the curriculum, what would it include for those aspiring to do what you do?

JS: When I was at St. John's Cambridge, my main duties as Organ Scholar were accompanying and conducting when George Guest was away. As I say, there was no formal training as such, you were thrown into it in a way, and you either sank or you swam. With that in mind, it would be sensible for people who want to focus on church music to have courses in choral direction, service accompaniment, realization of orchestral scores on the organ, and of course guidance in repertoire.

You have to realize the distinction between the English university system and the conservatoire system. If you go to university, you would expect to take a music degree in which the greatest emphasis is on academic study, whereas in a conservatoire it's the other way around. You're basically being trained to be a practical musician, though a certain amount of theoretical study is necessary, of course. I chose consciously to go to university rather than conservatoire because I wanted the broader base that that experience could offer--the chance to meet with people from other disciplines and backgrounds. I found that to be more attractive.

Looking back again, in my first week at St. John's--I was overwhelmed by having this world-famous choir to accompany--I had the scary experience of playing for evensong on the first day of term with basically a new choir and Dr. Guest conducting. On the next day and the day after, he was away and I found myself standing in front of a choir, something I'd never done in my life. Nobody had told me what to do, I just simply had to get on with it. To some degree it's a very English mentality--a very dilettante approach. You make of it what you can and learn by your mistakes. If you're trying to conduct a choir and nobody can follow what you're doing, you have to refine your technique so they can. Of course, I had watched other people conduct. That's the great learning process--observing other people who are  experts. You take a lot of that with you. To this day, I've never had a conducting lesson in my life. It may seem very strange indeed, yet that's the way one functions. And I have the privilege of working with a fully professional choir and many times in the year with professional orchestras.

 

MVO: Would you say that your experience is fairly typical? Do you have other colleagues who have been similarly plunged into service?

JS: Yes, I think it is pretty typical. A lot of people do come through the cathedral tradition so they're immersed in it. They know the repertoire. Many of my colleagues who are cathedral organists were cathedral choristers. A lot of them have been to university and had very good organ tuition. The other practical skills are acquired rather than instilled. That has its own merits. In this day and age, we're much more concerned with building courses and curricula based on what people wish to do later. All of these things are being examined. In London at the Royal Academy of Music there's a church music course that's been running for ten years which does give people these basic skills which are required for the profession. It's by no means unique now, though it was unique at the time. There are many other establishments which are providing church music degrees which encompass not only the historical background but practical skills and knowledge as well.

 

MVO: Tell me about your transition from St. John's to St. Paul's.

JS: After four years in Cambridge, I went straight to St. Paul's. I moved to London. I had never lived in London and I was very excited by that prospect. London seemed to be the right place to go. I was invited to take the place of third organist at St. Paul's and assistant organist at Southwark Cathedral, just over the river. Southwark is the cathedral for the diocese of south London, only about a mile away from St. Paul's.  So I was number two at Southwark and number three at St. Paul's, basically playing three days of the week in each Cathedral, usually at Southwark on Sunday. That was a great experience. I did that for seven years--running back and forth over London Bridge. It was a great learning experience, I must say, being involved on the one hand with the professional choir at St. Paul's and the volunteer choir at Southwark cathedral. However two very different liturgical bases as well. St. Paul's at that stage represented all that was very "correct and proper," if that's the right expression--a very traditional form of Anglicanism, whereas Southwark was a more progressive and, dare one say, slightly livelier style of worship.

 

MVO: Were you working under Christopher Dearnley at St. Paul's when you began?

JS: I was working both with Christopher Dearnley and with Barry Rose who at that stage was in charge of the choir. Looking back, I did most of my accompanying for Barry because I tended to play on the days when Christopher was not there. I worked closely with Barry and learned a great deal. He's a phenomenal and inspirational choir trainer. That was a terrific experience at a time when the St. Paul's choir had made a great impact under Barry's leadership through recordings, developing a more public profile than they had previously had.

 

MVO: At that time Christopher Dearnley was mainly playing the organ?

JS: He was really. He was the Director of Music, having the overall say in the music program, but after the organ was rebuilt in 1973-1977, he very much wanted to concentrate on playing the organ, to develop its role in the life of the cathedral and beyond. He concentrated on playing the organ for the services and Barry did most of the choir work. I was gradually brought into that. After a while, I took the choir for one day a week.

 

MVO: So you moved more into Barry Rose's position eventually?

JS: For a year, Christopher took the choir again when Barry left. There's a very nice recording from that time on the Decca label, with Christopher conducting and me accompanying. After about a year, he wished to go back to playing the organ rather more. I think that's where he felt the most comfortable. I was keen to have the opportunity to take the choir on a more regular basis. Although I was sub-organist I found myself directing the choir more and more. I gradually stepped into that position.

 

MVO: Being in a high-profile position, you're probably under scrutiny a lot of the time. How do you handle that?

JS: To be honest, I don't worry about it too much now. I used to worry about it rather more. You're right, it's a bit of a goldfish bowl. There's never a day, even in the depths of winter, when there are fewer than a hundred people at evensong. You're always conscious that the daily choral office is something that is very visible. Certainly, in the summer months, many more people attend. In July we have visitors from all over the world when we do the orchestral masses. It is a very visible position in that sense. One struggles to maintain standards, but I'm very fortunate in the support and set-up that I have from my assistants, my colleagues and from the choir. We all strive to do the best. In recent years we've reached a pretty consistent standard which is there from day to day. Obviously, every choir has its off days, but they seem to be less frequent than they were when I first started doing the choir work. I'm more established in the position. I don't feel so much the weight of what went on before. I've been there long enough, made recordings and feel more comfortable about what I'm doing in the job.  Of course, I'm always concerned to see who's there from day to day and if they're people I recognize. There might be a day when you suddenly see George Guest or David Willcocks sitting in the congregation! If you worried about that too much, you wouldn't be able to get anything done. Just put your head down and get on with it.

 

MVO: Do you find the pressure to be a motivating force?

JS: Undoubtedly. The moment you began to relax, to rest on your laurels, is the moment to move on to something else. Every day has its challenge. There's no such thing as a routine week at St. Paul's. There's always something extra. Whether that's ceremonial services, memorial services or whatever, there's never a chance to settle back into a routine. A daily sung evensong is a challenge in itself because for the most part, you pick up the music with the boys first thing in the morning. You've got an hour in which to mould it in the morning, and half an hour with them in the afternoon before the men arrive. The men rehearse at 4:30 with the service at 5:00. As a full choir, we've really only got about twenty-five minutes to practice forty minutes of music. It's a lot to do. There isn't the oppportunity to work much more than a day at a time. On Monday, I try to look at some of the mass for Sunday, but generally we're living from day to day. There's a lot of pressure in that, just to get things done. We have to work quickly, efficiently, and professionally.

 

MVO: What is the rehearsal schedule?

JS: We rehearse every day except Thursday morning. The choristers are educated in the choir school, which is directly behind the cathedral. They're all boarders--they live there during the term. I see them from 7:50-8:50 every morning except Thursday, which is our day off.  Evensong is sung by the men on Thursday, and the boys sing evensong on Monday. Otherwise, it's full choir on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and three services on Sunday. That's nine choral services each week on a regular basis.

 

MVO: What do you enjoy the most about your work?

JS: Many things, really. I'm very fortunate being based where I am, having this wonderful building in which to work. It's always an amazing experience just to go into St. Paul's. Every morning I go in and think "wow." It's a building that completely overwhelms you. The sound of music in the building is very special as well. With nine seconds of reverberation, it's a unique acoustical environment in which to work. I'm very fortunate with the choir that I have--30 boys and 18 men--fully professional singers. It's a very dramatic and exciting group of singers with which to work. Of course, the organ  itself is tremendously thrilling. It's a fine instrument in every sense. The Willis part of the organ has great quality and refinement. The part built by Mander in 1973-77 added other dimensions that fit the building very well, further developing the potential of the instrument in a way unforeseen previously. It's a very exciting, versatile instrument. This year I'm playing all the organ works of Bach in twenty-five recitals on Sundays and I'm just amazed at how well it copes with that repertoire. It's been remarkably successful. Obviously, one has to register things in a very judicious manner, but many people have been amazed at how well it does work.

 

MVO: During your masterclass on  Saturday, I noticed that while you were playing you had a smile on your face. It seemed obvious that you simply love that music and love what you do. What is it all about for you? 

JS: It's very hard to define! I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say that I like this piece of music more than any other. I enjoy all the different styles of music that we sing. It's basically the English cathedral repertoire, of course, and a lot of eighteenth and nineteenth century music. But in the time that I've been responsible for the choir, I've moved the repertoire backwards quite a lot to encompass more polyphony and early music, music which I very much enjoy. The versatility of the group that I have is very great indeed. The men are not particularly challenged by anything you put in front of them as far as notes are concerned. They can basically read anything! There is little need for note-bashing. It's so much been a part of my musical life to be involved with this particular sort of music--Psalms, hymns, canticles, anthems--it's hard to imagine life without it, really. I've often considered whether at some stage in my life I'd like to be a free-lance organist. I'm not sure. That would have its compensations in many ways because I'm really not playing the organ so much at St. Paul's. But I can't imagine life without pieces like the Balfour Gardiner "Evening Hymn" or the Byrd Great Service. I enjoy them so much. Each time I come back to them I try and find something new and keep myself fresh in that way. I don't feel that I'm remotely tired of this music yet. I hope that in ten years time I can still say that. It's the sort of music that does really inspire me still.

 

MVO: What keeps that musical tradition alive? It's very easy for traditions to become frozen. 

JS: Yes, I know what you mean. Traditions can become fossilized. I think the tradition is continuously being enriched by music from other sources.    The fact is that we're discovering ne repertoire all the time. More and more music is being printed, most notably early music by some very good publishers in England who specialize entirely in Renaissance polyphony--pieces which have not been available before outside of collected editions. The market is being flooded by good quality material. On the other hand, as far as I'm concerned, it's wonderful to encourage our best contemporary composers to write for the church. I'm glad to say that the Dean and Chapter support this endeavor. Part of our annual music budget is given over to commissions. For the millenium, we've pushed the boat out a bit. We had a big service on January 2nd which was televised nationally, attended by the Queen and the Government. We commissioned a setting of "Jubilate" from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies for choir, organ and brass. It was a good commission and will work well on its own with organ accompaniment, so we can do it liturgically. We commissioned some brass fanfares from another of our most eminent composers Sir Harrison Birtwistle. They were stunningly well conceived for the building with four different groups of brass playing around the building. It was really fantastic. Later this year, in July, we'll be doing a premiere of a work that we've commissioned from Luciano Berio, the great Italian composer. Our commissions in the past have been from English composers. I felt it was a time to bring in somebody else, so we commissioned Berio who seems keen to write for us. This is an important part of our life at St. Paul's--the church in its traditional role as patron of the arts must be seen to be lively and energetic. Over the years, we've commissioned pieces from John Tavener, Jonathan Harvey, Francis Grier, and William Mathias, among others. Most years we've had a commissioned piece. I've been very pleased and proud of that tradition.

 

MVO: You seem to view that as a responsibility.

