Richard Proulx to be honored by Chicago <i>a cappella</i>

Richard Hillert died February 18. He was Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus at Concordia University Chicago, River Forest, Illinois, and was best known for his work as a composer and composition teacher. One of his most noted works is Worthy Is Christ, of which “This is the Feast of Victory” has been widely published in various worship books.
Hillert received his bachelor’s degree in education from Concordia, and master’s and doctoral degrees in composition from Northwestern University. He also studied composition with Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi. Hillert taught at Concordia from 1959 to 2003. He edited eleven volumes of the Concordia Hymn Prelude Series and was associate editor of the journal Church Music (1966–80).
Hillert’s compositions and publications include liturgical music for congregation, choral motets, hymns and hymn anthems, psalm settings and organ works, concertatos, and cantatas, including settings of The Christmas Story According to Saint Luke and The Passion According to Saint John. Richard Hillert is survived by his wife Gloria Bonnin Hillert, and children Kathryn Brewer, Virginia Hillert, and Jonathan Hillert.

Rev. Richard D. Howell died January 26 in Dallas, Texas. Born June 24, 1932 in Great Bend, Kansas, he earned a master of sacred music degree from Southern Methodist University, and was ordained a deacon in the United Methodist Church. He started playing for church services at age 13, and went on to serve numerous United Methodist congregations in Texas and taught elementary music for the Richardson and Dallas school districts. He played for children’s, youth, and adult choirs and directed handbell choirs, serving as the chairman of the Dallas Handbell Festival. He was active in many organizations, including the American Guild of Organists, Choristers Guild, and the Fellowship of United Methodist Musicians. Richard D. Howell is survived by his wife of 52 years, Bradley Sue Howell, children Mark and Teri Howell, Celeste and Martin Hlavenka, and Jane Walker, along with grandchildren, sisters-in-law, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Richard Proulx died February 18 at age 72. From 1980 to 1994, he was organist–music director at the Cathedral of the Holy Name in Chicago, where he was also responsible for the planning and installation of two new mechanical-action organs for the cathedral: Casavant II/19 (Quebec, 1981) and Flentrop IV/71 (Holland, 1989). Before coming to Chicago, he served at St. Thomas Church, Medina/Seattle (1970–1980), and was organist at Temple de Hirsch Sinai. Previous positions included St. Charles Parish, Tacoma; St. Stephen’s Church, Seattle; and 15 years (1953–1968) at the Church of the Holy Childhood in St. Paul.
A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, he attended MacPhail College and the University of Minnesota, with further studies undertaken at the American Boychoir School at Princeton, St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, and the Royal School of Church Music in England. He studied organ with Ruth Dindorf, Arthur Jennings, Rupert Sircom, Gerald Bales, and Peter Hallock; choral conducting with Bruce Larsen, Donald Brost, and Peter Hallock; composition with Leopold Bruenner, Theodore Ganshaw, Bruce Larsen, and Gerald Bales.
Proulx was a widely published composer of more than 300 works, including congregational music, sacred and secular choral works, song cycles, two operas, and instrumental and organ music. He served as consultant for The Hymnal 1982, the New Yale Hymnal, the Methodist Hymnal, Worship II and III, and contributed to the Mennonite Hymnal and the Presbyterian Hymnal.

Phyllis J. Stringham, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, died February 12 at the age of 79. Born January 30, 1931 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Calvin College and a Master of Music degree in organ performance at the University of Michigan. Her organ teachers included John Hamersma, Robert Noehren, and Marilyn Mason. She pursued additional study at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, studying with Nadia Boulanger and André Marchal. In 1966 she studied with Marie-Claire Alain and Anton Heiller at the Summer Academy for Organists in Haarlem, Holland. While on sabbatical leave in 1972, she spent five months studying at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria. Further study was done at the Eastman School of Music with Russell Saunders, and with Delbert Disselhorst at the University of Iowa.
For 43 years, Stringham was Professor of Music and College Organist at Carroll University, Waukesha, Wisconsin (1959–2002). After retirement from teaching, she retained her position as College Organist and Curator of the Organ. In 2007 she was named Organist Emeritus. Her earlier teaching career began at Chatham Hall, an Episcopal school in Virginia. She is listed in Who’s Who in the World of Music. From the late 1960s to 2007 she operated the Phyllis Stringham Concert Management agency. She served the AGO as dean of the Milwaukee chapter and as Wisconsin State Chair.
Phyllis Stringham is survived by her brother James A. (Gladys), nephews, many grandnephews, nieces, other relatives and friends. A memorial service was held February 18 at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Waukesha.

Gail Walton, director of music at the University of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart, died February 24 in Indianapolis after a long illness. She was 55 years old. Dr. Walton had served as director of music in the Basilica since 1988, directing the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir as well as the Basilica Schola, which she founded in 1989. She held degrees from Westminster Choir College and the Eastman School of Music, where she earned the doctor of musical arts degree in organ performance, and was awarded the performer’s certificate. Before joining the basilica staff, she taught organ at Goshen College.
Gail Walton performed throughout the midwestern United States and played concerts in the German cities of Bonn, Heidenheim, Mainz, and Rottenburg/Neckar in the summer of 1991. In the summer of 1995, she took the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir on a tour of Italy, giving performances in Florence, Milan, Assisi, and Rome. She frequently played duo recitals with her husband, organist and Notre Dame music professor Craig Cramer.

Allan Wicks, a leading cathedral organist of his generation, died February 4 at age 86. He played a crucial role during the 1950s and 60s in bringing modern works by Messiaen, Maxwell Davies, Stravinsky, and Britten into the regular cathedral repertory. Born in Harden, Yorkshire, on June 6, 1923, the son of a clergyman, Wicks became organ scholar at Christ Church, Oxford in 1942, where he studied under Thomas Armstrong. He became sub-organist at York Minster in 1947, then in 1954 organist and master of the choristers of Manchester Cathedral. During his time there, he oversaw the rebuilding of the war-damaged organ, and championed the music of Peter Maxwell Davies and Malcolm Williamson. He also regularly conducted Stravinsky’s Canticum Sacrum.
In 1961 he was appointed organist and master of the choristers of Canterbury Cathedral, a post he held until 1988.There he regularly performed music by such composers as Messiaen, Ligeti, Tippett, Lennox Berkeley, and Alan Ridout. Wicks made several recordings, released on LP but yet to be issued on CD, of works by Alan Ridout, Messiaen (notably La nativité du Seigneur), Bach, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Franck, Widor, Alain and Reger. Wicks retired from Canterbury in 1988, having served under three archbishops and taught several generations of choristers.

James McCray, Professor of Music at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, retired after more than 40 years of teaching. He taught for 25 of them at CSU, and for 10 years he was the Chairman of Music, Theatre, and Dance Department. He has published 25 scholarly articles in various national and international journals such as The American Organist, Music Educator’s Journal, The Choral Journal, and several others. He served a two-year term as the head editor for The Choral Journal. For over 30 years he has written a monthly column on choral music for The Diapason. He is the author of three books; a fourth will be published sometime next year. As a composer, Dr. McCray has published over 100 choral works. He has had commissions from Yale University, Florida All-State Choirs, Texas Music Educators’ Association, and many other colleges, public and private schools, and churches throughout the U.S. He has received the Professor of the Year award from two separate universities (in Virginia and Florida). Dr. McCray was one of 11 Americans designated for the 1992–93 Outstanding Music Educator Award, and in 1992 he received the Orpheus Award, the highest award given by Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. The award read “For significant and lasting contributions to the cause of music in America.”

How did choral music start in the United States?

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.
—Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass1

Prologue

Unlike political history, American choral music did not immediately burst forth with significant people and events. Choral music certainly existed in America since the Colonial Period, but it was not until the twentieth century that its impact was significant. The last half of the twentieth century saw an explosion of interest in choral music unprecedented in the history of the country. American choral music came of age on a truly national level, and through the expansion of music education, technology, professional organizations, and available materials, the interest in choral singing escalated dramatically.
It is possible to trace the history of American choral music from its two most basic perspectives:
1. Music that had a functional purpose (sacred)
2. Music created for artistic purposes (secular)
In the early days of America, issues such as food, shelter, and clothing were foremost in the minds of the people. As America became more affluent, the need for greater diversions increased. Music’s purposes reached beyond the amateur, and geographical tastes dictated ever-changing styles and requirements.
Of course the true native Americans were American Indians, but their music remained localized. As an oral tradition, preservation through notation was not a major factor. They and their culture became a minority, and, in many regrettable ways, an unfortunate footnote in American music history. For a detailed account of this true American music see Daniel Kingman, American Music: A Panorama,2 and “Native Pioneers” in Gilbert Chase’s American Music.3 Their influence on the development of American choral music is negligible, although twentieth-century composers have employed some of its characteristics in selected works.
The veritable seeds of American music can be found in the religious traditions carried to the new world by transplanted Europeans. The settlers came seeking religious freedom, but, in so doing, they helped create a narrowly focused view of choral music, which took many years to nurture and broaden. In a penetrating study, The Anthem in England and America by Elwyn A. Wienandt and Robert H. Young, the authors point out:

Austerity also characterized Puritan religious musical expression. While it is true that Puritans have been unjustly accused of a general negative attitude toward the arts, it nevertheless remains that their practice of church music could be sung in unison without accompaniment, and nothing more.4

The early pioneers who came to this country brought with them two types of music: religious and folk. Both played major roles in the musical milieu, but the functional need for church music helped promote choral works. Nearly forgotten are the Huguenot settlements in Florida, which occurred almost fifty years before the landing of the Pilgrims; their music was transplanted and certainly not an original American style. The Puritans in seventeenth-century New England imported the Psalm-singing traditions of the Reformation. Since religion dominated their lives and the lives of everyone in the community even if they were not members of the church, religious music naturally took precedence over that of the secular world. Percy Scholes, in The Puritans and Music in England and New England, corrected the unfortunate stereotype of the Puritans as being universally opposed to music and the fine arts in general.5 Folk music was used on special occasions, but church music was always present. The folk music that survived continued to be transformed throughout succeeding generations, and American folk art prospered and changed during the growth and expansion of the new civilization.