JS: I do. It's all to do with keeping the tradition alive. On the one hand, I like to think that what we're doing is very much in the monastic spirit, as the monks of yesteryear. Our daily office of Evensong has evolved from that tradition. But it has to be renewed of course. We have to be always pushing the boundaries either forwards or, indeed, backwards. That's vital.

 

Gordon and Barbara Betenbaugh

Gordon and Barbara Betenbaugh are organists/choirmasters at First Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. They also direct Cantate, the Children's Choir of Central Virginia, and Mrs. Betenbaugh is chapel organist and assistant choral director at Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg. Last summer they completed a 13-week sabbatical in the UK, visiting Cambridge, Oxford, London, and Salisbury. See previous articles from their sabbatical: "London Chats #1: Michael McCarthy," October 2003, p. 18; "John Tavener's The Veil of the Temple," November 2003, p. 17; "Cambridge Chats #1: Timothy Byram-Wigfield," December 2003, pp. 16-19; and "London Chats #2: Patrick Russill," February 2004, pp. 20-22.

We met with Sarah MacDonald on June 5, 2003, during exam week, in the lovely garden near the chapel of Selwyn College. On the previous day we had attended a rehearsal of the Selwyn choir and Evensong at the college. Sarah is the first woman in the history of any of the Oxbridge college chapels to hold the position of director of music. She greeted us by giving us publications issued by Cambridge University that included a prospectus and other materials given to all potential students. We learned a great deal from Sarah about the system of the Cambridge colleges. Sarah is a friendly young woman with an ever-present smile and bubbly personality.

Sarah was appointed Director of Music in Chapel at Selwyn in January of 1999. She is Canadian, and studied piano, organ and choral conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto before coming to Cambridge as Organ Scholar of Robinson College. She has taught organ and conducting at the Eton Choral Courses, teaches for the University Music Faculty, and is a winner of the Royal College of Organists' Limpus Prize for organ performance.

GB: Thank you for these materials.

SM: You're welcome! This should give you some information on the 17 colleges out of 23 undergraduate colleges that do offer choral scholarships. It certainly should give you an idea about the range of activities of the various choirs. Of course, they are all made out to sound like every choir is fantastic. You can judge that for yourself! (laughter)

BB: How long have you been here?

SM: I've been at Selwyn for four and a half years. I was here in Cambridge at Robinson College as an undergraduate from 1992 until 1995.

GB: As an organ scholar?

SM: Yes.

GB: Did they have a director of music?

SM: No, I was it—just my kind of organ scholarship!

GB: Let me quiz you about the organ scholarships. How are the lessons worked out for the organ scholars?

SM: Most colleges pay for them completely or subsidize the lessons up to a certain point. The amount you can claim depends on which college you're at. They study with a variety of teachers, including David Sanger, Anne Page and Nicholas Kynaston. Most of the organ teachers come up to Cambridge three times a term. Or one could go down to London for lessons if one preferred.

GB: So, basically they are just coaches, then.

SM: Yes, in a sense they are. Most organ scholars only have three lessons a term. That's really all they have time for. The terms are really short (only eight weeks long). That is actually almost a lesson every two weeks. It does come as a bit of a shock to some of them, because they come from schools where they've had lessons every week throughout the year. David Sanger, who teaches most of them, is very much a kind of Conservatoire coach. He's interested in hearing something once, maybe twice if you're going to play it in a big competition or something. I was really fortunate because I'd done this in piano performance in Toronto. I'd had that kind of teaching for three years already, and I understood it completely.

GB: Where is home base for him?

SM: He lives in the Lake District in a converted chapel which is absolutely stunning.

 

BB: We love the Lake District! It's so beautiful.

SM: Occasionally he will invite students up to spend a couple of days and have a couple of lessons. The nave of the old chapel is his living room, and the organ is in there. It's fabulous! It's not easy to get to—you have to take about three trains and three buses. Then he has to pick you up. It's just amazing once you get there!

BB: Tell us about your new organ here at Selwyn.

SM: Oh, it's going to be excellent! It will be a 3-manual with 30 stops, made by Orgues Létourneau. I knew their organs from Canada although they haven't built very many here. There's one in Pembroke College Oxford and one in the Tower of London. We went down and played the London one, and spoke with the organist who told us two things that really sold us on it—first of all it was the finest organ he'd ever accompanied on. The other thing was that it had been in for a year at that point, and they hadn't had a single technical fault with it. For a new organ that's very impressive.

GB: I knew Létourneau when he was working for Casavant, and I put in a new organ in Nebraska. Of course I know of his instruments around the country like the big installation at First Presbyterian in Greensboro, North Carolina.

SM: I've seen that one advertised.

GB: So he will have large-scaled principals here?

SM: Yes.

BB: When's it due?

SM: It comes in July of 2004 and will be installed over the summer. We'll then sort of "play it in" through Michaelmas term of 2004. We're having it dedicated in January of 2005 by Naji Hakim.

GB: Are you going to have French reeds?

SM: Yes, absolutely, French Canadian reeds! They will have Cavaillé-Coll shallots.

BB: How did you end up studying in Canada?

SM: I am Canadian, grew up there and studied there first of all.

GB: Is that when you studied with John Tuttle?

SM: Yes, that's right.

GB: You studied piano first?

SM: The organ was only ever for fun. I primarily wanted to be a conductor anyway, so I knew I would have to learn to play the organ and decided to do that. I do take my playing very seriously, however. I got the top prize for organ playing in my associateship exam for the Royal College of Organists, but I have not yet had the courage to attempt the fellowship. It costs £300 to take it so I can't afford to fail it! Only a very small proportion of candidates pass it the first time. The keyboard tests in particular are notorious. I think I'll wait until the new organ is installed, when I will really want to practice for it.

BB: Tell us about the instrument you have in your chapel at the moment.

SM: It was built in 1994 by a local Cambridgeshire company. It's actually the same builder as the organ in St. Catharine's College for which Peter LeHuray was the consultant. The St. Catharine's instrument is really quite good, especially following its recent cleaning and revoicing by Flentrop. Ours at Selwyn is not a successful organ though, and has a sad history. There's a place in the world for mediocre parish church organs, but a Cambridge College Chapel with a musical tradition is not one of them. We have an organ repair budget of £10,000 a year. Last year was the point at which we knew we would have to do something. You can imagine how excited the College was about the idea of replacing an organ that was only eight years old. They were fantastic about it, but they were not happy.

GB: That's happened in the States with several builders. At least you're going to have pistons!

SM: Yes, we need them really.

BB: It's good that the College is supportive.

SM: Selwyn has one of the most prestigious traditions of the 20th century, and the college knows it needs to be preserved. There's a long list of important 20th-century church musicians who were organ and choral scholars here including Richard Marlow (Trinity College), Sir David Lumsden, John Harper, Grayston (Bill) Ives, Andrew Lawrence King, Percy Young, Frederick Rimmer. Of the past five organ scholars who've come through here, not a single one of them is playing anymore because they found the experience of three years as organ scholar here so disheartening having to play this instrument. Something had to be done.

BB: Do you play the last hymn and the postlude all the time?

SM: No, only about once a term. I do very little playing, but I do play at an Anglo-Catholic church where I am assistant in my spare time. Because it's exam term the external pressure on the choir is at a maximum. Evensong has to be a fun experience, because the exam pressure is horrendous here. Everything is 100% finals. Your entire degree is based upon these three weeks now. They write five or six essays every week all throughout their 3-year degree, and they don't count for anything. That's one of the reasons that this is a good time for the senior organ scholar to conduct. He's a wonderful player, but not an experienced conductor. The music is easy, and finals are mostly finished now. It's just the 6 or 7 first years who have exams right now that are going to be away. The whole atmosphere is more relaxed, but normally the organ scholars don't conduct unless I'm away. I think it's a bit odd that in England the way the tradition works is that they teach you to play the organ. You play the organ and play the organ and then suddenly get thrown in front of a choir, never having had a conducting lesson in your life. They expect you to know what to do. I think that's a bit unfair, actually. Once or twice a term, I let the organ scholars conduct while I'm there, so that we can actually have a chat right afterwards.

GB: None of the schools here teach basic conducting?

SM: There are a couple of new conducting programs at some of the London Conservatoires. There's a new program at the Royal Academy which started up two years ago which is a Master's in Church Music and Choral Conducting. Again, there are only four or five students per year, and they are teaching you professional choral conducting. The difficulty is that they will become accustomed to working with former Oxbridge choral scholars that sing like a recording whether you can beat time or not. Then you get thrown in front of a choral society or parish choir, and you can't even bring them in.

GB: Right. It's different in the States. In the better colleges much emphasis is put on conducting. You are the first woman in 700 years at an Oxbridge College. Tell us about that.

SM: It is a very male-dominated tradition. I'm now chairing the annual meetings after the choral scholarship trials. It is me and this table full of gentlemen. It's fine actually. In fact, an interesting statistic which I just heard the other day concerns The University Church (Great St. Mary's) which is just now advertising for a director of music.

GB: Yes, we saw that.

SM: They have 17 applicants—not a single woman.

BB: I wanted to ask you if other women had applied for positions and not been accepted or if they just didn't apply.

SM: No, they just don't apply.

GB: Do they think they can't break through?

SM: Yes, there's this mythology that women can't train boys' voices, which isn't true. The feeling is that we haven't gone through what boys do at the age of 12, so we can't possibly know what to do with them before they go through it.

GB: Are there any female organ scholars in Cambridge?

SM: A few, actually! There are girls at Sidney Sussex, Emmanuel, Magdalene, Corpus Christi, and Christ's Colleges this year.

GB: There's a woman who's a sub-organist at one of the cathedrals.

SM: There are three or four women sub-organists, and there are also several women in number one spots in major parish churches, where they are training men and boys choirs perfectly well.

BB: Have you had any problems?

SM: I've had no problems at all. I'd like to think it's because I know what I'm doing and not because I'm female. I've had an easy time of it. I expect that's from a kind of "short list" point of view.

GB: Do you think it will be another 50 years before there are females in the top cathedral positions?

SM: As a matter of fact, there are two women in number one cathedral positions already: one is Judy Martin, a former Selwyn organ scholar, who has recently gone to St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, and the other is Arundel Roman Catholic Cathedral in Sussex, where both the "master" of the music, and also the assistant organist are women. I am not sure how long it will take before one of the traditional cathedrals with a medieval choir school will appoint a woman to the top job.

BB: There are the girls choirs now.

SM: One of the main problems with the girls choirs is that they are creating jobs for women, but they shouldn't be. Why is it that a man can conduct a men and boys choir, but a woman has to be appointed to the position of "Assistant Organist and Director of the Girls Choir." I hope it will not become another unbreakable tradition that if you are a woman you must conduct only a girls choir. It's still discrimination.

Part of the problem is that the real training is still being given too much to the boys only, first as cathedral or collegiate choristers, and then at the traditional all-boys private schools which carry on teaching the choral tradition. The girls choirs are still too new for the effects to be felt at university. I've got three or four ex-collegiate/cathedral boy choristers in the choir. When they arrive at university, the men know the repertoire already. The girls are the weak sight readers, and do not know the mixed choral repertoire. The men know all the organ accompaniments by the time they're 18. They come up here, they do three years and they walk into those jobs because they're already qualified.