Overview: the 18th century

As the eighteenth century progressed, New England established a more solid, humanized social identity, and it is here where the true “art music” had its foundations. European thinking continued to dominate the music, but because American amateurs were the creators and re-creators, a less professional posture evolved. These stalwart American composers began to create a new personality that represented their culture.
Some of these “native” American musicians are familiar to today’s choral directors, not because of the compelling quality of their music, but more often as an historical contrast to the sophisticated European music of that time. It is highly doubtful that most conductors who program early American choral music do so because they and their audiences are attracted to the beauty and ingenuity of the music, but then that is true with many types of concert music. A high quality level of this music should not be expected—these composers were “Yankee tunesmiths”,6 as labeled by H. Wiley Hitchcock, because they did not have the cultural development and training of their professional European counterparts.
Some of the early American composers whose music remains modestly present in today’s choral repertoire include:
Supply Belcher (1751–1836)
William Billings (1746–1800)
Elkanah Kelsay Dare (1782–1826)
Jacob French (1754–1817)
Christian Gregor (1723–1801)
Uri K. Hill (1802–1875)
Oliver Holden (1765–1844)
Jeremiah Ingalls (1764–1838)
Stephen Jenks (1772–1856)
Justin Morgan (1747–1798)
Timothy Olmstead (1759–1848)
Daniel Read (1757–1856), and
Timothy Swan (1758–1842).
They had professions other than music. For example, Supply Belcher was a tavern keeper; William Billings, a tanner; Oliver Holden, a carpenter; Justin Morgan, a horse breeder; and Daniel Read, a comb maker. Their music is available in performing editions because of the research and effort of musicians in the last half of the twentieth century such as Leonard Van Camp,7 Irving Lowens,8 Lawrence Bennett,9 Kurt Stone,10 and others.
Today it is William Billings whose music receives the greatest frequency of performance, and he has become a standard representative for music of this period. The year 2000 was the 200th anniversary of his death, and choral works such as Chester, A Virgin Unspotted, David’s Lamentation, Kittery, I Am the Rose of Sharon, and The Lord Is Ris’n Indeed received numerous performances in concerts by church, school, community, and professional choirs. Billings generally is acknowledged to be the most gifted of the “singing school” composers of eighteenth-century America. His style, somewhat typical of the period, employs fuguing tunes, unorthodox voice leading, open-fifth cadences, melodic writing in each of the parts, and some surprising harmonies.11 By 1787 his music was widely known across America.
Billings was an interesting personality as well. Because out-of-tune singing was a serious problem, he added a ’cello to double the lowest part.12 He had a “church choir,” but that policy met resistance from aging deacons, although by 1779 a gallery was placed in the church for “the singers”. It was Billings who proclaimed:

He who finds himself gifted with a tunable voice, and yet neglects to cultivate it, not only hides in the earth a talent of the highest value, but robs himself of that peculiar pleasure, of which they only are conscious who exercise that faculty.13
It would seem that problems often faced by today’s church choir directors were also present in the eighteenth century.
Extensive research in the music of this period has provided contemporary conductors with understanding of the style, and background for performance. Two important studies are Alan C. Buechner, Yankee Singing School and the Golden Age of Choral Music in New England, 1760-1800,14 and Dickson D. Bruce, And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meeting Religion, 1800–1845.15

Overview: the 19th century

In the late nineteenth century, a group of composers came to be known as “The Second New England School.” They included George W. Chadwick (1854–1931), Arthur Foote (1853–1937), Mrs. H.H.A. Beach (1867–1944), and Horatio Parker (1863–1937). Parker, professor of music at Yale from 1894–1919, was possibly the most important American choral composer of the century. He, like many Americans, had been trained in Europe (Munich). His oratorio, Hora Novissima (1891), is a major work that established his place in the history of American music. After its 1893 performances in New York, Boston, and Cincinnati, in 1899 it became the first work by an American to be performed at the famous Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, England. This resulted in commissions for prestigious English choir festivals and the acceptance of an American compositional school by the international community.
Parker’s music is rarely performed today and exhibits Teutonic rather than American tendencies, yet his influence through his teaching of such noted composers as Douglas Moore (1892–1969), Quincy Porter (1897–1966), and the quixotic Charles Ives (1874–1954), indirectly makes him the father of twentieth-century American choral music. Parker, and to a somewhat lesser degree Dudley Buck (1839–1909), serve as transitional figures from the rudimentary choral music that preceded them, to the more solid styles and schools that came after them. In teaching Charles Ives, Parker’s conservatism proved to be more negative than positive, and Ives eventually abandoned the Romantic spirit and style of Parker to become America’s first great composer.16
Parker, a dedicated musician, wrote in a variety of genres, including orchestral and operatic; however, it is in church music where his contributions seem to be most recognized. Erik Routley boldly states that Parker’s Mount Zion is “probably one of the best hymn tunes of its age.”17 His musical style, prudent and old-fashioned, still represented an elevation in the quality level of American choral music at the end of that century. He had developed a solid craft that gave his music more depth than others of his generation or before. His ability to write in larger forms raised the appreciation of the American composer in the international forum.
The only other truly significant American choral composer between Billings and Parker was Dudley Buck. Typical of many nineteenth-century American composers, Buck studied in Europe. As with Horatio Parker, Buck wrote useful, yet conservative, anthems employing solo quartets in alternation with the full chorus. Before 1870 it was customary to write anthems for solo quartet without the choir, and Buck had a “concern for the differing characteristics of quartet and choral music.”18 He composed in all musical forms and was highly regarded in his lifetime. Wienandt and Young suggest that:

Although Dudley Buck was not a threat to the superiority of European composition, he was the best that America could then bring to the field of church music. . . . The American examples of this period are shabby at best. 19
There were, however, productive and relatively important nineteenth-century composers in other fields of music. Men such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869), Stephen Foster (1825–1894) and Edward MacDowell (1861–1908) were successful in their areas of interest. Gottschalk’s music is considered to be among the best of the century. As a piano virtuoso, he toured Europe extensively. His adaptation of Creole melodies brought elements of the New World into the salons and concert halls of Europe and South America. This paved the way for the acceptance of an American style, which, even today, is very elusive.20
Undoubtedly, the most prominent choral musician of this middle period was Lowell Mason (1792–1872), although his primary compositional contributions were in hymns and singing books. He helped fashion a more refined style of American hymnody, different from the popular camp meeting songs of the time. His vital gift, however, was in the development and advancement of music education. His career reached a pinnacle in 1838 when he became the Boston Superintendent of Public School Music, which was the first such position in the United States.21
For choral music, though, it was the church that continued to provide the backbone for growth. Protestant Church Music in America, by Robert Stevenson, is a brief but very thorough survey of people and movements from 1564 to the present. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was a steady rise in denominations and numbers of churches in America. Each had its own perspective on what was needed musically for their services of worship. Some of the more active denominations producing music of merit were the Methodists, the Episcopalians, and the Presbyterians. Men such as James Lyon (1735–1794) and William Tuckey (1708–1781) helped develop church music through composition, but their choral contributions were not particularly important. The use of organs in churches was mildly controversial in some denominations, but eventually that came to be common practice for most. Part of the problem was finding someone who could play the organ. According to Irving Lowens,

As late as 1714, when after much discussion an organ imported three years earlier by Thomas Brattle was installed in Boston’s King’s Chapel, an organist had to be brought from England to Play skillfully thereon with a loud noise.22
As in the preceding century, Protestant church music was the primary vehicle for choral music in America during the nineteenth century. Much of the music was developed through music collections, and often these publications contained European music, which helped to make them more commercially profitable. Of the composers not previously mentioned, some of the most important were William B. Bradbury (1816–1868), George Kingsley (1811–1884), Joseph P. Holbrook (1822–1888), Thomas Hastings (1784–1872), and George K. Jackson (1745–1823).
In the first half of the century, European music dominated concert halls and other professional musical venues, but American church music flourished. Anthem collections by American composers steadily increased. However, as the sophistication levels rose, particularly in the North, there was a need to have more refined music than that in the standard “native” American repertory. Stevenson explains:

Already by 1850 the American denominations had so drawn their social lines that some ministered to the wealthy and elite in big cities, while others served the common folk on farms and frontiers. Speaking of one ‘elite’ denomination in a course of historical lectures given at Berlin in 1854, Philip Schaff claimed that the Protestant Episcopal Church had addressed itself ‘heretofore almost exclusively to the higher classes of society, and had rather discouraged the poor man from joining it.’ With such a constituency, the music published for use in Episcopal churches at mid-century sounded quite a different note from that prevailing in publications for frontier churches, or even for middle-class urban churches.23

Church repertoire
Arguments persisted regarding the function of a church choir. Some felt that it should be to assist congregational singing, while others wanted a group that had its own identity and quality. These opinions on choir function have not ceased, and even at the beginning of the twenty-first century, impassioned cries of support or lack-of-support can be heard from some denominations and/or members within them. After 1865 churches developed their own hymnals, so that styles of music associated with certain denominations became even more established. Congregational singing always was important, but stylistic differences at this time were not limited to the Protestant churches, and in the late twentieth century, even the Roman Catholic hymnals moved toward a more folk-like or gospel-style inclusion.
In most American churches today, the anthem serves as the standard vehicle for choir performances. As traced by Wienandt and Young,24 its history has been long and varied. It is not an American invention, but its development and use was an important factor in the spread of choral music. The anthem is an English derivative of the Latin motet, and as such was more musically complex than simple hymns sung by the congregation; therefore, more accomplished singers and preparations were needed for use in the service, and that concept has been in existence since ancient times.

The word may be followed back to various forms of Antiphon, a term denoting the category of plainsong sung before and after psalms and canticles. It was the function of antiphons to amplify the text of scriptural material to which they were attached. They were numerous because such scriptural sections were used several times each day. References to the antiphon have been traced from as early as the beginning of the Christian era, but the various spellings, forms and meanings in English begin much later, perhaps not until around the eleventh century.25
Of special musicological interest is the word “antine,” which was used in American music in the early years. Kingman states:

There is no such word in English usage. Baring-Gould, collector of the first versions using it, postulates that it is a corruption of the French antienne, which means “antiphon.” Since an antiphon is a piece of liturgical music, the image of every grove ringing ‘with a merry antine’ is a plausible and indeed a rather happy one.26
As stated earlier, the concept of the anthem was brought to this country. In the 1760s the publication of American anthems by “native” composers (Francis Hopkinson [1737–91] and James Lyon [1735–94]) led the way to an ever-expanding market of this genre. In most churches today, the anthem serves as the standard presentation of choir performance. It became a work of several pages’ duration based on a scriptural or poetic text that may or may not be accompanied and almost always is in English.
In European Catholic churches, complete musical Masses were at one time very common, but today they are rare and generally found only in large and very musically active churches; even then, they may only be used on special occasions. Catholic churches throughout America most often celebrate Mass with brief musical intonations by a priest and congregational singing. Those choirs may prepare special music, such as an anthem, but their primary function is to help with congregational singing.
In many Protestant denominations choral singing is used in other places in the service (introits, responses, etc.). Some do not employ the term anthem, but, even if called special music or some other term, its function is that of an anthem. Often ministers and church choir directors differ on the function of the choir. For many ministers, church choirs are, above all, a help for congregational singing, and the preparation of an anthem is a bonus; for most church choir conductors, the opposite may be true. Regardless of their intended function, church choirs that have been successful serve in both capacities, and, for most people, the blending of these functions has been beneficial.
The rise of choral music in America owes much to congregational singing. Congregational response has long been a part of liturgy. Group singing in worship has been a vital part in the development of choral music, especially in America.
The prevailing aspect of congregational singing can be found in hymnody. Briefly, hymnody was an outgrowth of plainsong and originally a monastic technique. Musical hymns were melodies that were, at first, associated with the daily offices; they most often were Psalms, but other Scriptural texts were used as well. Their use continued to expand throughout the early centuries of Christianity, and in the hands of Martin Luther (1483–1546) congregational hymnody became a major segment of worship services in the Reformation. Melodies popular with the people thrived, and it is in this context that American hymnody took shape.27
Erik Routley, in The Music of Christian Hymns, states:

The American tradition of hymnody falls into clearly defined streams which before 1900 were culturally separate, and which during the 20th century began to influence each other . . . We classify these streams as (1) the New England Style (2) the Southern Folk Hymnody (3) the Black Spiritual and (4) the Gospel Song. 28
The New England tradition of hymnody was an outgrowth of Psalm singing, especially linked to the Scottish Psalter and the Ainsworth Psalter. America’s first printed book, the 1640 Bay Psalm Book, attempted to replace those psalters, and did so for many generations. An important feature of the New England tradition was the establishment of singing schools. The intent was to improve congregational singing, but they also can be seen as an endemic factor in the development of choral music in America, because as singing improved, so did the need for music other than simple hymns. In many ways, the interest in the singing schools led the way for church choirs. For example, through diligent rehearsals in the meeting houses, congregational members grew musically proficient and sought special recognition; eventually, people with training sat and performed together in the church’s “gallery,” today called the choir loft.