GB: Right. I've been very impressed with 18- and 19-year-olds handling huge instruments like at King's, the "accompanying machine." There are very few 18-year-olds in the United States that could handle a big instrument like that with complete mastery and artistry.

BB: I think Trinity College must be the silver slipper. It appears that way to us just from the two or three days we were there.

SM: Yes, anywhere with that kind of tradition and that kind of money to uphold it is nice.

GB: What plans do you have for touring with your choir?

SM: We're going to Finland and Estonia in September, and then we will do a brief tour to Scotland next summer, because we're hoping to go to New Zealand (if we can find the money) in 2005. Bishop Selwyn was the first bishop of New Zealand, and we've still never been there.

BB: If you ever come stateside call us, and we'll work something out.

GB: It would be nice to have you. Does the college underwrite the tours?

SM: They subsidize them. Selwyn choir is not well known. International Record Review two years ago reviewed one of our recent CDs and said that we would easily give any of our better-known neighbors a run for their money. Reviewers can say that, but still when it comes down to it, no one has heard of Selwyn, so we can't charge a big fee.

BB: Maybe that will change.

SM: I would hope so, but I don't expect it to change in the next year or two. Domestic invitations are starting to come in now which is great. Two weeks from now we're going to Birmingham, (not terribly exotic, but the invitation is lovely) to St. Augustine's Church in Edgbaston which is the only parish church for which Howells wrote canticles, and they're on our CD. In March we went to Canterbury and sang the premier of a new work by Jonathan Dove. That was really fantastic. Those things are starting to come in, and I can now actually get expenses paid when we're in the country. However, no one's invited us anywhere more exciting than Canterbury or Birmingham at this point. Choir members have to contribute their own money, which is unfortunate. It's well subsidized, though. They're getting ten days in Finland and Estonia for £150 which is a lot cheaper than they could do if they were actually going on holiday.

GB: That's a good deal!

BB: So, do any of these students have jobs outside of the college?

SM: They're not allowed to. It's against University regulations. You cannot have a job while you're a student. You obviously can when you're home in the summer, but not during term.

GB: We were just punting yesterday, and our punter was a student. I guess his exams are over.

SM: Yes. It's very, very intense academically. That's why I have to be really careful about balancing. My choir does really well academically, and that's important from the college's point of view. I don't want it to appear that choir is "getting in the way" of their studies. Also, there's a great deal of pressure from the media firstly, and the government secondly, to open up Cambridge and Oxford. We're trying desperately hard. In this country only about 40% of the population actually goes to university. They are desperately trying to increase that, but there's no tradition of it. In the UK education system, I think it's 7% of school-age children in the population are in private schools (i.e., schools for which they pay fees); 93% are in state-funded public schools. Cambridge and Oxford, which are government funded universities, are still struggling to get 50% of students from state-funded schools, which obviously is not representative given the percentage of children who attend state-funded schools. One of the areas that have had to deal with that over the past ten years is the choral tradition because we can't let people in now just because they can sing (i.e., they probably went to a private choir school and then a private high school where the choral tradition is still taught). If they can sing, good, great, but they need to be absolutely top class academically as well. They've got to fight evenly against everyone else. If you've got two people, both of whom are equal academically, and one of them can sing, great—in comes the singer. If you've got one who's reasonably good who can sing and one who's brilliant academically who's tone deaf, the tone deaf one comes. We have to do that, and we've all had to learn to deal with it.

GB: Your system is so different than in America. How do beginning harmony, theory, counterpoint, dictation and sight singing work with your system here?

SM: All of that gets taught in the first year. They have weekly one-on-one tuition in harmony and counterpoint. At the end of the year for their exam they have to do a 4-part fugal exposition on a given subject, and they have to complete a piece of 3-part Palestrina where one part is given throughout. There's no keyboard aid—it's all pencil on paper.

GB: So, they're taught harmony and counterpoint at the same time?

SM: Yes, and both are examined at the end of the year in three-hour exams. The harmony exam consists of three questions, and they have to answer two of them. One of them is the harmonization of a sort of "Schubertesque" song, and they have to write the piano part. The other is completion of a string quartet. They will be given four bars of the string quartet which they have to complete to a specified rubric (e.g., "write a further 24 bars with a modulation to the dominant at the half-way point"). The other question is to write up to six variations on a ground bass, either for a keyboard instrument or for strings. Aural training is extremely difficult here, because 20 or 25 of approximately 60 undergraduate musicians in each year have perfect pitch. Coming up with an exam that all of them can take is hard work. For the dictation questions, there are two things rather loosely termed "melodies." They are given the first note and 6 to 8 bars, and they get to hear it twice. These are really horrible—they are designed to test the people with perfect pitch. Then there are four rhythms that they have to memorize which are usually shorter, about four bars. Again, they hear them twice, but they can't write until after the second playing.

GB: It's different in the States.

SM: It's quite a clever trick, actually. You really learn to record and play back in your head. It's a skill that all of us have, but they have to learn to use it. They also have to complete a piece of 3-part keyboard counterpoint dictation, like a Baroque 3-part invention. They are given one part all the way through, and have to take the other part down. They hear that a total of four times. Then they have something called orchestral timbres. They are given a piano reduction of an orchestral score, and they then hear the orchestral version played three times. They then have to fill in boxes and say "that was a Cor Anglais or that was a viola with a mute on playing really high." They have to score up eight bars of it towards the end.

GB: That's all first year?

SM: Yes, it's all one three-hour exam.

GB: So orchestration is first year as are harmony and counterpoint?

SM: Yes. Then they have aural analysis. They hear a four- or five-minute piece of music. On this year's exam it was a piece of Couperin's keyboard music. They hear it three times, and the question is to write an account of the movement. The people who don't necessarily write things very well can just say "this happens or that happens." The kids who are really good actually write proper Schenkerian analysis for something they've heard three times and haven't got a score for. That's quite a big one. There's a mistake-spotting test. They are given a score that has mistakes in pitch and duration. They get played the correct version, and then they have to circle and correct the mistakes. Some of those are easy, and some are not. They have a keyboard exam as well in which they have to transpose a chorale, realize a figured bass, score a string quartet, score a Palestrina piece in C clefs and harmonize a melody.

The other written exams include analysis, in which there are two unseen works plus a set work which is a quick study. They'll find out what that is a couple of weeks before the exams. They would be asked to write three analysis essays in the exam, at least one of which must be on the set work. There are also two history papers (we call courses "papers"), the exams for which are also usually three essays to be written in three hours. The first one is the 19th century, and the other is 20th century. During the second year they choose from a selection of topics. This year's options include a Bach course, a course on Handel in London, one on Paris opera in the 19th century, and that sort of thing. They also have to submit a portfolio of tonal compositions. They have a set number of styles they can write in (sonata form or theme and variations or a collection of three songs or a ritornello) and they also must submit a three- or four-voice fugue. They study fugue all the way through the second year. The tripos1 is in the process of changing, and the major change is that the only compulsory paper (I think we are the only remaining university in the world for this paper) is a four-hour fugue exam. Every undergraduate, by the end of their third year, can sit down and write a fugue without a piano in four hours. It's not nearly as difficult as one thinks. I will ever be grateful that I did it. Now it's my favorite course to supervise. I teach about 15 fugue students, and I love it. I especially enjoy the ones who at the beginning of their third year say, "You must be kidding." By the end if they actually work well through the year, it's not a terrifying exam. They've actually learned how to deal with large-scale form, small-scale harmonic movements, etc., and writing good four-part counterpoint. I don't know what will happen next year, because it's not mandatory. They will have a choice. They will either have to write a 10,000-word dissertation on some scholarly topic of their choice which would be submitted obviously, or they can do the fugue paper. There's still a little bit of academic rigor left, but my guess is that 70% or 80% of them will go for the dissertation, which is a shame, because there are a lot of people who actually end up enjoying fugue who would never choose to do it at the beginning of the year.

GB: For the fugue course, for instance, would you use a textbook?

SM: Nothing is textbook-based in this university.

GB: That's what I thought.

SM: By midway through their second year for their history papers, they are reading journals. It's much more research-based. What I do in fugue, with the students who are reasonably comfortable keyboard players, or who at least have played some pieces, they simply have to write for me a complete fugue every week. We'll have a half-hour or 45-minute session on it every week, just the two of us. With those who struggle a bit, I'll do small amounts, say have them write four expositions, and I'll dictate. I'll have them write one using semiquavers modulating from E-flat to B-flat or whatever or write one in three parts using triplet quavers. I'll dictate a little bit, but I'll do that for the first term, and then I'll insist that they write a complete fugue all the way through. Writing a sequence, using the circle of fifths, bearing in mind that they've learned all of the basics of suspensions, etc. during the first year, they can learn that in about two afternoons, even the weak ones. You need them to consider how they are going to use this little bit of material in the whole thing. Occasionally, you'll get them to practice writing endings of fugues. Can you work your way up to a Neapolitan sixth chord? Anyone can write a Neapolitan sixth chord, but it's getting there and escaping from it that's tricky.

In the third year they all study a major set work, usually a choice of one of six big operas, Boris Godunov was one of them and Così fan tutte. There would be a choice of four other papers on various history topics. There's an in-depth editing and notation paper which this year was on Frescobaldi, so one would be dealing with a lot of nasty tempo relationships and that sort of thing. There would be various other random history papers depending on what research any of the lecturers are doing. One of this year's choices is "Music, Politics and Theology in the English Reformation." That would've been a fun paper to take. They can also write a dissertation if they want, 10,000 words on the topic of their choice. There's also the option to take a performance, which many of them do, but it's only one option, only in the third year. Two-thirds of them will do a 23-minute recital in which there's a set work that you have to perform. They also have to write a 3,000-word essay on the performance reception and history of any of the pieces in your program, which is a little bit nebulous, but there has to be something academic since it's not a performing degree. I did it actually, and my essay was on a piece of Bach on the organ. I did a study of all of the published editions of the piece I played. I went down to the National Sound Archive and listened to loads of recording of it and looked up every reference to it in every book ever written about Bach. You can actually come up with an essay, but it's not easy.

GB: Most of our degrees in the States are performance degrees.

SM: Yes, exactly. You can do that at a Conservatory. There's a gap between the Conservatory and the University. Lots of students graduate from here with a degree and then go on and do a Master's at the Royal Academy. There's some fabulous playing and some fabulous singing that gets done here, but there's even better playing and singing at the Conservatories in the undergraduate programs, because the ones who are really top quality performers will often just go there first.

GB: All of this exam talk is exhausting. I know why the students are looking like they are now. (laughter)

SM: Exactly, and that's just in music. The worst one I think is the English course. They don't do exams at the end of the first year, because there's too much to learn. They only take exams at the end of the second year. The first morning of the exam week they get up and write an exam called 900-1100. Then they get up the next morning, and it's 1100-1300, then 1300-1500, etc. Eight days in a row they will write an exam covering two hundred years of English literature. Then they have to take a second language paper as well and something called literary criticism, analysis of unseen texts.

GB: This is all much more difficult than in the States.