Musical literacy influences

Two important early writers were Thomas Walter (1696–1725) and John Tufts (1689–1750). Walter’s pioneer book of instruction, The Grounds and Rules of Musick Explained (1721), tried to provide rules and methods for sight-reading tunes. Tufts’ An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm-Tunes in a Plain and Easy Method was also available in 1721, and he tried to instruct through letters instead of notes.29
Throughout the eighteenth century, singing schools and singing school teachers brought music to interested people. Emphasis remained on sacred music; however, the inclusion of secular tunes became more common. William Billings, the most famous of the singing teachers, produced six tune books containing the robust, energetic musical style found in his anthems. Other later significant musical missionaries who contributed to the spread of musical education were Lowell Mason (1792–1872), Thomas Hastings (1784–1872), and Virgil C. Taylor (1817–1891).

Black spirituals, white spirituals, and gospel song

In the South, hymnody progressed in different directions. Folk hymnody was a rural development that heavily relied on the shape-note tradition; this focused on assisting uneducated people to learn how to sing. George Pullen Jackson has been a leader in tracing the history of folk hymnody; he has authored three books dealing with the music and style associated with this genre.30 The white spiritual was a term sometimes used for the hymnody of white settlers in southern states. Music books for this hymnody often use “shape note” characters to assist in reading the music. There were many publications of music which helped spread the shape-note concept. Some of those that merit attention include John Wyeth, Repository of Sacred Music (1810),31 Ananias Davisson, Kentucky Harmony (1816),32 William Walker, Southern Harmony,33 B.F. White and E.J. King, Sacred Harp.34
Black spirituals were transmitted through oral tradition. The first black college, Fisk University, began in 1866. A group of student singers known as The Jubilee Singers toured America, England, and other European countries. They were responsible for spreading the knowledge and interest in Negro spirituals.35
The gospel song was, as Routley indicates:

Hymnody reduced to its simplest terms, it is cast in the form either of a solo song, or of a solo song with refrain, and this it has in common with the Black Spiritual.36

This style of hymnody grew out of the revivals that were particularly popular in the South in the nineteenth century. Evangelistic music existed in the 1730s and is associated with Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), but the true gospel songs became a formidable style around 1859. Typically, they sustain one chord for an entire measure and remain restricted to the three basic triads of tonic, subdominant, and dominant. This permitted strong rhythmic fluctuations and improvisation, which helped generate and intensify the emotional drive, a primary feature of evangelistic denominations. Whereas the other three streams of hymnody (New England style, Southern folk hymnody, and Black spiritual) have roots in foreign cultures, gospel music seems to be an American contribution.
One of many religious groups that came to America and developed a music for their denomination was the Shakers, although this folk-like music was unison, not harmonized, and unaccompanied, and not pure choral music. Possibly the most important may have been the Moravian tradition, which dates from the fifteenth century and is rich in a choral heritage. These people settled in Pennsylvania before 1740 and established communities such as Bethlehem, Lititz, and Nazareth; by 1783 they had expanded south to North Carolina. Donald M. McCorkle, director and editor-in-chief of the Moravian Music Foundation suggests that:
Most of the early Moravian composers were clergymen who wrote music apparently as easily as they did sermons. . . . The anthems and songs created by the Moravians were influenced primarily by contemporary musical trends of Central Europe. Since most of the choral and vocal music by American Moravians is conceived for mixed voices accompanied by instruments, it is quite different both in structure and content from other sacred music written in 18th-century America.37

Their musical past has been preserved and made available through definitive editions released under the title Moramus Editions. Three of the more significant American composers were John Antes (1740–1811), Johann Friedrich Peter (1746–1813), and Johannes Herbst (1735–1812). Peter, perhaps the most outstanding of the Moravian composers, wrote over 100 anthems and arias, as well as six string quintets in 1789, which may be the earliest extant examples of American chamber music. Antes composed twenty-five sacred anthems and twelve chorales, and possibly made the earliest violin in America in 1759.

New secular directions

Less dominant influences on the growth of choral music in America may be seen in the development of secular organizations and events. A product of the singing schools, for example, was the formation of music clubs. Organizations such as the Stoughton Musical Society developed by 1786 and Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, which began in 1815, did much to stimulate interest in choral singing. Often competitions between organizations were held, which encouraged improvements in quality.
In the nineteenth century, conventions and fairs were held, and they helped promote choral singing in America. Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore (1829–1892), through his Peace Jubilees, promoted gigantic mass performances by choirs of 10,000! These festivals involved enormous bands and orchestras; a structure was built to house an audience of 50,000. Villages and towns throughout New England filled their quotas of singers, and each had a local leader who had been instructed in the tempos so that everyone was well prepared when they met together to perform.
There were world’s fairs held in Philadelphia in 1876 and Chicago in 1893, and singing played an important part at these international events. For the centennial, new choral works were commissioned from John Knowles Paine (A Centennial Hymn, text by John Greenleaf Whittier) and Dudley Buck (The Centennial Meditation of Columbia, text by Sidney Lanier). Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (which presented 36 choral concerts) featured music performed by some of the younger American composers, including G.W. Chadwick, Edward MacDowell, and Arthur Foote. Female composers were represented in a concert heralding the opening of the Woman’s Building, including music by Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.38
Another important development that fostered choral singing in America was the establishment of music schools and conservatories. Oberlin College had a Chair of Sacred Music in 1835. The first music courses at America’s oldest institution, Harvard College, were not offered until 1862. Other beginnings of note were: 1865, Oberlin Music Conservatory; 1867, New England Conservatory of Music; 1867, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and the Chicago Musical College. These American schools did not eliminate the continuing process of seeking a European musical education, but as they grew in quality and numbers, they made a musical education more accessible.39
Social amusements were the initial reasons for the development of singing on college campuses. Glee clubs were formed, which performed local concerts for friends, and later they toured to sing for alumni. Eventually, more sophisticated groups developed; they performed the standard European favorites by Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and others. Probably the earliest official ensemble was the University Choral Union of the University of Michigan in 1879. Northwestern University, in 1906, was the first school to have an “a cappella” choir—Peter Lutkin, dean of the music school at Northwestern University, founded the Northwestern A Cappella Choir.40
Availability of music was an important factor in helping to encourage music in America. Some noteworthy landmarks in the publishing of music included the 1698 ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book, which contained the first music printed in New England, and the 1761 James Lyon collection Urania, which was the first published setting of Psalms and hymns by a native-born American. Lyon was also active in the establishment of the first public subscription concerts in Philadelphia, and in other early musical ventures.
John S. Dwight (1813–1893) was not a composer, but his work in advancing standards of excellence was important. He was America’s first music critic and editor of the first significant music journal, Dwight’s Journal of Music (1852–1881).
Opera and instrumental music also influenced the growth of choral music in America. While these genres did not have the benefit of the church to encourage their evolution and maturation, they were able to secure ongoing support from individual citizens. Most of the music before the middle of the nineteenth century was European; orchestras had been formed, but they performed repertoire by continental composers. By 1876 subscription concerts had begun in Philadelphia. It was common for orchestras (and opera singers) from Europe to tour in this country, and they too, perpetuated the standard works by recognized European composers.
Theodore Thomas (1835–1905) was an avid young conductor who did much to advance the professional American orchestra. His Theodore Thomas Orchestra, founded in 1862, toured for many years; in Chicago, Thomas’s orchestra gained a permanent home and evolved into today’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His pioneering helped encourage the formation of major professional orchestras, and before 1900 there were ensembles in St. Louis, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other large cities. Most relied heavily on benefactors who subsidized them financially. Wealthy families such as the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, and the Morgans were vital to the development of professional orchestras needed to provide opportunities for the performance of large-scale choral works.41
Opera also depended on the contributions of rich patrons. The public in the nineteenth century had come to opera from a background in minstrelsy, so cultivation of understanding was slow. Even today opera remains a genre that has less universal appeal than many other musical forms. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, there were major opera houses in operation. They brought European performers to the States, which helped develop an established audience. In comparison with other major musical genres such as orchestral, choral, or chamber music, the number of composers who write in this medium remains limited. Cost, technical requirements, and available performances are restrictive factors that have not successfully encouraged a corresponding growth to this vocal art form, yet it did have a modicum of influence on the growth of choral singing.

Summary
The commentary above is a brief examination of some of the events involved in the establishment and evolution of American choral music. There certainly were many other elements that could be pursued in a discussion of this type, but space does not permit a more detailed survey. America is a blend of heterogeneous cultures, and throughout the entire history of the country, people from other places have continued to come to her shores; they brought with them religious, artistic, and social elements of their past, but the most significant factor in any study on the evolution of American choral music must be the influence of the church.
Clearly, choral music began primarily because it was needed in religious ceremonies. In essence, the history of American choral music can be traced through the expansion of musical settings of liturgical words into the secular arena. The twentieth century saw a profound growth of choral singing.
The church, which was the overriding force in the development of choral singing, is now somewhat less influential. In today’s society, one of the controversial issues in the choral field is whether to include sacred music as part of the repertoire of public school ensembles; this is a reflection of that secular expansion, even though a vast majority of quality choral works are based on sacred texts. This change of attitude is a reversal of the past. Singing schools were formed to help people learn to sing religious music, but beginning in the middle of the twentieth century some school systems or administrations began forcefully working to keep music with religious texts from being performed.
Nevertheless, the church remains an important advocate for music, especially choral, yet its interest in styles has seen a rapid shift during the past few decades. That shift has reduced the quality and amount of choral singing, as may be seen in the number of people in church congregations and ultimately church choirs. The church gave impetus to choral singing in this country, and today still is responsible for a large portion of choral performances, as well as the creation of new music. The difference is that it is not the primary leader in the proliferation of choral music, only an equal partner at best.
America was founded on the need and search for freedom in both religious and secular arenas. The church continues to evolve in society, and therefore its music, which has always been an important element, will also evolve. The same may be said for the secular side of society in which music is a vital component. The confluence of the two main forces (sacred/secular) will continue to be a major factor in the development of choral music in the twenty-first century, but the swing away from significant sacred choral music probably will increase just as it did in the twentieth century. 

A recording of William Billings' David's Lamentation

Other choral items of interest:

The Cathedral of St. John Celebrates Ten Years of Cathedral Commissions

Fela Sowande: The Legacy of a Nigerian Music Legend

The Carol and Its Context in Twentieth-century England

American choral music available online from Library of Congress

Charlie W. Steele is director of music ministries/organist at Brevard-Davidson River Presbyterian Church, Brevard, North Carolina, and an adjunct music faculty member at Brevard College, where he teaches applied organ. He holds BA (with Honors) and MA degrees in music from Radford University, Radford, Virginia, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Kentucky.

A significant part of America’s musical
heritage originating in the nineteenth century is the popular shape-note tunebooks that were an outgrowth of the “singing schools.” These collections, which, in their musical notation, used different shapes of note-heads for each syllable of a solfège system, are anthologies of the styles and genres of American music of the time, both sacred and secular. Nineteenth-century American shape-note tunebooks serve as sources for an important body of music—shape- note hymn tunes—which has been, and continues to be, assimilated into the late twentieth-century editions of the hymnals of mainline Protestant denominations.
The availability and popularity of the shape-note tunes in current hymnals has inspired organ composers to use them as cantus firmi for organ chorale preludes and variation settings. As a result, a wealth of organ chorale settings using shape-note hymn melodies has been published in the twenty-five years spanning 1980–2005. Many of these organ works were composed for use as voluntaries in the worship services of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century Christian church; moreover, some of the compositions are important contributions to the organ concert literature.

Origins
The shape-note phenomenon traces its origins to the psalm singing of New England. Congregational singing in the churches of the early eighteenth century had, in the opinion of the clergy and musicians of the day, fallen into a deplorable state. One person, eloquently describing the state of congregational singing in 1724, said, “The Singing appears to be rather a confused Noise, made up of Reading, Squeaking, and Grumbling, than a decent and orderly part of God’s worship.”1 In order to improve the state of congregational singing, a form of musical education, the “singing school,” was developed. Its purpose was to teach congregations the elements of music so the people could sing “by note, instead of rote.”2
One of the earliest books developed for use in singing schools was John Tufts’s An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes, which appeared in the 1720s. Tufts’s book utilized the four-note system of solfège (fa, sol, la, mi) that had been imported to America from England. Tufts used abbreviations of the syllables on the musical staff rather than traditional music notation. Tufts’s system, as it appeared in his book, is shown in Figure 1.
In 1801, William Little and William Small compiled what is considered the first shape-note collection, The Easy Instructor. Rather than using conventional notation, the two men devised a system in which the four syllables—fa, sol, la, mi—were each notated with a different note-head shape. The collection became so popular that, according to Marion Hatchett, thirty-four editions or printings of The Easy Instructor were published between 1802 and 1832.3 The shapes, as developed and notated in Little and Small’s collection, are shown in Figure 2. Using these four shapes, a major scale notated in shape-notes consists of the sequence demonstrated in Figure 3.
For the many Americans who had little or no formal musical background or education, this new approach to notation made music reading much simpler. The singers needed to know only the shapes of the notes; they did not have to deal with a music reading system in which locating the tonic note depended upon the ability to distinguish key signatures. The shape-note system did have one major disadvantage—no means was devised to indicate accidentals by using shapes. As many of the tunes used in the collections were diatonic in nature, this disadvantage evidently was not a major concern to either the compilers or the singers.

Collections
The invention of the shape-notes led to a proliferation of published music collections using the new notation system. During the first half of the eighteenth century, numerous compilers published editions of the shape-note tunebooks. George Pullen Jackson, one of the twentieth-century pioneers in the research of the shape-note tradition, lists thirty-eight collections published in the four-shape system between 1798 and 1855.4 Twenty-one of the books Jackson designated as works by compilers who lived in the South. Richard J. Stanislaw’s more recent research provides evidence of an even larger number of four-shape collections. Stanislaw lists some ninety-five tunebooks published in the four-shape system in the United States between 1798 and 1859.5
A significant contribution of the shape-note collections was their function as a repository of American tunes from the oral tradition. Though these types of tunes had appeared in hymnals or collections, such as the United States Sacred Harmony (1799) and The Christian Harmony (1805), the first shape-note hymnal to incorporate a large number of oral tradition tunes was John Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music: Part Second (1813).6 Irving Lowens observes that forty-four of the tunes in this collection were “folk hymns.”7 The Repository of Sacred Music: Part Second played an important role in the dissemination of these tunes. According to information provided by Lowens, Ananias Davisson, the compiler of the influential Kentucky Harmony and the Supplement to Kentucky Harmony, used fifteen tunes from Wyeth’s Part Second collection. William Walker, in his Southern Harmony, “borrowed” twenty of these tunes.8

Walker’s Southern Harmony
A significant source of the shape-note tunes found in today’s hymnals is Walker’s The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion (hereafter referred to as Southern Harmony). One of the most popular and successful of the nineteenth-century shape-note tunebooks, Southern Harmony stands as an important “anthology” of the musical styles and genres of its day. As Harry Eskew notes, it is probably the first shape-note collection to be compiled in the “Deep South.”9 The legacy and tradition of this popular collection continues even today at the “Big Singing Day” held annually in Benton, Kentucky.
Walker was born on May 6, 1809, in South Carolina, near a small village known as Cross Keys.10 Around the time he was eighteen years of age, Walker’s family moved to a small community called Cedar Springs, near Spartanburg, South Carolina.11 In 1835, Walker married Amy S. Golighty, the sister of Thurza Golighty, the wife of Benjamin Franklin White, who would become the compiler of The Sacred Harp.12 Not only is 1835 the year Walker married Amy, it is the same year he published his first and most popular shape-note collection, Southern Harmony.13 In addition to Southern Harmony, Walker compiled three other collections during his lifetime, including the Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist, The Christian Harmony, and Fruits and Flowers.14 Although Walker is considered the compiler of Southern Harmony and his name graces the cover, the work was initially a joint project of Walker and his brother-in-law, B. F. White.
After its introduction in 1835, Southern Harmony underwent several revisions, with the final one being the 1854 edition.15 During the years of its publication, the collection was obviously popular, as Walker later claimed that 600,000 copies of it had been sold.16
Harry Eskew cites several reasons why Southern Harmony is a significant shape-note collection: 1) its use as textbook to learn to read music, 2) its role in continuing early American psalmody, and 3) its function as a “musical companion for numerous word-only hymnals.”17 Eskew also notes that Southern Harmony is “significant as a repository of melodies from oral tradition” and that “Walker and other rural-oriented singing school teachers/compilers drew from the rich oral tradition of the Anglo-American folksong to provide melodies for many hymn texts.”18 Walker, in the preface to the first edition of Southern Harmony in 1835, states that he had “composed the parts to a great many good airs (which I could not find in any publication, nor in manuscript), and assigned my name as author.”19 It may be surmised that many of these “airs” were popular melodies or folk tunes of the day that were passed on by oral tradition. Hymnologist Austin C. Lovelace recounts that, “When Walker was going around doing singing schools, he always asked if anyone had some good tunes. He would then write them down and claim them as his own.”20
Sources of texts and tunes are indicated for some of the hymns, though often no source is documented for either. Glen Wilcox relates that approximately one-fourth of the hymn texts were by Isaac Watts.21 Of the 341 tune names in the index, Wilcox maintains that about 250 of them can be attributed to 110 composers, with the remaining tunes being anonymous.22 For the 1854 edition, Walker added 73 tunes to his collection. It is interesting to note that, according to Eskew, approximately half of the tunes Walker added in 1854 were “in the style of the folk hymn.”23
Southern Harmony incorporated some important “firsts” regarding several hymn tunes. The 1835 edition marked the first time the text “Amazing Grace” and the tune New Britain were joined together in a shape-note collection; the edition of 1840 contained the first appearance of the tune Wondrous Love with the text “What wondrous love is this;” and the 1854 edition has one of the early appearances of Dove of Peace.
The inclusion of the American tunes in this remarkable shape-note collection has helped to preserve them for future generations. Unlike its popular counterpart, The Sacred Harp, which has undergone a number of revisions over the years of its existence (even as recently as 1991), Southern Harmony has had no additions or corrections to its music since the final version of 1854. As it stands, Southern Harmony is a repository of musical styles and tastes of nineteenth-century America, particularly of southern and rural America. Eskew remarks that, “No wonder Southern Harmony was so popular: the hymns . . . were united with tunes which had circulated among the people for years in oral tradition, and they were furthermore printed in easy-to-read shape-notation!”24

New England “reforms”
As the shape-note tradition moved into the southern and western states, a mid-to-late nineteenth-century movement emerged in New England to eliminate American tunes, as found in shape-note tunebooks, from church hymnals and music collections. New England reformers, among whom were Lowell Mason and Thomas Hastings, considered music and hymns of European background and influence to be superior to America’s “folk-style” music. Hymn tunes and music composed in the European style were “based on ‘scientific’ principles producing ‘correct’ harmonies.”25 It is ironic that the New England area, whose musicians gave America its singing schools and shape-notes, is the same geographic area that led reforms contributing to the demise of shape-note singing and the use of these tunes in hymnals.
Jackson, in White Spirituals of the Southern Uplands, devotes a chapter to the subject of the disappearance of folk-hymns as denominational hymnals began to emerge in the nineteenth century. Though the 1889 edition of the Methodist Hymnal contained a number of the tunes, the 1905 edition included only four of what Jackson calls “fasola popular tunes”—Lenox, Nettleton, Mear, and Greenville.26 Jackson’s research points out that the Service of Song (1871), a hymnal used by southern Baptists in more urban areas, embodied only nine tunes from the “fasola” tradition.27 Another hymnal used by Baptists in the early twentieth century, Modern Hymnal (1926), incorporated only seventeen of what Jackson refers to as hymns of “specific southern fasola making or adoption.”28
Jackson ascertains that the Philadelphia publishers, suppliers of hymnals to southern Presbyterian churches, “avoided all indigenous songs of the southern and western revival.”29 An examination of Presbyterian hymnals of the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century certainly underpins Jackson’s observation. The Presbyterian hymnals of 1874, 1895 (revised in 1911), and 1933 all contain some hymn tunes—just as today’s hymnals do—common to Southern Harmony and other similar collections. These tunes, however, are primarily ones with an identified composer—tunes such as Azmon, Coronation, and Duke Street. Based on this author’s examination of the index of tune names in each of these three editions of hymnals, Nettleton seems to be the only anonymous shape-note tune included in Presbyterian hymnals until the appearance of the 1955 edition of the hymnal.30
As late in the twentieth century as 1940, American shape-note tunes held little respect among some scholars who were interested in serious hymnody. Henry Wilder Foote, in Three Centuries of American Hymnody, spends little time focusing on the history or importance of the tunes. His writing contains remarks such as, “While in general their effect on American hymnody has been neither permanent or valuable . . . the folk hymn was suited to revivals and social gatherings like out-of-door camp meetings . . . and in any case they fall outside the main current of American hymnody.”31 As one can surmise from Foote’s statements, Raymond Glover’s supposition that the efforts of musicians like Mason created a standard whose “effects may still be seen in today’s mainline hymnals” is certainly supported.32 Fortunately, these effects initiated by the “scientific” musicians of the nineteenth century experienced a reversal in the late twentieth century.

Twentieth-century acceptance
Five Protestant denominational hymnals—Southern Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran (ELCA), Presbyterian (USA), and United Methodist—were selected to be surveyed as to their inclusion of shape-note tunes. These particular hymnals were chosen because of the importance each denomination places on hymnals and hymn singing and because of the reputation each denomination enjoys regarding the quality of their hymnals. The survey included an inspection of ten hymnals to discern the number of tunes that appear to be of shape-note origin. African-American spirituals, frequently designated as American folk tunes or melodies in older hymnals, were not within the parameters of the research. The numerical results of the American tune survey, shown in Table 1, verify the thesis that there is a definite increase in the number of shape-note tunes in the current editions of mainline denominational hymnals compared to the previous editions. In the Episcopal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian hymnals, the growth in the number of tunes is significant. Though there is an increase in the number of shape-note tunes in the most recent hymnal of the Methodist Church, the percentage does not indicate an increase because the hymnal contains a larger number of total hymn tunes. The 1966 edition contains only 417 hymn tunes, whereas the 1989 edition includes 504 tunes.
Because denominational hymnals use various sources for their tunes, some of the shape-note tunes included in hymnals have indications of possible composers. An example is the tune Nettleton, identified in two hymnals as being composed by John Wyeth.33 The tune did appear in the 1813 edition of Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second, but it originated from the “camp-meeting repertory of Methodists and Baptists.”34 Given that the tunes were sometimes part of an oral tradition before they were notated in hymnals, it is difficult for musicologists and historians to trace their exact origin.
Among the various shape-note collections of the nineteenth century, William Walker’s Southern Harmony serves as an important source of American shape-note tunes, especially in the more recent editions of the selected hymnals. In each denomination, the number of hymn tunes attributed to either William Walker or Walker’s Southern Harmony shows a significant increase. The frequency of their attribution as a source may be observed in Table 2.