SM: I think it's more difficult here than in most places. Certainly the music course is twice as rigorous as anything I've ever seen in North America. In fact, there was a mathematician visiting a week ago who came in for dinner with someone he knows. He had been looking at the first years' math papers. Bearing in mind that Newton was a mathematician at Cambridge, and Stephen Hawking is here, I think it's allowed to be a difficult course. He was looking at the first year math exam, and he said to me that he had had a Ph.D. in mathematics for 20 years, and he thought he could probably get through about 25% of that exam. I'm sure that he is a top scholar in the specific area, but here it is a huge amount of material our students have to get through in a short amount of time. It's not just that they do everything in no detail. They do things in great detail, but they do an awful lot of stuff in a lot of detail. It's really intense, and that's why they get so stressed at this time of the year, because they have to show what they know now.

BB: That's hard, because they don't get graded at any time until the end. What about people that don't test well?

SM: Women always do worse than men. It's very definitely a man who would've thought of it, because it wouldn't occur to a man that it might not be a good day for a woman to write an exam. Many women do extremely well, but in general the overall performances show that the men do better. The other thing is that more men get in. There are three colleges that admit only women, and there's still a 65/35% gender imbalance across the university, even including those three colleges.

GB: Magdalene was the last college to accept women?

SM: Yes, in 1991.

GB: What was the first year?

SM: In 1972 or 1973 there was a wave of 3 or 4 colleges that accepted women. There was a big bunch in 1976 which included Selwyn. The rest of them jumped on board over the next few years, and Magdalene went in 1991.

GB: Well, we've covered a lot of academic ground.

BB: Thank you for explaining all this. We didn't understand all that we knew about the system in Cambridge. Most Americans don't understand the system here at all.

SM: Unless you've come up through it, you don't realize. You can't do anything resembling a liberal arts degree. If you come up here to read for the Music tripos, then you read for the Music tripos full stop. You can go and attend lectures in any of the other subjects if you want to, but you won't be examined on them, and no one will know. Nobody has time to do that anyway. Some people will finish Part I in a particular course, and then change. The sad ones are those who do Part I in a course they love and then panic and do Part II in Law when they realize that History or English or whatever isn't going to give them a job. That does happen, but it's usually only 3 or 4 students per course in each year that would actually change.

GB: The Oxbridge Colleges are still the only places that give an MA three years after the Bachelor's?

SM: Yes, absolutely.

GB: Free of any advanced study?

SM: Yes.

BB: This would then be different from an MA from the Royal Academy?

SM: That's right. You can do a Master's degree here as well—it's called an M.Phil. It's a one-year postgraduate research degree, and then you do your doctorate. Anyone who knows if your degree says MA Cantab (the abbreviation for the Latin form of Cambridge) they know perfectly you haven't worked for it. The other thing is that the undergraduate degree is really heavily research-based and a ridiculous amount of work. I didn't feel in the least guilty about accepting an MA, because I knew that I did so much intense research for my BA.

GB: I've heard that there were discussions about phasing that out.

SM: I don't know. It's fighting against 700 years of tradition. I would be surprised if they phase it out, especially because if you have a degree from Cambridge people know if it says M.Phil that you worked for it. If it says MA, then it just means that you did your undergraduate degree at Cambridge. If I go back to North America and say that I have an MA, they all assume that I've done a three-year research degree, which in a sense I have. It just comes with the undergraduate one.

GB: What is the total for room, board and tuition for a year?

SM: Tuition for a home student (a UK or EU student are the same) with parents that make money is £1,125 per year for any university in the UK. It's subsidized, you see. Tuition fees only came in three years ago. Before that it was free. You can imagine how painful that was. When I was here as an undergraduate tuition was free, and they still received maintenance checks from the government to go to university. That was their desperate attempt to increase the number of people at university. The maintenance checks were means-tested, so if you had wealthy parents you didn't get one. Fees and loans for home students are now means-tested instead, and grants are no longer available.  There is a huge debate in Parliament right now though about raising university tuition fees significantly (to £3000 a year minimum), and some universities, including Cambridge, are fighting for the right to set their own level of fees, rather than having it set by the government as it is now. In terms of living costs, 95% of undergraduates live in college residence, which keeps costs down. Rent in Selwyn, for example, is actually quite low. The rooms are small, because it was originally formed as a college for priests and for children of poor clergy. It doesn't have any of the big sumptuous rooms that some of the wealthy medieval colleges have. Depending on the size of the room they would be paying between £450 and £600 per term (there are three terms a year), which is quite low actually compared to some of the colleges. They also have to pay something called a kitchen fixed charge, which is about £100 a term. This keeps the prices for meals in hall really low, so they can get a full 3- or 4-course meal served in the formal hall three times a week for only £4, and daily lunch can be bought for as little as about £2.

Fees for overseas students, however, are exorbitant. For a science course, which music is classed as because a lot of the teaching is one-on-one, the tuition when I came ten years ago was £9,750 a year. Then I had to find accommodations on top of that. They expect you to have about £15,000 or £20,000 a year, which is fine except if you're paying it in Canadian dollars worth next to nothing.

GB: What kind of stipend do the organ and choral scholars get?

SM: The choral scholarship, as you will see in the materials, is £100 a year plus singing lessons. The organ scholarship is £300 a year plus organ lessons. There is an agreement across the whole university such that every choral scholar, no matter which college they're at, gets paid £100, and every organ scholar gets paid £300. An instrumental award is £75. It does depend on what college you are as to how much is paid for lessons. Selwyn is quite generous, because we had a nice alumnus about 25 years ago who endowed a music fund. The choral scholars claim up to £300 a year or up to £450 for lessons if they're studying music. This actually isn't bad—you can have a lot of lessons for that kind of money. We do get lots of inquiries from North Americans who think that choral scholarship is an equivalent football scholarship (i.e., is actually substantial financially), but it isn't.

GB: Are they big on early fingering here in Cambridge?

SM: Some of them are, yes. Then the musicians among us will think about the early fingering and how it affects articulation, and then do the articulation with normal fingering! (laughter)

GB: That's what I do—it's easier than refingering everything.

SM: Yes.

GB: What one hears is the main thing.

SM: If you're on your way to King's there's a mass there on Thursdays. It's not Evensong.

GB: Yes, they are doing the Howells Collegium Regale. We have heard the Kodály Missa Brevis twice. I don't know what their rotation schedule is. I haven't figured it out.

SM: My guess is that it's probably not particularly methodical. You can't count anything as being in your repertoire until the third term, because a third of the choir is new at the beginning every academic year.

GB: It's been a joy to hear all the Howells settings, particularly. They are our favorites.

SM: You should get our CD in that case!

GB: Yes, we'll pick one up from the porter.

BB: Thank you for giving us your hour and sharing your knowledge.

SM: Certainly. This has been fun.

Author's note: We left Sarah with promises to meet in cyberspace soon.

Marcia Van Oyen

Marcia Van Oyen earned master's and doctoral degrees in organ and church music at the University of Michigan, where she studied organ with Robert Glasgow. She is the organist and director of music ministry at Glenview Community Church (UCC) in Glenview, Illinois, and is past Dean of the North Shore AGO. She also writes for Choir & Organ magazine and JAV Recordings. More information is available online at .

Elizabeth and Raymond Chenault have blazed a trail for the art of the organ duet, enchanting audiences with their enjoyable performances and charming personalities and ensuring the future of the genre with a wealth of commissioned repertoire. When you meet the Chenaults, an easy rapport develops immediately, and you feel as if you've known them a long time. They are genuine, sincere, fun-loving people, and these qualities feed their mission to connect with people through their music.

Both their career as duo organists and their marriage span nearly 30 years. Natives of Virginia, the Chenaults attended Virginia Commonwealth University, marrying after graduation in 1972. Ray attended Cincinnati Conservatory to earn a master's degree, and they both studied organ with Wayne Fisher during that time. Following his master's studies, Ray spent a year as organ scholar at Washington National Cathedral. The Chenaults moved to Atlanta in 1975, taking the positions of organists and choir masters at All Saints Episcopal Church, where they direct the music program and concert series. A year later, positions at the Lovett School--Ray as director of fine arts and choral director of the Upper School, Beth as choral director of the Middle School--rounded out their professional life. The Chenaults are managed by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists.

I talked with them while they were in town to play a concert at the Glenview Community Church.

MVO: How did you get started performing duets?

Beth: When we started giving recitals, we thought it would be fun to play together because we're married. That was how we got started. Thomas Tomkins, the 16th-century British composer, wrote one of the earliest known organ duets, A Fancy for Two, which we programmed on our recitals. Early on, when we commissioned Gerre Hancock to write a piece, he took the same title, A Fancy for Two. Sometimes we would play both of those duets because we didn't have enough literature. We would play solo organ literature and put a few duets on the program.

Ray: When we began to research duet organ literature, we found there wasn't a lot written. There are theses and dissertations that have identified unpublished manuscripts of duets, but we focused on what was published. There was so little of it that we decided to start commissioning works.

MVO: So you started commissioning music not only because you wanted to, but also out of necessity.

Ray: Right. The idea really came unexpectedly. In 1978, Dr. Arthur Wills from Ely Cathedral in England played a recital on our concert series at All Saints Church, Atlanta. The second half of the program comprised his own music. I really liked what I was hearing, so after the concert I asked him if he'd be interested in writing us an organ duet. He immediately accepted and that became our first commission.

Beth: Toccata for Two is one of our favorite pieces and we premiered it at Washington National Cathedral.

Ray: Next, we asked John Rutter to write Variations on an Easter Theme for us which we also premiered at Washington Cathedral. We found out that audiences, organists and music critics were very excited about the duets we were commissioning. In fact they still are almost 25 years later. Now we have over forty commissions that we've either arranged or had written for us. Three CDs later, we've recorded a lot of our own works and have the Chenault Organ Duet Library that's been published by Belwin Mills. Our mission is to get the work out there and leave a body of work for organists to perform and audiences to enjoy.

MVO: Do you play your duo repertoire for church services, or do you stick to solos?

Beth: For church services, we've played Callahan's Evensong, Philip Moore's Allegro, and Variations on an Easter Theme by Rutter.

Ray: We use almost all our repertoire, except the secular pieces, for preludes and postludes.

Beth: We have even played The Stars and Stripes Forever for the postlude near the 4th of July. Our former rector, the Right Rev. Harry H. Pritchett, Jr., played the cymbals and the entire congregation would cheer him on.

Ray: Talk about fun for the congregation--the minister playing cymbals. That's one time they all stay for the postlude. When the minister hits the first crash of the cymbals the congregation will break into applause, I can assure you.

Beth: It's just great fun and a wonderful way to make organ music and the organist more accessible to the parishioners.

Ray: Charlie Callahan has already written two compositions for the first Sunday when we'll play the new John-Paul Buzard pipe organ at our church for services on All Saints Sunday this November 2003. One of these is a duet postlude on Sine Nomine.

MVO: When commissioning a piece, do you give the composer specific ideas or do you let him have free rein?

Beth: We've done both. When we first started, we had some definite ideas. With Philip Moore, we asked him to listen to our recital at Yorkminster Cathedral and make a suggestion about what we might need on the program. He suggested sonata-allegro form, so he used that form for the third movement of the Triptych which he wrote for us over a time period of five years. This wonderful composition works nicely as a larger work in three movements or by featuring one of them in concert.

Ray: Being a bit of a composer myself, I believe it's important for the composer to have inspiration for a piece or a particular theme, because then you get your best music. In general, we're open-minded and accepting of whatever a composer feels inspired to do. We've been very happy with most of our commissions and they're all very different. It's wonderful to see composers being inspired by what they want to write. Take The Emerald Isle for instance. Charlie Callahan's homeland is Ireland. When he found out we were going to be recording our second CD at Washington Cathedral--he knows that organ very well, he lived in Washington--he said he knew exactly what he wanted to write--a piece based on Londonderry Air. He was inspired to write one of our most appealing organ duets. He never missed an opportunity to extract every ounce of beauty from that popular theme. Being from Ireland, it had a very special meaning for him.

Beth: Nicholas White has just written an arrangement of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera for us.

Ray: We wanted something fun for our audiences and Phantom is our favorite musical. Nick lives in New York. He loves musical theatre and plays jazz, so he was the ideal choice for this commission. When we commissioned him the first time, we specifically asked for an arrangement of Shenandoah, because Beth is from the little town of Shenandoah in Virginia. We love that beautiful folk tune and our audiences love it, too.

Beth: The Shenandoah River goes through my hometown, and some of the piece was cleverly written by Nick to sound like the rippling water. He also throws in Moon River and Strangers in the Night for added pleasure.

MVO: Do the composers usually give specific registrations in the scores?

Ray: Mostly they're very specific about what they want. Occasionally, they just give dynamic levels and registration suggestions. A lot of times we'll go back and ask them specifically what they want. It's a lot easier if they are specific, then we can take creative license, depending on the organ.

Beth: We've often had coaching sessions with the composer. Conrad Susa made only dynamic suggestions in Canticle. So we found it very helpful to play the duet for him and get his immediate feedback to our interpretation and registration.

Ray: Stephen Paulus has written for us Triumph of the Saint, a large symphonic type three-movement duet, which had only dynamic suggestions. We met with Steve and then he gave more specific registration suggestions. He waits to hear the piece first. It's fun to get the composer's input and ideas. You learn so much from them.

Beth: On the other hand, in the score of Rhapsody, which we premiered in Atlanta for the 1992 National AGO Convention, Naji Hakim was very specific.

Ray: He was specific to the stop, and it's rewarding to recreate that, even though his work is written with the French organ sound in mind. Some American organs do that more successfully than others, but you create that sound as best you can when you get to different instruments. Some of the composers write for four feet, some have Beth do most of the pedaling because she's sitting on the left hand side. In the Naji Hakim piece, we both have double pedaling which is an added sonority.

Beth: At one point in the last Allegro movement of Philip Moore's Triptyque, Ray almost gets off the organ bench as I move all the way up to high E on the pedalboard. The balance issue really comes into play and both players must be totally in sync in such instances.

Ray: You'll see me almost get up and stand beside the bench while I'm still playing just to get out of Beth's zone. She, at that point, becomes a solo player because the pedal work is the main focus. The full pedal resource is featuring the melody, and we're doubling the manual parts. Beth moves to the top of the pedalboard and then all the way back down. I just have to get out of the way. It's particularly entertaining for the audience at that moment.

Beth: Philip Moore could have chosen to write that for Ray but that's what makes each composer's assignments for the duetists challenging.

Ray: Most composers have not written organ duets, and they're curious as to the format and idiosyncrasies. Therefore, we generally send a couple of our duets so they can see how it works. It helps to clarify so much before the first note is even written.

MVO: They must need some kind of a primer about how physically the duet can work.

Ray: Of course, there isn't a primer for writing duets. That's when our previously written duets become an invaluable composing document sampler. Sometimes we go back to the composer and tell them that doesn't work. We'll make suggestions based on our experience. Usually they're happy to do what is needed, perhaps dividing up the territory differently than written. Also, if the piece really doesn't work, then we have to go back to the drawing table again. Most composers get it figured out with only slight revisions. It's a fascinating process.

MVO: I recall you mentioning that you need a 3-manual organ in order to perform your repertoire. Do you ever have to turn concert requests down because the setting won't work?

Beth: We had to turn one down last year because it was a two-manual organ. We used to play on two-manual instruments, but it's too hard as we need more keyboards and tonal colors to bring out accompaniment and solo lines. If you have two or three themes going at the same time, you wouldn't hear them on a two-manual instrument.

Ray: We have done some concerts on two manuals, and we have to do creative arranging of the duets to make it work. But a small two-manual organ is just too limiting. If it's a fairly large two-manual organ, it's possible, but we would have to be very careful with the selection of repertoire. We wouldn't be able to showcase the commissions the way they were intended to be performed.

As you can imagine, as we play more concerts and build our repertoire, there are certain types of duets we want, and we go to trusted composers who will write what we need for our programs--some more contemporary, some more audience friendly. It's important to reach all of your audience members. Hopefully each audience member will take away something from our concert that feels special to them, and perhaps that will bring them back to another organ concert.

MVO: What do you think about when you're putting a program together? What makes it a good concert?

Ray: A primary consideration is to be sure the pieces fit the unique qualities of the organ and acoustic. The longer we're in this business, the more we find our audiences are people who want programs that speak to them. They want performers who communicate and move them emotionally.

Beth: We know we are a unique couple--unique as a husband and wife offering an entire program of organ duets--all commissioned or arranged for us. Audiences are already open to our special fare. That gives us a wonderful opportunity to perform a program filled with musicality and warmth. Our concerts strive to connect with many human emotions.

Ray: We might draw people to our duet organ concert that the ordinary solo performer may not. Husband and wife duets? What's this?

Beth: Oh, are there two organs? Four hands, four feet? It's a curiosity.

Ray: People say, you're duo organists, does that mean you play two instruments? We could have gone that route, but look how much that would have minimized our performing venues. So we specialize in duets for two organists at one console. That works. We may attrtact fifty people to a recital who may never have been to an organ concert, who come out of curiosity.

Beth: Part of our mission is to get them to come back.

Ray: We purposely program music that is very audience friendly. But we also know that AGO members will attend and they want to hear something that's highbrow. So we do a mix, all the way from Naji Hakim's Rhapsody--fascinating and unique--to Londonderry Air or Shenandoah or Stars and Stripes. We begin our programs with more contemporary music and generally progress towards audience-friendly selections.

Beth: It has been interesting when we've played our Litaize Sonate à Duet commission. I just love it, but a lot of musicians will say, "Goodness, that's really modern isn't it?" I don't hear it that way, even when we read through it the first time. If musicians don't always like the piece, we might not play it on programs.

Ray: We have to be very careful when we program music by Litaize. At an AGO convention, which is where we did the premiere, you've got people present who understand and appreciate this kind of literature, mainly because they have had more university training. A lot of them are used to playing works of that nature, so they would appreciate it. But if you go to a small community that might not be used to hearing a lot of sophisticated organ music, it might turn them off. You've got to be very careful and sensitive to the nature and backgrounds of your audiences.

Beth: For a long time, a lot of people were turned off to organ music.

MVO: Let's talk about that. Some people say it's the fault of organists because they're not doing what they need to do to reach audiences, and organists complain that their concerts are not well-attended. How do you see the picture?

Beth: I think things are turning around. Organists play so many recitals for other organists. While that is wonderful, and you want your colleagues to come, that's not always who supports what you're doing. You've got to play something for parishioners and folks in the community. I don't want to be a lightweight, but I want to play something that average people can enjoy, something that will encourage them to come back again for another program, or maybe go out and buy a CD of organ music.

I love Messiaen, but you can't play 45 minutes of it, except maybe on your graduate recital. You can't play that kind of program for the average community of people who are coming to support your church that has a new pipe organ. They might not come back again.

Ray: We saw that happen at an all-Messiaen program many years ago.

Beth: People left in droves at intermission.

Ray: The die-hard organists stuck it out because they knew what they were hearing and it was a unique opportunity. Even many of the local organists left.

Beth: Many people didn't come back. They talked negatively about that recital for a long time.

Ray: We heard them say, "I'll never come back to another organ concert." That just breaks your heart. We really work hard at programming. Appealing programming and good playing is the absolute secret to making audiences feel good about an organ concert. People know that our programs are going to be warm and friendly and the audiences respond favorably. After the concerts, people tell us it was the most enjoyable organ concert they've ever attended. I don't know whether it's our playing or the fact that we're husband and wife or the repertoire or a combination of all these things. The longer we're in the recital business, the more we find that our mission is to bring people to organ concerts and to inspire them to come back again.

Beth: And come back to your church concert series. Because you may have not only organists performing, but also other types of concerts or events offered for your community.

Ray: For instance, particularly since 9/11, often for encores we play a duet by Charlie Callahan called Evensong. It's based on the Tallis Canon and Ar hyd y nos, two well-known evening hymns with prayerful and meditative texts. With all the war talk in our world, we're all feeling scared. After playing Evensong many people comment on how appreciative they feel for this calming musical offering. It's not anything that you can put into words, but when we play those two beautiful tunes and the organ ends very quietly, you can hear a pin drop. It leaves people in a very warm place, and somehow feeling that maybe things are going to be okay.

Beth: The Ar hyd y nos hymn text ends "Sleep my child, peace be with you, all through the night."

Ray: We played Evensong on a concert the day Desert Storm started. Beth and I were weeping as we were playing it. It was a very special performance. We played it a couple of weeks ago as well for an encore and again, with the talk of war with Iraq, it became quite emotional for us to perform it.

Beth: Ray is from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and recently there had been the sniper attacks. When we had gone to Virginia for his aunt's funeral, we stopped at the gasoline station where one of the men was shot. So that was fresh on our minds.

Ray: Evensong is an illustration of the kind of repertoire that we've commissioned over the years. We have duets in our repertoire that we can perform for the occasion or respond to what is happening in the world.

Beth: If you want something in particular, we've got enough variety to fill the request.

Ray: We've been ending our concerts with The Stars and Stripes Forever. Since 9/11, Americans have become a lot more patriotic and appreciative of what we have in the United States.

Beth: American musicians need to promote more American music.

Ray: One of our missions is to promote American music. It's not that we don't commission outside of the United States, but we primarily concentrate on encouraging American composers to write by giving them an opportunity through our duet commissions. This is a valuable lesson I learned from one of my former teachers, Dr. Paul Callaway. Paul premiered many choral and organ works as organist/choirmaster of Washington Cathedral. Perhaps there is no finer legacy for a musician.

MVO: How do you work on learning music?

Beth: First, we work the duet on the piano individually and learn the keyboard parts first, then take it to the organ adding the pedaling and registration. Then we'll put things together slowly, working on problem areas and interpretation. When we first started, we would take turns switching Primo and Secondo parto, but we found it was difficult because as a duet performer, your center is off anyway. It's easier to get to one side and stick with it. At least, that works best for us.

Ray: I usually tell an audience that playing duets is like driving a stick shift car but from the passenger seat.

MVO: Do you have certain roles? Does one of you perhaps work more on registration?

Beth: Ray primarily does registration and I go out in the performing hall to listen and make suggestions.