Factors in 20th-century
acceptance
Based on the information and statistics indicated above, it is clear that there is a significant increase in the number of shape-note tunes included in recent hymnals. This phenomenon prompts one to reflect on what factors may have led to the increased presence of these tunes in the hymnals of the late twentieth century. Communications by this author with several persons who served on editorial boards of different hymnals help provide some possible answers to this question.
David W. Music, a member of the editorial board of The Baptist Hymnal (1991), suggests three main factors he believes are responsible for the growth in the number of shape-note hymn tunes incorporated into recent hymnals. Outlining these factors, Music states:

The increase in the number of shape-note tunes is due to a number of factors including: 1) the bicentennial of the USA in 1976 with church musicians seeking to honor their country by searching out some of its native expressions. I think this parallels the English folk song recovery that occurred with the 1906 English Hymnal; 2) the broadening of the base of congregational song to include a wider diversity of styles and types than before (including black spirituals, world hymnody, American Indian pieces, Taizé, Iona Community, plainsong, newly-written hymns, etc.); 3) in a few cases these melodies have become familiar outside the church (or at least outside the hymnal) and have subsequently been incorporated into them; a good example is Resignation (“My shepherd will supply my need”), which everybody learned from the Virgil Thomson choral arrangement, later realizing what a great congregational text and tune combination this is. Perhaps related to this was the increased respectability gained by these often very simple tunes through their use by significant American composers such as Thomson and Aaron Copland.35
The factors that Music considers significant are echoed by others who have been involved in the editorial process of recent hymnals. Carlton Young, editor of the 1966 and 1989 Methodist hymnals, refers to the 1906 English Hymnal and the increase in diversity in hymnals as significant factors in the selection of tunes. Young asserts that “most mid-20th-century mainline USA Protestant hymnals followed the lead of R.V. Williams” and “reflected the work of folklorists such as Cecil Sharp.”36 Young also observes that “The increased number of USA folk melodies in TUMH ’89 [The United Methodist Hymnal] continues this trend in mainline hymnals, but is also related to the increased number of Native American, Latino, African-American, Asian, and gospel songs.”37
Ray Glover, editor of The Hymnal 1982, affirms that “The inclusion of a goodly number of American folk tunes in The Hymnal 1982 was, I believe, our response to the growing awareness of the great, rich repository we have in, largely though not exclusively, Southern folk hymnody from the shape-note tradition.”38 Likewise, Carl Schalk, who initially served on the editorial board of the Lutheran Book of Worship, feels that the inclusion of American folk hymn tunes was a way to become more American, much in the same way Vaughan Williams used the English folk song.39 Schalk considers the American folk tunes a source that “had not been tapped before” and a “looking back to some kind of heritage.”40 The editor of The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990), LindaJo H. McKim, echoes a similar sentiment, observing that “The tunes really are a part of who we are and for that reason need to be included in any collection coming out of the Americas today.”41 Marion Hatchett mentions the influence of Vaughan Williams and comments that the inclusion of three American folk tunes in the 1906 English Hymnal made it “respectable” for Americans to use these type of tunes in their own hymnals.42

The organ chorale prelude
The genre of the organ chorale prelude is helping to perpetuate the unique body of tunes stored in the nineteenth-century shape-note tunebooks. The term “chorale” originally referred to the tune used with a hymn text in the sixteenth-century German Protestant Church.43 Over time, the distinction between “chorale” and “hymn” (“a song in praise of God”) has blurred to the point that the two terms are now used interchangeably.44 Today, “organ chorale” and “chorale prelude” are generic terms referring to pieces composed in the tradition of the chorale prelude, whether they are based on a chorale, a Protestant hymn tune, or even a religious ethnic folk song. They may still serve as introductions to the singing of hymns or chorales. More often than not, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first-century liturgical setting, a chorale prelude functions as service music. It may be performed as a prelude, a postlude, as a selection during the collection of the offering or the serving of communion, or as music covering movement in other parts of the liturgy.
The performance of chorale preludes is not limited to liturgical use. Chorale preludes occupy an important role as part of the literature performed on organ recitals and concerts. A scanning of the recital programs listed each month in The Diapason reveals that various works of this genre are included in many recitals. The works may range from the large settings of J. S. Bach to the jazz-influenced pieces of Johann Michel. For example, of the 20 recital programs listed in the February 2010 issue of The Diapason, at least 24 of the total selections performed appear to be some form of a chorale prelude.45
Because the hymnals of the early-to-mid twentieth century contained very few, if any, American shape-note tunes, it was not until their inclusion into mainline hymnals that they became familiar to many organists and to the general concert or church audience. Even though the tunes were neglected by hymnal committees during the first half of the twentieth century, some significant organ settings of American shape-note tunes did appear around the middle of the century. These settings, however, were not inspired by the composer’s familiarity with tunes found in a denominational hymnal; instead, they seem to be the result of the composer’s acquaintance with a shape-note collection, primarily The Sacred Harp.
Twentieth-century American composer Gardner Read composed a number of organ works, among which are two collections of shape-note hymn tune settings. Read relied on a copy of The Sacred Harp as the source of the tunes used in his collections. In the scores of both collections, Read notes that the “preludes are based on authentic old hymn-tunes found in the 1902 edition of ‘The Sacred Harp,’ a collection of white spirituals and Southern hymns, first published around 1850.”46 Eight Preludes on Old Southern Tunes, opus 90, was published in 1952, and the publication of Six Preludes on Old Southern Hymns, opus 112, followed in 1963. Of the fourteen tunes Read employed in these two notable collections, seven of them are found in Southern Harmony.
Samuel Barber’s Wondrous Love: Variations on a Shape-note Hymn, written in 1958 for the inaugural recital of the new Holtkamp organ at Christ Episcopal Church, Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, is primarily a concert piece.47 As the publication of the work predates any inclusion of the tune into a mid-to-late twentieth-century denomination hymnal, one could posit that Barber’s piece helped contribute to the popularity of the Wondrous Love tune. In his reference to the tune’s source for the composition, Barber notes in the score that the tune was “published in the ‘Original Sacred Harp,’ Atlanta, Ga., 1869.”48 The score also contains a reproduction of a four-part harmonization of Wondrous Love, probably taken from the 1911 edition of The Sacred Harp, as the copy credits the alto part to “S. M. Denson, 1911.”49

Growth since 1980
In late twentieth to early twenty-first century America, the publication of chorale preludes based on shape-note tunes has increased significantly. This trend, during the period from 1980 to 2005, can be confirmed by consulting reference books that list published organ works and chorale settings. In a repertoire list compiled by this author, a total of 238 organ pieces, based on 46 different tunes found in Southern Harmony, were documented. Of the works in the repertoire list, only 46 (19%) were composed prior to 1980. The significant number of organ chorale preludes based on these tunes is a direct result of the growth in the number of shape-note tunes appearing in recent hymnals.
Five shape-note tunes found in Walker’s Southern Harmony (1854)—Foundation (The Christian’s Farewell in Southern Harmony), Holy Manna, New Britain, Wondrous Love, and Dove of Peace—are popular tunes found in hymnals of the late twentieth century or, as in the case of Dove of Peace, have recently become popular. The information shown in Table 3 compares the inclusion of these hymn tunes between the previous and present editions of the five selected denominational hymnals.
A look at the occurrence of these five popular shape-note tunes as cantus firmi for organ chorales helps illustrate the growing use of the tunes by composers of organ literature. For example, Jean Slater Edson’s book, Organ Preludes: An Index to Compositions on Hymn Tunes, Chorales, Plainsong Melodies, Gregorian Tunes and Carols, published in 1970, contains a meager listing of published organ works based on shape-note tunes. For the five tunes considered, Edson’s index identifies the following number of chorale preludes: Foundation – 5; Holy Manna – 1; New Britain – 4; Wondrous Love – 5; and Dove of Peace – 0.50
In 1987, Dennis Schmidt published the first volume of An Organist’s Guide to Resources for “The Hymnal 1982.” Compared to Edson’s book of 1970, Schmidt’s number of listings indicates a slight increase in the quantity of published organ settings using the five tunes. In Schmidt’s first volume, the number of works cataloged for each of the selected tunes includes: Foundation – 4; Holy Manna – 4; New Britain – 7; Wondrous Love – 6; and Dove of Peace – 0.51
A second volume of Schmidt’s An Organist’s Guide to Resources for “The Hymnal 1982” appeared in 1991. Compared to the first volume, the second volume confirms a continued increase in the number of organ settings of American tunes. For the five tunes, volume two lists the following number of organ settings: Foundation – 23; Holy Manna – 7; New Britain – 30; Wondrous Love – 15; and Dove of Peace – 0.52
The repertoire list of organ compositions based on shape-note tunes from the Southern Harmony, compiled by the author, substantiates the growth of these published works between 1980 and 2005. The number of organ works in the repertoire list using the five selected tunes as cantus firmi is summarized below:
Foundation (The Christian’s Farewell) – 22, 3 published prior to 1980
Dove of Peace – 7, all published since 1996
Holy Manna – 15, 1 published prior to 1980
New Britain – 33, 5 published prior to 1980
Wondrous Love – 30, 4 published prior to1980
The phenomenon of many new shape-note based organ works is, no doubt, a result of composers discovering shape-note tunes as they began to appear in new editions of hymnals. Robert J. Powell, retired organist/choirmaster of Christ Church, Greenville, South Carolina, and a well-known composer of organ and choral music, is the contributor of a number of individual pieces and collections based on shape-note tunes. These tunes are an important source for Powell in his work as a composer. Powell states:

Because many American folk hymns appear in present-day hymnals, I have found they have been influential in my compositions, not only because there are so many from which I have created anthems and organ pieces, but also for their use of modal melodies and uncompromising harmonies.53
Michael Burkhardt, formerly a member of the music faculty at Carthage College and currently on the staff of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Livonia, Michigan, is the composer of a significant number of chorale preludes for the organ. Included in his output are several settings of shape-note tunes. In a personal correspondence with this author, Burkhardt supports the thesis that the growth in the use and appearance of the American tunes in hymnals is a contributing factor to the increasing number of organ compositions utilizing the tunes. Burkhardt comments that:

An increase in the number of early American tunes in hymnals has certainly been an impetus for my settings in the American Folk Hymn Suite and in various other organ publications. But an even greater motivation for me is that these hymns are truly hymns of the people and, more specifically, hymns birthed by the people of this country. I love the ruggedness of the tunes as well as their unique qualities, individualities and the texts with which they are associated. . . . I hope that perhaps in some small way an organ setting or two of mine might excite someone regarding this great genre of hymnody.54
Samuel Adler, professor of composition at the Juilliard School of Music, has composed a set of organ chorale preludes based on early American tunes, one of which is Foundation. Entitled Hymnset: Four Chorale Preludes on Old American Hymns, the work was premiered in 1984 and published in 1987.55 In correspondence with this author in reference to Hymnset, Adler states that “I have always felt that we do not have enough Chorale Preludes on these beautiful hymn tunes and so while I was in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts I wrote one of these Preludes a week.”56 Clearly, Adler’s sentiment that there is a need for more chorale preludes using American tunes is one that echoes in the minds of other American composers and organists. The result has been a profusion of chorale preludes representing various levels of difficulty, length, quality, and effectiveness. This particular body of organ literature deserves to be both performed and recognized for the continuing role it plays in exposing both church and concert attendees to the music of Southern Harmony and similar nineteenth-century collections.