Ray: I'll be the one at the instrument trying things. It's great to have another pair of ears in the room. We've all been in a solo situation where the organ chamber is halfway down the nave and you can't hear balance. In our situation, even though obviously I can't play all the parts, I can play enough of the duet so that we know what it sounds like once Beth resumes her role of performer.

Beth: As we spend more time with each instrument in a two- to three-day period, we continually tweak our initial registrations.

Ray: We collaborate on everything. We don't need a page-turner because we very carefully work out who turns the pages, who pushes the pistons, who works the expression boxes. It's very carefully orchestrated to avoid a mid-air collision.

Beth: Also, we work together on the programming.

Ray: And we'll go shopping together for Beth's performing outfits. We really collaborate on everything--our career, our jobs, our marriage. We're right there together. We are amazingly compatible.

MVO: Tell me how you collaborate at All Saints Church and the Lovett School.

Beth: Ray is the organist and choir master. I accompany the anthems and service music. Usually I'm at the console and he's conducting.

Ray: Beth is the associate organist/choirmaster and she never gives herself enough credit for what she does. We'll divide the choir rehearsal and do sectionals. She does that at the Lovett School as well. We co-direct the three high school choirs and she is also the accompanist. She trains the middle school choirs, which is a great feeder program for the high school, and she takes rehearsals for the high school choirs when I have administrative duties as director of fine arts. At church, I do most of the conducting, but Beth does most of the accompanying of the anthems and a lot of the preparatory sectionals. We share the preludes and postludes on Sunday morning, and we share the hymn playing.

MVO: You're working together at school, at church, and you're performing together. What makes that work? You must have your moments.

Beth: We're together so much, our personalities just gel.

Ray: I know people think I'm lying when I say this, but we are so compatible, it's almost unbelievable.

Beth: I miss him I if I don't see him for two or three hours.

Ray: We're soul mates and we knew it the moment we laid eyes on each other.

MVO: It shows.

Ray: One of the great joys of playing duet recitals it that we get to travel together. That's a real bonus. When we first started, before we developed the duet repertoire, I was under management as a solo artist. I would go on two or three-week tours and I really missed Beth and discovered that concertizing wasn't nearly as enjoyable without her by my side.

Beth: It's no fun traveling alone, sitting in some hotel room by yourself.

Ray: We get to share all of these things. If we ever have a cranky word for each other it's usually when we've been through a long day and we're both just exhausted. I can count on one hand the few little spats we've had and they've been so minor it's not even worth talking about. We're very fortunate and know it.

Beth: It is true.

Ray: God knew what he was doing when he put us together. We're very grateful for the opportunities we have.

MVO: Your collaboration seems to feed everything you do. It certainly isn't an encumbrance, a feeling of being yoked together. It's just the opposite.

Ray: Exactly. It wouldn't work for everybody. Some people say I'd be divorced by now if I had to spend that much time with my mate! And many of them are!

MVO: I've noticed something else that I believe is part of why people love to come to your concerts. You've created an image for yourselves. You're glamorous. [They both laugh.] I must tell you this story. A year ago, I was discussing concerts for the next season with my music board. None of them had ever heard of you or heard you play. I had just received your new publicity photo, so I showed it to them. The board's immediate response was a vote in favor of you coming to play a concert here. [Uproarious laughter.] I offered to get some recordings for them to review, but the response was, "No, that won't be necessary, we can just tell they would be really good."

Ray: Gosh, the power of that photo.

MVO: Clearly, you put in the effort to make your performances something special. Beth, I love the glamorous gowns you wear. I think organists could stand to do more of that. Would you dress that way anyway, or do you consciously make an extra effort for your performances?

Beth: One of our dear departed friends, Emily Spivey, a very elegant lady and wonderful organist and the powerhouse behind that fabulous concert hall, Spivey Hall, just south of Atlanta, gave us great advice early in our careers. Emily taught me the importance of glamour. She actually told me what to play and what to wear. She was a southern grand dame. She said people love to see glamour, and with organists, often you either see their backs or you don't see them at all. Emily said, "Spice it up, honey."

Ray: People want to know you're going to sound good, but ultimately, I think they want to connect with the artist more than anything else. As we all know, most of the time we're stuck in the balcony or behind a screen. In a church situation on Sunday mornings we're in a choir robe. We're sort of untouchable people--like in the Wizard of Oz, the person behind the curtain. People want to have contact with the artist. The first image they're going to have is just as you've expressed. They're going to see the picture our agent distributes. They will either be drawn in by that image or not. When we're all out there in a pool, a large body of artists and organists, there's got to be something that's going to draw them to you. We enjoy the glamour of it, but just sitting here, the three of us, we like this as much as anything. In fact, the best part of having the opportunity to concertize is getting to meet great people like you.

Beth: I love that.

Ray: Our greatest mission is to make contact with people like you--to get to know wonderful musicians, to have the opportunity to meet an audience and talk with them afterwards and shake their hands. And you become a family to us once we've come to your community and experienced your generosity and warm hospitality. It means a lot to us, and we don't take that for granted. You've given up a great deal of your time and part of your music budget in order to open your church and this wonderful instrument to us. We've been on the other end of that, too. We know what it takes to host musicians and a concert series. It's not something to be taken lightly.

MVO: What do you see for the future? Do you have a wish list?

Ray: We've got a recording project in mind for the new organ John-Paul Buzard is building for our church.

Beth: We've been holding off, waiting for the new organ as we want to feature the exceptional work of this talented organ builder.

Ray: We want to do something in a more popular vein. That's why we've asked Nicholas White for an arrangement of the musical Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Beth: We also have a great arrangement of the William Tell Overture by Alan Gibbs of England.

Ray: That's one we're going to record, and of course, we have Shenandoah. We're looking for something more popular, something that would appeal to the non-organist as well as the organist.

MVO: As more great concert hall organs are being built, could you envision a duo organ concerto?

Ray: I think down the road we'll probably commission a concerto for two organists.

As we bring in fees from our organ concerts, we turn around and put the money into a commission. No one underwrites this other than us. One of our biggest missions is to accumulate a large body of organ duet literature for future generations. We're spending the money to do that.

Beth: We want to have all of our duets published and recorded. We hope others will be inspired to play them.

Ray: We want to be careful that we get the best use of our money with the pieces we commission. Would a concerto for two organists get that much of a hearing? Concertos don't get played that much in general. And it's more expensive to get two organists to play plus the added expense of an orchestra. I think that's an idea that we'll talk about, but we'll choose the composer carefully. We would want it to be a duet concerto that would have a long life after the premiere.

MVO: I hope I'm there to hear it. Is there anything else you would like to share?

Ray: We played a recital at a monastery a couple of weeks ago, a monastery that also has an all-male high school. It was an interesting opportunity for Beth and me, having had background in church work, concert work and teaching in school. We were able to tie in all of our backgrounds in one setting. While we were practicing, the choir director would bring his choral students over. We talked about the organ, entertained their questions, and played some duets. Later, I would go over and listen to them sing and give them some feedback on how well they were doing, some ideas. We were able to meet with the monks and talk with them about their religion, opposed to where we are as Episcopalians.

Beth: We ate with them in the cafeteria and had wonderful opportunities for dialogue.

Ray: We were just fascinated at the concert as some of the monks were in their 90s and were wheelchair bound.

Beth: They practically wheeled them right up to the console in a special reserved area.

Ray: As we walked off after taking our bows, we noticed some of the monks that couldn't get around and couldn't even talk much. We communicated mainly through the wonderful expressions on their faces. We would hug them and hold their hands.

Beth: There was one man who had cancer, I assume of the voice box. He held up a card. He couldn't speak, but he really communicated with his face. He wrote us a very moving letter of thanks and said he hoped we'd return again soon. That's when you know you're using your God-given talent in the right way.

Ray: He wanted to shake our hands and we could tell he really enjoyed the music. These are the memorable experiences: the people you meet and how you're able to communicate with them.

Beth: It was a unique opportunity, to be able to talk to the young men at the academy. One wants to major in piano. He was talking to us about where to go to school and asked our advice on his future. That can be a defining moment in a young musician's life.

Ray: You never know what will inspire somebody to major in organ, or to be a church organist. The three of us can sit here and think of great opportunities we've had in our lives when hearing a certain person play an organ concert or a certain piece really excited us. Or a certain organ that inspired you or a teacher who took that extra special time. It might have changed your life. That happened to me. I would never be an organist today had my sister not had an organ teacher, Mr. Harold Abmyer, who happened to end up in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It's surprising to have had such a fabulous beginning organ teacher--it's not a big city, it's a rural area. Mr. Abmyer went to Union Theological Seminary, he studied with Clarence Dickinson, Seth Bingham . . .

Beth: Harold Friedell and many of the great musicians of that era.

Ray: Mr. Abmyer had great teachers in New York, and when he found a talented organ student--he made it into an apprenticeship. He was so excited to be able to impart the knowledge from these great master teachers, that an hour lesson would turn into five hours on a Saturday. That man changed my life. I would never be here today if it were not for him and for my beloved parents. We've all had opportunities like that. It's never just another day or another concert. It's a wonderful opportunity to connect and make a difference in someone's life.

Beth: To connect with somebody, wherever they are.

Ray: It's a great life and we just love it. Hopefully Beth and I have made a difference.

Elizabeth and Raymond Chenault have blazed a trail for the art of the organ duet, enchanting audiences with their enjoyable performances and charming personalities and ensuring the future of the genre with a wealth of commissioned repertoire. When you meet the Chenaults, an easy rapport develops immediately, and you feel as if you've known them a long time. They are genuine, sincere, fun-loving people, and these qualities feed their mission to connect with people through their music.

Both their career as duo organists and their marriage span nearly 30 years. Natives of Virginia, the Chenaults attended Virginia Commonwealth University, marrying after graduation in 1972. Ray attended Cincinnati Conservatory to earn a master's degree, and they both studied organ with Wayne Fisher during that time. Following his master's studies, Ray spent a year as organ scholar at Washington National Cathedral. The Chenaults moved to Atlanta in 1975, taking the positions of organists and choir masters at All Saints Episcopal Church, where they direct the music program and concert series. A year later, positions at the Lovett School--Ray as director of fine arts and choral director of the Upper School, Beth as choral director of the Middle School--rounded out their professional life. The Chenaults are managed by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists.

I talked with them while they were in town to play a concert at the Glenview Community Church.

MVO: How did you get started performing duets?

Beth: When we started giving recitals, we thought it would be fun to play together because we're married. That was how we got started. Thomas Tomkins, the 16th-century British composer, wrote one of the earliest known organ duets, A Fancy for Two, which we programmed on our recitals. Early on, when we commissioned Gerre Hancock to write a piece, he took the same title, A Fancy for Two. Sometimes we would play both of those duets because we didn't have enough literature. We would play solo organ literature and put a few duets on the program.

Ray: When we began to research duet organ literature, we found there wasn't a lot written. There are theses and dissertations that have identified unpublished manuscripts of duets, but we focused on what was published. There was so little of it that we decided to start commissioning works.

MVO: So you started commissioning music not only because you wanted to, but also out of necessity.

Ray: Right. The idea really came unexpectedly. In 1978, Dr. Arthur Wills from Ely Cathedral in England played a recital on our concert series at All Saints Church, Atlanta. The second half of the program comprised his own music. I really liked what I was hearing, so after the concert I asked him if he'd be interested in writing us an organ duet. He immediately accepted and that became our first commission.