Summary
The heritage of American tunes contained within the shape-note tunebooks of the nineteenth century, whether they are called shape-note, folk-hymn, or American folk tunes, represents an important body of music, which, in the past thirty years, has been reclaiming its rightful place in American hymnody. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the rediscovery of this music prompted mainline Protestant denominational hymnal editors and committees to include many of these tunes into their new editions of hymnals.
The current availability of shape-note tunes in the hymnals of mainline Protestant denominations has, since 1980, significantly affected organ literature. A number of tunes once unknown are now common in many hymnals; as a result, organists and composers have been, and continue to be, drawn to them as fresh sources of cantus firmi. This growing body of organ literature represents music of a wide range of difficulty, effectiveness, compositional creativity, and usefulness.
The shape-note collections of the nineteenth century, including the popular and significant Southern Harmony, helped preserve the tunes and harmonizations that are part of our American history and hymnody. The hymnals of the late twentieth century, with their inclusion of a representative body of American shape-note tunes, have assisted composers, organists, and concert and church attendees in rediscovering this music. The organ literature resulting from this rediscovery will assist in the preservation of these tunes for new audiences and generations to come. ■

The history of church choirs in Nigeria is interwoven with the arrival of Christianity in Nigeria, which dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. The early missionaries from the United States and Europe settled mainly in the southwest (Yoruba) and southeast (Igbo) regions of Nigeria. The conversions of the local indigenes encouraged the missionaries to build several churches for worship and to continue the propagation of the Gospel in Nigeria. It was in these churches that the converts were first exposed to English hymns in four-part harmony.

Worship at the Cathedral Church
The Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, was founded in 1867 by a group of Christian worshipers from St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Faji, Lagos, where services were conducted only in Yoruba language. These worshipers were Sierra Leonians who spoke mainly English and wanted to have services in English. Hence, it was agreed that services at the Cathedral Church would be conducted exclusively in English. Consequently, the congregation at the Cathedral Church strictly committed to having all worship in English, including the sermons, hymns, announcements, and all special musical renditions by the Cathedral Choir. Another reason for embracing worship in English was that the church was designed to cater to the musical and spiritual needs of the cosmopolitan Lagos society as well as visitors from outside the country, foreign diplomats, and the various ethnic groups in Nigeria who communicated fluently in English. In other words, the congregation at the Cathedral Church comprised the elite, the well-educated, intellectuals, upper-middle-class, the affluent and apparently the cream of the Lagos society. I remember my days at the Cathedral Church as a chorister between 1980 and 1994: almost everyone communicated in English during choir rehearsals and services. Occasionally, one might hear people communicate in Yoruba, but it was always some few sentences and they would quickly switch to English.
While the Cathedral Church of Christ has received criticism for adopting a complete English service within a Yoruba state and in one of the most populous African countries, one could argue that this decision was worthy, considering the pluralistic nature of the indigenous languages in Nigeria. Linguistically, Nigeria is widely diversified, with three major ethnic groups—Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa. In addition, there are multiple subdivisions of the major languages, known as local dialects that include hundreds of tongues. With such extensive linguistic diversification, the government had to adopt English as the official language of the country after independence from Great Britain in 1960 in order to unify the diverse ethnic groups. To elevate one of the local languages over another would have caused internal dissatisfaction and deep division.
Interestingly, the Cathedral Church of Christ was one of the few pan-ethnic and pan-African congregations in Nigeria. Membership in most other churches was made up of one major ethnic group; hence, services were conducted there in the indigenous language of the group. But at the Cathedral Church of Christ, there are Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, as well as descendants of Sierra Leone, Ghana, Togo, and other West African countries who migrated to Nigeria in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the mother church of the Anglican diocese in Lagos, the Cathedral Church of Christ is always busy with services and other benevolent activities throughout the week:
Sunday Worship
7:15 am—Holy Eucharist (Communion service without choir)
9:15 am—Choral Mattins (Cathedral Choir sings)
9:15 am—Contemporary Praise and Worship (Every fourth Sunday)
9:15 am—Cornerstone Fellowship (Youth/college students)
9:15 am—Children’s Church (Sunday school)
11:15 am—Holy Eucharist (Communion with or without the Cathedral Choir)

Sunday Evening Worship
5 pm—Evensong with the Cathedral Choir (first and second Sunday)
5 pm—Community Hymn Singing (third Sunday)
5 pm—Time of Refreshing (fourth Sunday)
5 pm—Psalmody (Whenever there is a fifth Sunday)

Weekday Worship
6 am—Mattins
6:45 am—Holy Eucharist

Saturday Worship
7:15 am—Mattins
11:15 am—Holy Eucharist

Cathedral Choir and Masters of the Music
The Cathedral Church of Christ Choir is the oldest choir in Nigeria, with an average membership of about fifty male voices, half of whom are boys who sing the treble part. However, that number has recently exploded to over eighty strong and dedicated voices—treble (37), alto (18), tenor (13) and bass (15). The first choir was organized by Robert Coker in 1895, comprising young men and women. Coker was acknowledged to be the first indigenous organist and choirmaster in Nigeria, and apparently the first to occupy this lofty position at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos. Prior to his appointment as organist at the church, he was sponsored by the Cathedral Church to travel to England to study music in order to form a good choir suitable for Christ Church, which was later elevated to a cathedral status in 1923. Coker was regarded as a musical genius of his time. He was the first indigenous musician to attempt the performances of Western classical music in Nigeria, notably Handel’s Messiah. Coker died on February 9, 1920.
The choir was later reorganized during the tenure of N. T. Hamlyn, a British musician and pastor of the church. Hamlyn replaced the women of the choir with boys and young men, following the tradition of most British cathedrals. The choir made tremendous progress that established it as a model for other church choirs. Hamlyn provided the choir with surplices and erected choir stalls at the east end of the church. A strict disciplinarian, Hamlyn was always keen on regular and punctual attendance, and was thus able to set a high standard that has been maintained to this day. After the era of Hamlyn, there was a brief period of short appointments of organists such as that of D. J. Williams, J. G. Kuye in 1904, and later Frank Lacton, a Sierra Leonian who served until the appointment of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips in 1914.
Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips (1884–1969) was appointed Organist and Master of the Music after completing his musical training at Trinity College of Music, London (1911–14). Prior to his appointment at the Cathedral Church, he was organist at St. John’s Anglican Church, Aroloya, and St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Breadfruit, Lagos. Phillips’s tenure was a remarkable turning point in the history of church music in Lagos and Nigeria as a whole. He built a solid foundation on which the present choir stands firmly today as one of the best cathedral choirs in Africa. He retired in 1962 after serving in the music ministry at the Cathedral Church for forty-eight years (Trinity Sunday 1914 to Trinity Sunday 1962).
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips was succeeded by his son, Charles Oluwole Obayomi Phillips (1919–2007), as the Organist and Master of the Music; he faithfully served the church for exactly three decades (Trinity Sunday 1962 to Trinity Sunday 1992). Charles Obayomi Phillips was born on September 28, 1919, in Lagos. After attending C. M. S. Grammar School, Lagos, he proceeded to Durham University, England, receiving a bachelor’s degree in commerce with distinction in June 1946. Phillips started taking private lessons on piano when he was only four years old with Nigeria’s most celebrated international musician, Fela Sowande, and as a choir boy at the Cathedral Church received organ lessons under the tutelage of his father. At age fourteen, Phillips had already started assuming leadership roles in music; first, he rose to the enviable position of school pianist at C. M. S. Grammar School and was later appointed by his father as the assistant organist of the Cathedral Church in 1933.
Charles Obayomi Phillips studied organ with J. A. Westrup at Durham University, and with Christopher Idonill in 1976 at the Royal School of Church Music, London. During his tenure as Organist and Master of the Music at the Cathedral Church, Phillips maintained the tradition of the Cathedral Choir and developed new ideas that made the choir soar in standard. In spite of the tremendous economic upheavals in the political, social and religious life of Nigeria since independence in 1960, music at the Cathedral Church continues to be the center of inspiration and worship.
In addition to his strenuous tasks at the Cathedral Church, Charles Obayomi Phillips served as president of the Union of Organists and Choirmasters in Lagos, an organization that oversees the maintenance of high standards of music in all Anglican churches in the Lagos diocese. He was the Emeritus Organist at the Cathedral Church of Christ until his death in May 2007. After Phillips’s retirement in 1992, Yinka Sowande, Fela Sowande’s younger brother who had been Substantive Organist under Phillips for several years, was temporarily appointed as interim Master of the Music; he retired on December 31, 1992.
History was made on January 1, 1993, with the appointment of Tolu Obajimi as the first female Organist and Master of the Music of the Cathedral Church of Christ. She is the first woman to be appointed to the position of organist and music director in any Nigerian church. Obajimi is also the first Nigerian female organist to play recitals on the pipe organ. In addition to playing organ and piano recitals all over Lagos, she had accompanied several standard choral works such as Messiah, Elijah, St. Paul, Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, and Thomas Ekundayo Phillips’s Samuel.
Tolu Obajimi certainly deserves special recognition and commendation for daring to step into the very shoes that even men found to be extremely challenging. Since 1993, she has expanded the music ministry of the Cathedral Church to the delight and with the support of the choir, clergy and the entire congregation. One of her most remarkable accomplishments was the creation of the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir Orchestra, which was launched at the 80th anniversary of the choir on November 22, 1998. The other two significant programs added to the Cathedral Church ministries under her leadership are Community Hymn Singing and Psalmody: Chanting the Psalms of David.
Tolu Obajimi’s successful activities at the Cathedral Church are not surprising to those who knew her before she began at the Cathedral Church. She brought into the church’s ministry several years of experience as a professionally trained musician. Obajimi studied music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, in the 1960s; on her return to Nigeria, she taught music at Queen’s College, Lagos, for several years, and she also founded and taught at her own Tolu Obajimi Conservatory of Music, Lagos. Obajimi is presently assisted by Richard Bucknor as Choirmaster, Sina Ojemuyiwa (the best and most famous Cathedral Choir tenor) as Assistant Choirmaster, Jimi Olumuyiwa (former Cathedral Choir Librarian) as Assisting Choirmaster, and Tunde Sosan as Substantive Organist.
It is important to mention that the Cathedral Church of Christ has a rich and rigid tradition of appointing someone from within the choir to the leadership position of Organist and Master of the Music. Charles Obayomi Phillips received organ lessons from his father, Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, and gave Tolu Obajimi her first lessons in organ and trained her to the proficient level necessary for appointment as the Cathedral Organist. Even though Obajimi was never a member of the Cathedral Choir, she had been a member of the church for several years and she began by playing piano for the 7:15 am Holy Eucharist during Charles Obayomi Phillips’s tenure. She was later called upon to accompany the choir at rehearsals during the week, and she participated in several concerts such as Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Handel’s Messiah in the late 1980s.
Tunde Sosan started off as a choir boy, and he was trained on the organ by Tolu Obajimi before he went to study at the Trinity College of Music, London. Other notable musicians who have served as honorary organists, substitute organists and/or recitalists at the Cathedral Church include Fela Sowande (musicologist and organist-composer), Ayo Bankole (musicologist and organist-composer), Modupe Phillips (a son of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, he played the organ at the age of twelve), Samuel Akpabot (musicologist and composer), Kayode Oni (concert organist and choir director), Godwin Sadoh (organist-composer, choral conductor and ethnomusicologist), Kweku Acquah-Harrison (Ghanaian organist and music educator), Albert Schweitzer (German musicologist and organist), and Ian Hare of King’s College, Cambridge, England.

Choir Training
The outstanding musical standards of the Cathedral Choir today can be traced back to the hard work and foundation laid by Thomas Ekundayo Phillips. Phillips emphasized strict discipline, regular and punctual attendance at choir practices, correct interpretation of notes, voice balance, articulation, attack, comportment, reverence in worship, and utmost sense of good musicianship. His expectations were very high and certainly demanding, but the choir always rose to his standards. During choir practices, as the conductor, Phillips was very sensitive to intonation. He would detect and correct any faulty notes emanating from any section of the choir. He would also call to order any chorister who did not hold his music book correctly, such as covering the face with it or placing it on the lap while seated. The present arrangement where choristers placed their books on the raised desk did not exist then.
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips was known to be very meticulous and thorough in everything he did—whether he was dealing with twelve probationers or with his augmented choir of over one hundred voices. One of the criteria to join the Cathedral Choir or his augmented choir was the ability to sight-read music. Furthermore, the singer must have had a very good voice to be able to sing under Phillips’s direction. Consequently, his choir learned anthems, hymns, chants, and other standard choral works in a very short time. One of the ways he tested his choir to see if they had mastered a work was with the accompaniment. Often, at the last rehearsal of an anthem before Sunday worship, he would start the choir off with the organ, and then suddenly stop playing right in the middle of the piece; if the choir faltered and stopped, he would ask, “suppose the organ broke down during the performance on Sunday, are you going to stop singing?” His choir did not know an anthem, as far as he was concerned, until they could sing it convincingly and confidently without any accompaniment and without dropping in pitch. Honorable Justice Yinka Faji, who began as a choir boy under Charles Obayomi Phillips and now sings alto, recounts the benefits of the discipline instilled in him as a Cathedral chorister:

Membership in the choir disciplined me. To me discipline is synonymous with the choir. It is now a personal taboo for me to miss Sunday services—Mattins and Evensong. Choir practice at 6 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays as a choir boy and now as a choir man, no side talks during rehearsals, team work, orderliness, and mutual respect; these and more have been and still are the norms of the choir. The choir made me bold. I remember one Holy Eucharist Sunday service that I was to sing a solo. It was the Agnus Dei. When it was time to sing, I stood up and opened my mouth. As soon as I started singing, everyone in the congregation looked up and my heart started beating fast. I then said to myself, “Yinka, they are looking at you, will you fail?” I almost stopped singing; one way or the other, I completed the solo and sat down. Since then, I have become very bold to address a large crowd; in fact, I can address the entire nation. Other good virtues I picked up include comportment during worship, improved speech control and good manners generally.
Before a choir boy or man can be admitted into the choir to sing in Sunday worship, he must first go through the rigorous probationary period that normally last several months. The probationary period of choir boys is eight months, while that of adults is around three months. I remember my probationary period in 1980 while I was still in high school. I attended the choir practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Sundays I would sit in the congregation for worship and was never allowed to sing with the choir until I completed my three months of probation. It felt so good in those days to put on my beautiful cassock and surplice and sing tenor in the most famous Anglican Church choir in Nigeria.
Whenever the boys completed their probation, they would be formally admitted into the Cathedral Choir at a special service in which their parents would assist them to put on the white surplice over the black cassock. This was always a moment of joy and pride for the parents. Each week, the choir comes into the church at least four times with a total time of about eight hours. The Organist and Master of the Music usually devotes thirty minutes to the junior boys or those on probation from 6 to 6:30 pm before the main choir practice begins. He/she trains them in sight reading of music notation, vocal exercises, and theory of music. All this training ultimately leads to the boys taking the external examinations of the Trinity College of Music, London. Successful candidates would receive certificates if they passed the exams.
The older members of the Cathedral Choir were never left out of continuous training. Some prominent senior members of the choir were occasionally sponsored by the Cathedral Choir to the Royal School of Church Music, London, refresher course training as the funds were available. This normally took place during summer when the choir was away on vacation in June or July. On return, the choir member would give a report of all he learned, paying particular attention to the new innovations in church music as practiced in England—in the form of new anthems, hymns or hymnals, latest techniques of chanting the Psalms or singing regular church hymns and sacred concerts.

Choir Ministry
The role of the choir in the ministry of the Cathedral Church of Christ is immense. The choir leads the congregation every Sunday in hymn singing, versicles and responses (antiphonal prayers set to music), special settings of liturgical music such as Venite, Benedictus, Te Deum, Nunc Dimittis, Magnificat and the Ordinary of the Mass. The Master of the Music uses the choir to teach the congregation new music.
The Master of the Music is always attentive to how the congregation sings church hymns. In order to boost the standard of congregational singing, Tolu Obajimi introduced a Community Hymn Singing service slated for the third Sunday of each month. This was designed to encourage members of the Cathedral Church to attend Sunday evening worship. Apart from the roster for church societies and individuals, families are also encouraged to sponsor the service. In this service, the Master of the Music writes out the background information or history of the hymns to be sung in the program. There is no sermon; however, one or two Bible lessons are inserted into the program as epilogue. The service opens and closes with prayer. The format of the service is simply an alternation of readings with hymn singing. The historical background of the hymns is read by individual members of the congregation, while the choir and congregation sing the hymns. Before the last hymn is sung, the sponsors and committee members of the service are usually acknowledged.
Whenever there is a fifth Sunday in a month, the Cathedral Choir presents special evening music entitled “Psalmody: Chanting the Psalms of David.” This was also one of the creative innovations of Tolu Obajimi. Similar to the Community Hymn Singing, Psalmody is simply the alternation of readings, in this case the Psalms of David, by members of the congregation, with the chanting of the actual Psalms done by the congregation and/or the Cathedral Choir. The reader presents an historical background of the Psalm—who wrote it, the occasion, why, when and where the Psalm was likely written. This approach helps the congregation to have a better understanding of the theological underpinning of the Psalm, which inevitably would enable them to sing with understanding and energy. Through this medium, the Master of the Music and the Cathedral Choir teach the congregation the latest techniques of chanting the Psalms of David, thereby helping them to correct some performance errors during rendition.
Interestingly, some Yoruba Psalms set to music as anthems by Thomas Ekundayo Phillips are always included in the service. Presently, this is one of the few avenues in which Yoruba songs are performed in worship at the Cathedral Church of Christ. According to the Master of the Music, the use of Yoruba versions of the Psalms in this program showcases works of talented Nigerian composers in sacred music and Psalmody/hymnody in particular. Special settings of the Psalms were normally performed by the Cathedral Choir only, while the congregation listened with dignified attention. Examples of works in this category include Thomas Ekundayo Phillips’s Emi O Gbe Oju Mi S’Oke Wonni (I Will Lift Up My Eyes Unto the Hills–Psalm 121) and Nigbati Oluwa Mu Ikolo Sioni Pada (When the Lord Turned Again the Captivity of Zion–Psalm 126). Interestingly, during the tenure of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, the evening services on the last Sunday of each month were always in Yoruba. The Cathedral Choir would dress in their red cassocks and surplices, augmented by the voices of the Choral Society with the ladies dressed in white buba and alari costumes (traditional gowns). The two choirs would perform Phillips’s Yoruba compositions in these services.
The Cathedral Church of Christ truly proves itself to be a unique culturally blended congregation in terms of hymnals used for worship. The church exemplifies the nature of an interdenominational faith-based organization with the use of hymn books from diverse churches. The hymnals used for worship include Ancient and Modern, Ancient and Modern Revised, Songs of Praise, Methodist Hymn Book, Hymnal Companion, Baptist Hymnal, Saint Paul’s Cathedral Psalter, Church Hymnal, Alternative Service Book, New English Hymnal, Redemption Hymnal, Broadman Hymnal, Sacred Songs and Solos, More Hymns for Today, and indigenous hymns written by Thomas Ekundayo Phillips as well as other members of the choir.