Beth: Toccata for Two is one of our favorite pieces and we premiered it at Washington National Cathedral.

Ray: Next, we asked John Rutter to write Variations on an Easter Theme for us which we also premiered at Washington Cathedral. We found out that audiences, organists and music critics were very excited about the duets we were commissioning. In fact they still are almost 25 years later. Now we have over forty commissions that we've either arranged or had written for us. Three CDs later, we've recorded a lot of our own works and have the Chenault Organ Duet Library that's been published by Belwin Mills. Our mission is to get the work out there and leave a body of work for organists to perform and audiences to enjoy.

MVO: Do you play your duo repertoire for church services, or do you stick to solos?

Beth: For church services, we've played Callahan's Evensong, Philip Moore's Allegro, and Variations on an Easter Theme by Rutter.

Ray: We use almost all our repertoire, except the secular pieces, for preludes and postludes.

Beth: We have even played The Stars and Stripes Forever for the postlude near the 4th of July. Our former rector, the Right Rev. Harry H. Pritchett, Jr., played the cymbals and the entire congregation would cheer him on.

Ray: Talk about fun for the congregation--the minister playing cymbals. That's one time they all stay for the postlude. When the minister hits the first crash of the cymbals the congregation will break into applause, I can assure you.

Beth: It's just great fun and a wonderful way to make organ music and the organist more accessible to the parishioners.

Ray: Charlie Callahan has already written two compositions for the first Sunday when we'll play the new John-Paul Buzard pipe organ at our church for services on All Saints Sunday this November 2003. One of these is a duet postlude on Sine Nomine.

MVO: When commissioning a piece, do you give the composer specific ideas or do you let him have free rein?

Beth: We've done both. When we first started, we had some definite ideas. With Philip Moore, we asked him to listen to our recital at Yorkminster Cathedral and make a suggestion about what we might need on the program. He suggested sonata-allegro form, so he used that form for the third movement of the Triptych which he wrote for us over a time period of five years. This wonderful composition works nicely as a larger work in three movements or by featuring one of them in concert.

Ray: Being a bit of a composer myself, I believe it's important for the composer to have inspiration for a piece or a particular theme, because then you get your best music. In general, we're open-minded and accepting of whatever a composer feels inspired to do. We've been very happy with most of our commissions and they're all very different. It's wonderful to see composers being inspired by what they want to write. Take The Emerald Isle for instance. Charlie Callahan's homeland is Ireland. When he found out we were going to be recording our second CD at Washington Cathedral--he knows that organ very well, he lived in Washington--he said he knew exactly what he wanted to write--a piece based on Londonderry Air. He was inspired to write one of our most appealing organ duets. He never missed an opportunity to extract every ounce of beauty from that popular theme. Being from Ireland, it had a very special meaning for him.

Beth: Nicholas White has just written an arrangement of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera for us.

Ray: We wanted something fun for our audiences and Phantom is our favorite musical. Nick lives in New York. He loves musical theatre and plays jazz, so he was the ideal choice for this commission. When we commissioned him the first time, we specifically asked for an arrangement of Shenandoah, because Beth is from the little town of Shenandoah in Virginia. We love that beautiful folk tune and our audiences love it, too.

Beth: The Shenandoah River goes through my hometown, and some of the piece was cleverly written by Nick to sound like the rippling water. He also throws in Moon River and Strangers in the Night for added pleasure.

MVO: Do the composers usually give specific registrations in the scores?

Ray: Mostly they're very specific about what they want. Occasionally, they just give dynamic levels and registration suggestions. A lot of times we'll go back and ask them specifically what they want. It's a lot easier if they are specific, then we can take creative license, depending on the organ.

Beth: We've often had coaching sessions with the composer. Conrad Susa made only dynamic suggestions in Canticle. So we found it very helpful to play the duet for him and get his immediate feedback to our interpretation and registration.

Ray: Stephen Paulus has written for us Triumph of the Saint, a large symphonic type three-movement duet, which had only dynamic suggestions. We met with Steve and then he gave more specific registration suggestions. He waits to hear the piece first. It's fun to get the composer's input and ideas. You learn so much from them.

Beth: On the other hand, in the score of Rhapsody, which we premiered in Atlanta for the 1992 National AGO Convention, Naji Hakim was very specific.

Ray: He was specific to the stop, and it's rewarding to recreate that, even though his work is written with the French organ sound in mind. Some American organs do that more successfully than others, but you create that sound as best you can when you get to different instruments. Some of the composers write for four feet, some have Beth do most of the pedaling because she's sitting on the left hand side. In the Naji Hakim piece, we both have double pedaling which is an added sonority.

Beth: At one point in the last Allegro movement of Philip Moore's Triptyque, Ray almost gets off the organ bench as I move all the way up to high E on the pedalboard. The balance issue really comes into play and both players must be totally in sync in such instances.

Ray: You'll see me almost get up and stand beside the bench while I'm still playing just to get out of Beth's zone. She, at that point, becomes a solo player because the pedal work is the main focus. The full pedal resource is featuring the melody, and we're doubling the manual parts. Beth moves to the top of the pedalboard and then all the way back down. I just have to get out of the way. It's particularly entertaining for the audience at that moment.

Beth: Philip Moore could have chosen to write that for Ray but that's what makes each composer's assignments for the duetists challenging.

Ray: Most composers have not written organ duets, and they're curious as to the format and idiosyncrasies. Therefore, we generally send a couple of our duets so they can see how it works. It helps to clarify so much before the first note is even written.

MVO: They must need some kind of a primer about how physically the duet can work.

Ray: Of course, there isn't a primer for writing duets. That's when our previously written duets become an invaluable composing document sampler. Sometimes we go back to the composer and tell them that doesn't work. We'll make suggestions based on our experience. Usually they're happy to do what is needed, perhaps dividing up the territory differently than written. Also, if the piece really doesn't work, then we have to go back to the drawing table again. Most composers get it figured out with only slight revisions. It's a fascinating process.

MVO: I recall you mentioning that you need a 3-manual organ in order to perform your repertoire. Do you ever have to turn concert requests down because the setting won't work?

Beth: We had to turn one down last year because it was a two-manual organ. We used to play on two-manual instruments, but it's too hard as we need more keyboards and tonal colors to bring out accompaniment and solo lines. If you have two or three themes going at the same time, you wouldn't hear them on a two-manual instrument.

Ray: We have done some concerts on two manuals, and we have to do creative arranging of the duets to make it work. But a small two-manual organ is just too limiting. If it's a fairly large two-manual organ, it's possible, but we would have to be very careful with the selection of repertoire. We wouldn't be able to showcase the commissions the way they were intended to be performed.

As you can imagine, as we play more concerts and build our repertoire, there are certain types of duets we want, and we go to trusted composers who will write what we need for our programs--some more contemporary, some more audience friendly. It's important to reach all of your audience members. Hopefully each audience member will take away something from our concert that feels special to them, and perhaps that will bring them back to another organ concert.

MVO: What do you think about when you're putting a program together? What makes it a good concert?

Ray: A primary consideration is to be sure the pieces fit the unique qualities of the organ and acoustic. The longer we're in this business, the more we find our audiences are people who want programs that speak to them. They want performers who communicate and move them emotionally.

Beth: We know we are a unique couple--unique as a husband and wife offering an entire program of organ duets--all commissioned or arranged for us. Audiences are already open to our special fare. That gives us a wonderful opportunity to perform a program filled with musicality and warmth. Our concerts strive to connect with many human emotions.

Ray: We might draw people to our duet organ concert that the ordinary solo performer may not. Husband and wife duets? What's this?

Beth: Oh, are there two organs? Four hands, four feet? It's a curiosity.

Ray: People say, you're duo organists, does that mean you play two instruments? We could have gone that route, but look how much that would have minimized our performing venues. So we specialize in duets for two organists at one console. That works. We may attrtact fifty people to a recital who may never have been to an organ concert, who come out of curiosity.

Beth: Part of our mission is to get them to come back.

Ray: We purposely program music that is very audience friendly. But we also know that AGO members will attend and they want to hear something that's highbrow. So we do a mix, all the way from Naji Hakim's Rhapsody--fascinating and unique--to Londonderry Air or Shenandoah or Stars and Stripes. We begin our programs with more contemporary music and generally progress towards audience-friendly selections.

Beth: It has been interesting when we've played our Litaize Sonate à Duet commission. I just love it, but a lot of musicians will say, "Goodness, that's really modern isn't it?" I don't hear it that way, even when we read through it the first time. If musicians don't always like the piece, we might not play it on programs.

Ray: We have to be very careful when we program music by Litaize. At an AGO convention, which is where we did the premiere, you've got people present who understand and appreciate this kind of literature, mainly because they have had more university training. A lot of them are used to playing works of that nature, so they would appreciate it. But if you go to a small community that might not be used to hearing a lot of sophisticated organ music, it might turn them off. You've got to be very careful and sensitive to the nature and backgrounds of your audiences.

Beth: For a long time, a lot of people were turned off to organ music.

MVO: Let's talk about that. Some people say it's the fault of organists because they're not doing what they need to do to reach audiences, and organists complain that their concerts are not well-attended. How do you see the picture?

Beth: I think things are turning around. Organists play so many recitals for other organists. While that is wonderful, and you want your colleagues to come, that's not always who supports what you're doing. You've got to play something for parishioners and folks in the community. I don't want to be a lightweight, but I want to play something that average people can enjoy, something that will encourage them to come back again for another program, or maybe go out and buy a CD of organ music.

I love Messiaen, but you can't play 45 minutes of it, except maybe on your graduate recital. You can't play that kind of program for the average community of people who are coming to support your church that has a new pipe organ. They might not come back again.

Ray: We saw that happen at an all-Messiaen program many years ago.

Beth: People left in droves at intermission.

Ray: The die-hard organists stuck it out because they knew what they were hearing and it was a unique opportunity. Even many of the local organists left.

Beth: Many people didn't come back. They talked negatively about that recital for a long time.

Ray: We heard them say, "I'll never come back to another organ concert." That just breaks your heart. We really work hard at programming. Appealing programming and good playing is the absolute secret to making audiences feel good about an organ concert. People know that our programs are going to be warm and friendly and the audiences respond favorably. After the concerts, people tell us it was the most enjoyable organ concert they've ever attended. I don't know whether it's our playing or the fact that we're husband and wife or the repertoire or a combination of all these things. The longer we're in the recital business, the more we find that our mission is to bring people to organ concerts and to inspire them to come back again.

Beth: And come back to your church concert series. Because you may have not only organists performing, but also other types of concerts or events offered for your community.

Ray: For instance, particularly since 9/11, often for encores we play a duet by Charlie Callahan called Evensong. It's based on the Tallis Canon and Ar hyd y nos, two well-known evening hymns with prayerful and meditative texts. With all the war talk in our world, we're all feeling scared. After playing Evensong many people comment on how appreciative they feel for this calming musical offering. It's not anything that you can put into words, but when we play those two beautiful tunes and the organ ends very quietly, you can hear a pin drop. It leaves people in a very warm place, and somehow feeling that maybe things are going to be okay.

Beth: The Ar hyd y nos hymn text ends "Sleep my child, peace be with you, all through the night."

Ray: We played Evensong on a concert the day Desert Storm started. Beth and I were weeping as we were playing it. It was a very special performance. We played it a couple of weeks ago as well for an encore and again, with the talk of war with Iraq, it became quite emotional for us to perform it.

Beth: Ray is from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and recently there had been the sniper attacks. When we had gone to Virginia for his aunt's funeral, we stopped at the gasoline station where one of the men was shot. So that was fresh on our minds.

Ray: Evensong is an illustration of the kind of repertoire that we've commissioned over the years. We have duets in our repertoire that we can perform for the occasion or respond to what is happening in the world.

Beth: If you want something in particular, we've got enough variety to fill the request.

Ray: We've been ending our concerts with The Stars and Stripes Forever. Since 9/11, Americans have become a lot more patriotic and appreciative of what we have in the United States.

Beth: American musicians need to promote more American music.

Ray: One of our missions is to promote American music. It's not that we don't commission outside of the United States, but we primarily concentrate on encouraging American composers to write by giving them an opportunity through our duet commissions. This is a valuable lesson I learned from one of my former teachers, Dr. Paul Callaway. Paul premiered many choral and organ works as organist/choirmaster of Washington Cathedral. Perhaps there is no finer legacy for a musician.

MVO: How do you work on learning music?

Beth: First, we work the duet on the piano individually and learn the keyboard parts first, then take it to the organ adding the pedaling and registration. Then we'll put things together slowly, working on problem areas and interpretation. When we first started, we would take turns switching Primo and Secondo parto, but we found it was difficult because as a duet performer, your center is off anyway. It's easier to get to one side and stick with it. At least, that works best for us.

Ray: I usually tell an audience that playing duets is like driving a stick shift car but from the passenger seat.

MVO: Do you have certain roles? Does one of you perhaps work more on registration?

Beth: Ray primarily does registration and I go out in the performing hall to listen and make suggestions.

Ray: I'll be the one at the instrument trying things. It's great to have another pair of ears in the room. We've all been in a solo situation where the organ chamber is halfway down the nave and you can't hear balance. In our situation, even though obviously I can't play all the parts, I can play enough of the duet so that we know what it sounds like once Beth resumes her role of performer.

Beth: As we spend more time with each instrument in a two- to three-day period, we continually tweak our initial registrations.

Ray: We collaborate on everything. We don't need a page-turner because we very carefully work out who turns the pages, who pushes the pistons, who works the expression boxes. It's very carefully orchestrated to avoid a mid-air collision.

Beth: Also, we work together on the programming.

Ray: And we'll go shopping together for Beth's performing outfits. We really collaborate on everything--our career, our jobs, our marriage. We're right there together. We are amazingly compatible.

MVO: Tell me how you collaborate at All Saints Church and the Lovett School.

Beth: Ray is the organist and choir master. I accompany the anthems and service music. Usually I'm at the console and he's conducting.

Ray: Beth is the associate organist/choirmaster and she never gives herself enough credit for what she does. We'll divide the choir rehearsal and do sectionals. She does that at the Lovett School as well. We co-direct the three high school choirs and she is also the accompanist. She trains the middle school choirs, which is a great feeder program for the high school, and she takes rehearsals for the high school choirs when I have administrative duties as director of fine arts. At church, I do most of the conducting, but Beth does most of the accompanying of the anthems and a lot of the preparatory sectionals. We share the preludes and postludes on Sunday morning, and we share the hymn playing.

MVO: You're working together at school, at church, and you're performing together. What makes that work? You must have your moments.

Beth: We're together so much, our personalities just gel.

Ray: I know people think I'm lying when I say this, but we are so compatible, it's almost unbelievable.

Beth: I miss him I if I don't see him for two or three hours.

Ray: We're soul mates and we knew it the moment we laid eyes on each other.

MVO: It shows.

Ray: One of the great joys of playing duet recitals it that we get to travel together. That's a real bonus. When we first started, before we developed the duet repertoire, I was under management as a solo artist. I would go on two or three-week tours and I really missed Beth and discovered that concertizing wasn't nearly as enjoyable without her by my side.

Beth: It's no fun traveling alone, sitting in some hotel room by yourself.

Ray: We get to share all of these things. If we ever have a cranky word for each other it's usually when we've been through a long day and we're both just exhausted. I can count on one hand the few little spats we've had and they've been so minor it's not even worth talking about. We're very fortunate and know it.

Beth: It is true.

Ray: God knew what he was doing when he put us together. We're very grateful for the opportunities we have.

MVO: Your collaboration seems to feed everything you do. It certainly isn't an encumbrance, a feeling of being yoked together. It's just the opposite.

Ray: Exactly. It wouldn't work for everybody. Some people say I'd be divorced by now if I had to spend that much time with my mate! And many of them are!

MVO: I've noticed something else that I believe is part of why people love to come to your concerts. You've created an image for yourselves. You're glamorous. [They both laugh.] I must tell you this story. A year ago, I was discussing concerts for the next season with my music board. None of them had ever heard of you or heard you play. I had just received your new publicity photo, so I showed it to them. The board's immediate response was a vote in favor of you coming to play a concert here. [Uproarious laughter.] I offered to get some recordings for them to review, but the response was, "No, that won't be necessary, we can just tell they would be really good."

Ray: Gosh, the power of that photo.

MVO: Clearly, you put in the effort to make your performances something special. Beth, I love the glamorous gowns you wear. I think organists could stand to do more of that. Would you dress that way anyway, or do you consciously make an extra effort for your performances?

Beth: One of our dear departed friends, Emily Spivey, a very elegant lady and wonderful organist and the powerhouse behind that fabulous concert hall, Spivey Hall, just south of Atlanta, gave us great advice early in our careers. Emily taught me the importance of glamour. She actually told me what to play and what to wear. She was a southern grand dame. She said people love to see glamour, and with organists, often you either see their backs or you don't see them at all. Emily said, "Spice it up, honey."

Ray: People want to know you're going to sound good, but ultimately, I think they want to connect with the artist more than anything else. As we all know, most of the time we're stuck in the balcony or behind a screen. In a church situation on Sunday mornings we're in a choir robe. We're sort of untouchable people--like in the Wizard of Oz, the person behind the curtain. People want to have contact with the artist. The first image they're going to have is just as you've expressed. They're going to see the picture our agent distributes. They will either be drawn in by that image or not. When we're all out there in a pool, a large body of artists and organists, there's got to be something that's going to draw them to you. We enjoy the glamour of it, but just sitting here, the three of us, we like this as much as anything. In fact, the best part of having the opportunity to concertize is getting to meet great people like you.

Beth: I love that.

Ray: Our greatest mission is to make contact with people like you--to get to know wonderful musicians, to have the opportunity to meet an audience and talk with them afterwards and shake their hands. And you become a family to us once we've come to your community and experienced your generosity and warm hospitality. It means a lot to us, and we don't take that for granted. You've given up a great deal of your time and part of your music budget in order to open your church and this wonderful instrument to us. We've been on the other end of that, too. We know what it takes to host musicians and a concert series. It's not something to be taken lightly.

MVO: What do you see for the future? Do you have a wish list?

Ray: We've got a recording project in mind for the new organ John-Paul Buzard is building for our church.

Beth: We've been holding off, waiting for the new organ as we want to feature the exceptional work of this talented organ builder.

Ray: We want to do something in a more popular vein. That's why we've asked Nicholas White for an arrangement of the musical Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Beth: We also have a great arrangement of the William Tell Overture by Alan Gibbs of England.

Ray: That's one we're going to record, and of course, we have Shenandoah. We're looking for something more popular, something that would appeal to the non-organist as well as the organist.

MVO: As more great concert hall organs are being built, could you envision a duo organ concerto?

Ray: I think down the road we'll probably commission a concerto for two organists.

As we bring in fees from our organ concerts, we turn around and put the money into a commission. No one underwrites this other than us. One of our biggest missions is to accumulate a large body of organ duet literature for future generations. We're spending the money to do that.

Beth: We want to have all of our duets published and recorded. We hope others will be inspired to play them.

Ray: We want to be careful that we get the best use of our money with the pieces we commission. Would a concerto for two organists get that much of a hearing? Concertos don't get played that much in general. And it's more expensive to get two organists to play plus the added expense of an orchestra. I think that's an idea that we'll talk about, but we'll choose the composer carefully. We would want it to be a duet concerto that would have a long life after the premiere.

MVO: I hope I'm there to hear it. Is there anything else you would like to share?

Ray: We played a recital at a monastery a couple of weeks ago, a monastery that also has an all-male high school. It was an interesting opportunity for Beth and me, having had background in church work, concert work and teaching in school. We were able to tie in all of our backgrounds in one setting. While we were practicing, the choir director would bring his choral students over. We talked about the organ, entertained their questions, and played some duets. Later, I would go over and listen to them sing and give them some feedback on how well they were doing, some ideas. We were able to meet with the monks and talk with them about their religion, opposed to where we are as Episcopalians.

Beth: We ate with them in the cafeteria and had wonderful opportunities for dialogue.

Ray: We were just fascinated at the concert as some of the monks were in their 90s and were wheelchair bound.

Beth: They practically wheeled them right up to the console in a special reserved area.

Ray: As we walked off after taking our bows, we noticed some of the monks that couldn't get around and couldn't even talk much. We communicated mainly through the wonderful expressions on their faces. We would hug them and hold their hands.

Beth: There was one man who had cancer, I assume of the voice box. He held up a card. He couldn't speak, but he really communicated with his face. He wrote us a very moving letter of thanks and said he hoped we'd return again soon. That's when you know you're using your God-given talent in the right way.

Ray: He wanted to shake our hands and we could tell he really enjoyed the music. These are the memorable experiences: the people you meet and how you're able to communicate with them.

Beth: It was a unique opportunity, to be able to talk to the young men at the academy. One wants to major in piano. He was talking to us about where to go to school and asked our advice on his future. That can be a defining moment in a young musician's life.

Ray: You never know what will inspire somebody to major in organ, or to be a church organist. The three of us can sit here and think of great opportunities we've had in our lives when hearing a certain person play an organ concert or a certain piece really excited us. Or a certain organ that inspired you or a teacher who took that extra special time. It might have changed your life. That happened to me. I would never be an organist today had my sister not had an organ teacher, Mr. Harold Abmyer, who happened to end up in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It's surprising to have had such a fabulous beginning organ teacher--it's not a big city, it's a rural area. Mr. Abmyer went to Union Theological Seminary, he studied with Clarence Dickinson, Seth Bingham . . .

Beth: Harold Friedell and many of the great musicians of that era.

Ray: Mr. Abmyer had great teachers in New York, and when he found a talented organ student--he made it into an apprenticeship. He was so excited to be able to impart the knowledge from these great master teachers, that an hour lesson would turn into five hours on a Saturday. That man changed my life. I would never be here today if it were not for him and for my beloved parents. We've all had opportunities like that. It's never just another day or another concert. It's a wonderful opportunity to connect and make a difference in someone's life.

Beth: To connect with somebody, wherever they are.

Ray: It's a great life and we just love it. Hopefully Beth and I have made a difference.