Concert Performances
The Cathedral Church of Christ Choir is well known throughout the southern regions of Nigeria for its seasonal concert performances. The choir sets the tone and standard of music through its exceptional renditions of standard classical works. Thus, the extremely rigorous schedule of the Master of the Music is further laden with concert activities. Apart from the weekly routine of choir practices in preparation for Sunday worship, the Master of the Music must prepare the choir for concerts, which include sacred masterworks, instrumental pieces, and organ recitals. The concert performances are in the form of an Annual Choir Festival, Advent Carol Service, Festival of Lessons and Carols, Easter Cantata, and other types of variety concerts throughout the year.
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips inaugurated the Annual Choir Festival at the Cathedral Church of Christ in November 1918, to celebrate the musical accomplishments of his lovely choir and to showcase the expertise of the group. The festival is traditionally scheduled for the Sunday nearest to St. Cecilia’s Day (November 22), and takes place in the two main morning services (Choral Mattins and Choral Eucharist) and Evensong. The choir sings hymns, versicles and responses, Psalms, and beautiful anthems. The evening festival opens with a short organ recital or a variety concert of solo and chamber music that lasts twenty-five minutes, and it usually closes with an organ voluntary (postlude). The organ recital is played by one of the Cathedral organists or by a guest organist such as Kayode Oni and Kweku-Acquah Harrison.
It is noteworthy that on the occasion of the eighty-first Choir Festival in 1999, the Cathedral Choir marked the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips with the publication of some of his compositions in book form, Sacred Choral Works: English and Yoruba. The book contains several anthems, hymns, descants for hymns, versicles and responses, settings for canticles and Psalms, and chants for canticles and Psalms.
The Cathedral Church of Christ is British in every aspect of its worship, ranging from the use of the English language to the order of service and the music selections. In fact, all the organists have been directly or indirectly trained in the schools of music in London. Hence, there is a tremendous influence of the British worship system at the Cathedral Church. Furthermore, most of the composers of the music used for worship are British—John Ireland, William Byrd, John Stainer, Bernard Rose, David Willcocks, John Rutter, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Samuel Wesley, Thomas Attwood, and Charles Stanley. However, in fairness to the Organists and Masters of the Music, compositions from other European nationalities are occasionally used. These include the works of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and Schubert.
To augment the works of foreign composers, the Cathedral Organist and Master of the Music uses the music of selected indigenous Nigerian composers, notably past and present choir members and organists. The Master of the Music has always been very careful not to promote and glorify the compositions of indigenous musicians who have no direct connection with the Cathedral Church Choir. Among the famous Nigerian musicians or choir members whose works were often performed include the father of the choir himself, Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, Charles Obayomi Phillips, Fela Sowande, Yinka Sowande, Lazarus Ekwueme, Tolu Obajimi, Sina Ojemuyiwa, and Tunde Sosan. I am looking forward to the day when my own compositions would be included in the music repertoire at the Cathedral Church.
The choral and organ compositions of Fela Sowande provided a musical and cultural link with the United States because some of Sowande’s pieces are based on African-American spirituals. The texts of the spirituals share a common theme with the Nigerian songs of liberation written in the 1940s through the 1960s during the era of the nationalist movement that fought for the independence of Nigeria from the British colonialists. The Cathedral Choir could see the spiritual connection between African-American slavery and the colonial experience in Nigeria, which lasted over a century (1840s–1960). The pain, suffering, anguish, and the hope for liberation from the imperialists are some of the commonalities in the themes of the songs. Even though Nigeria obtained her independence from the British government in 1960, the influence of British culture is still very strong today. It permeates every aspect of Nigerian existence, from cultural life to politics, social life, education, and Christian worship as observed at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos.
Following the choir festival is the Advent Carol Service in December. The choir performs selected and tuneful carols and hymns with themes that talk about the coming of Christ. The carols and hymns are interspersed with the reading of six Bible lessons that tell the story of the promises of the coming Messiah. The lessons are mostly taken from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, with two short ones from the New Testament.
The Festival of Lessons and Carols has always been the climax of the Cathedral Choir musical performances for the year. Therefore, the choir is always at its best, singing with clarity, tenacity and excellence. The festival takes place on the last Sunday in December of every year even if it were after Christmas Day. This allows other parish churches to have their own Christmas services earlier, so that choirs from all over Lagos could converge on the last Sunday of December to hear the Cathedral Choir.
The Easter season is another high point in the musical activities of the Cathedral Choir. The Cathedral Church of Christ Choir is popularly known for its annual evening concert on Easter Sunday. This can take the form of the performance of an Easter cantata or the performance of a major choral work such as Handel’s Messiah as performed on Easter Sunday, April 19, 1981, and on March 31, 2002. The Cathedral Choir traditionally performed the entire three parts of Messiah once every three years during the tenure of Charles Obayomi Phillips; but the choir performed only parts two and three in 2002. Another Easter cantata took place on Sunday, April 7, 1996, with the performance of the entire three parts of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips’s Samuel. There were some few instances when the choir staged a concert on Good Friday, such as John Stainer’s The Crucifixion under the direction of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips in 1916. According to the Cathedral historians, this was the first Good Friday cantata concert in Nigeria.
There are other times in the year that the Cathedral Choir performs concerts in and outside of the church. Notable oratorios, cantatas, and orchestral works have been performed by the choir, such as Mendelssohn’s Elijah (performed in 1989), Hymn of Praise, and St. Paul; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (performed in 1953); Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast; Handel’s Ode to Joy, Judas Maccabaeus, and Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day (performed in 1998); Haydn’s The Creation; Stainer’s The Daughter of Jairus and The Crucifixion (performed in 1916); Walford Davies’ The Temple; and Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance performed by the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir Orchestra at the 80th anniversary of the choir on November 22, 1998.
These concerts featured solos, choral and instrumental music. The concerts often attract dignitaries, professional musicians, and students from far and near to the Cathedral Church. The venues of the concerts were either the Cathedral Church, Glover Memorial Hall, or other concert halls in Lagos. The hall was always packed to capacity. Many visitors to the Cathedral Church have commended the outstanding singing of the choir and even remarked that it could favorably compare with the cathedral choirs in England in terms of quality. Gerald Knight, former Director of the Royal School of Church Music, London, once remarked that the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir, Lagos, is second to none in the whole of West Africa.
Some of these concerts were specifically organized to raise funds for either the Cathedral Church or to buy a new organ. For example, Thomas Ekundayo Phillips presented several concerts with the Cathedral Choir in various parts of Lagos to raise funds for the building of a new pipe organ. He later embarked on a concert tour with his choir to Abeokuta on August 24, 1930, and later to Ibadan, to raise funds to build a new pipe organ for the Cathedral Church. In these concerts, the Cathedral Choir performed mostly Thomas Ekundayo Phillips’s Yoruba songs to the delight of the natives of southwest Nigeria. The concerts were a huge success because the choir alone was able to raise more than half the cost of the organ. In fact, in 1927, Phillips went as far as England to appeal to British citizens for money to build the pipe organ. He was able to raise a substantial amount of money through the successful rendition of some of his Yoruba compositions by the St. George’s Church Choir on Sunday, October 23, 1927. The Yoruba songs were recorded by H. N. V. Gramophone Company in London, and the royalties from the sales of the recording were all credited to the Cathedral Church of Christ’s account in Lagos, towards the purchase of the 1932 organ.
The 1932 organ, which was later refurbished in 1966, is now in a very sorry state. In spite of regular servicing and replacement of deteriorated parts since 1966, the organ has reached a stage whereby no amount of repairs could restore it to its greatest glory. In 2005, in order to let everyone in the church realize the deplorable condition of the organ, the Master of the Music refused to send for the repairer when some faults developed. The situation got so bad that they had to stop playing the organ, using piano instead, much to the dissatisfaction of the congregation, including the provost (senior pastor of the Cathedral Church). The provost had to issue a directive that the faults be attended to immediately. The idea to build a new modern pipe organ for the church was originally conceived by the Women’s Guild Auxiliary of the Cathedral Church, and a committee was later set up to achieve that purpose. The Women’s Guild Auxiliary was able to raise some money. However, the funds could only cover the first installments for the purchase of the organ.
In view of the magnitude of the amount required and the importance of the new organ project to the history and development of the Cathedral Church, the Standing Committee decided to step in, and an organ fundraising sub-committee was inaugurated in 2006 to raise the proposed amount of 164 million Naira ($1,640,000 USD). Members of the Cathedral Church, societies, families, individuals, the choir, and corporate bodies were enjoined to participate in the organ project in order to maintain and preserve the tradition of musical excellence that the Cathedral Choir is noted for. Since 2006, the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir has embarked on several campaigns and concerts to raise money to build a new four-manual organ with 64 stops and 3,658 pipes. On Sunday, January 20, 2008, the provost of the Cathedral, Very Rev. Yinka Omololu, announced to the entire congregation with great joy, that they had realized the proposed amount. This feat was made possible through the generous donations of the Cathedral congregation and non-members from all over the country and around the world.
The Cathedral Choir has performed before renowned dignitaries. The choir performed before the British Royal Family, first in April 1921 at the foundation laying ceremony of the Cathedral Church of Christ by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. In January 1956, the choir performed before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip when they worshiped at the Cathedral Church, and finally, on October 2, 1960, at the Independence Day service of Nigeria, attended by Her Royal Highness, Princess Alexandra. On Advent Sunday, 1972, the Cathedral Choir performed with the King’s College Cambridge Choir, during their visit to Nigeria. The first broadcast by the Cathedral Choir on the British Broadcasting Corporation was aired on December 12, 1951.

Recordings
The Cathedral Choir’s musical activities have never been restricted to only live performances at services and concerts. The choir has been involved in recording some of their favorite repertoire. During the tenure of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, the choir recorded two of his songs—Emi O Gbe Oju Mi S’Oke Wonni (I Will Lift Up My Eyes to the Hills–Psalm 121) and Ise Oluwa (The Work of the Lord) for the BBC series “Church Music from the Commonwealth.” In 2006, under the leadership of Tolu Obajimi, the present choir released its first recording in the twenty-first century, Choral Music: Volumes I & II. The two CDs contain a selection of the most famous hymns, anthems, Psalms, Te Deum, and Jubilate that the Cathedral Choir have been performing over the years. Composers of the selected works as usual are mostly British with the exception of the Cathedral Choir musicians, in particular, Thomas Ekundayo Phillips.

Choir Picnics
As the saying goes, “all work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy;” and in keeping with this, the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir does not only engage in rigorous rehearsals and performances throughout the year, but also have their moments of relaxation, partying and enjoyment. These are called the “choir picnics” or “choir treats.” These are annual events organized for the choir by the older members of the choir, choir patrons and/or patronesses or other affluent members of the congregation. It is a way for all those who enjoy and appreciate the outstanding work of the choir to express their gratitude. Choir treats have always been social gatherings held in a very relaxed and congenial atmosphere, mostly in the homes of the sponsors. There would be plenty of food, salad, desserts, and drinks. And for the younger choir boys, there are always indoor and outdoor games to play. A typical picnic day was and still is an occasion to display the football (soccer) prowess between the ‘Dec side’ (right side of choir stall) and the ‘Can side’ (left side of the choir stall) boys.
Some selected members from other parish churches are always invited to celebrate with the Cathedral Choir. This is not the only occasion in which choirs from other churches, even outside of the Anglican church, are invited to the Cathedral Choir program. There is a combined choir concert that takes place once a year. For this program, two to three members from various denominational churches would be invited to join the Cathedral Choir to form what is known as the Augmented Choir. The Augmented Choir, which normally comprised both male and female in the size of one hundred voices or more, would rehearse once a week and finally close this glorious event with a big concert at either the Cathedral Church or one of the churches in Lagos.
Another avenue of collaborative work with other churches occurs when the Cathedral Choir goes on their compulsory new year holidays in January or the summer vacation in June. Some of the church choirs in Lagos come in to sing for four weeks at the Cathedral Church. These collaborative endeavors date back to the era of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, and subsequent Organists and Masters of the Music have kept up the tradition.

Ex-Choristers
In the ninety years of its existence (1918–2008), the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir has produced some of the most brilliant, outstanding and famous Nigerian musicologists, pianists, organists and composers. Historically, the choir has become a ‘school of music’ in which budding composers have had their formative years. Many of the talented musicians belonging to the Cathedral Choir family moved to successful musical careers, some at the international level. The products of the choir have brought immense pride and esteem to the pioneer choir in Nigeria. All these musicians, including myself, give the credit to Thomas Ekundayo Phillips’s work as the founding Organist and Master of the Music. The musical training, performances, discipline, and exposure to a variety of standard choral and instrumental works had a great impact in shaping the musical taste and career of the ex-choristers. Indeed, the Cathedral Choir is a breeding ground for future generations of talented Nigerian musicians. I cannot close this essay without highlighting the profiles of some of the musical giants produced by the Cathedral Choir.
Fela Sowande (1905–1987) came under the leadership of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips in the early 1900s as a choir boy. Under the mentorship of Phillips, Sowande was exposed to European sacred music and indigenous Nigerian church music. He received private lessons in organ from Phillips while singing in the choir. Sowande claimed that Phillips’s organ playing, the choir training, and the organ lessons he received had a major impact on his becoming an organist-composer. It was Thomas Ekundayo Phillips who exposed Sowande to the organ works of European composers such as Bach, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Guilmant, and Dubois. Sowande went on to study music in England, where he became the first African to receive the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO) in 1943 with distinction. He was a broadcaster, musicologist, organist-composer, and music educator. Sowande taught as a professor of music at several institutions in Nigeria and the United States, including the University of Ibadan, Howard University, University of Pittsburgh, and Kent State University. He composed several choral and solo songs, orchestra works, but he is most famous for his sixteen wonderful pieces for solo organ.
Christopher Oyesiku (1925–) had his earliest musical training as a choir boy at the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir under the tutelage of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, who gave the young Oyesiku his first lessons in the theory of music, musicianship, and voice. Phillips also prepared Oyesiku for the external examinations of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, London. During his days as a chorister at the Cathedral Church, Oyesiku rose to become one of the leading trebles and later became the best bass in the choir. In the late 1940s, he was the leading bass soloist in some of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas such as Trial by Jury, H. M. S. Pinafore, and The Mikado. Oyesiku later went on to study music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, from 1955 to 1960. Oyesiku returned to Nigeria in 1960, and in 1962 was appointed to the position of Assistant Director of Programs at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Lagos (now Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria). He served in this capacity until 1981. Oyesiku taught music and directed choirs at the Oyo State College of Education, Ilesha, from 1981 to 1987, and the Department of Theater Arts, University of Ibadan, from 1987 to 1994. He was well known in Nigeria, West Africa, and Great Britain as an extraordinary bass singer. He is popularly referred to as “Tarzan” at the Cathedral Church Choir for his deep and beautiful bass voice. Oyesiku performed the bass solo in several cantatas, oratorios, and variety concerts. One of the high points of his career was the opportunity given him to perform before several dignitaries in Nigeria and the Royal Family in England. He was also an outstanding choral conductor as well as music educator. He is presently retired from active music career and now lives with his wife in London, England.
Samuel Akpabot (1932–2000) was a choir boy at the Cathedral Church under Thomas Ekundayo Phillips in the early 1940s. Akpabot received a most significant introduction to European classical music as a chorister at the Cathedral Church. Akpabot sang many standard choral works such as Messiah and Elijah at the Cathedral Church before going to England to study music. He did advanced studies in music at the Royal College of Music, London, Trinity College of Music, London, the University of Chicago, and Michigan State University, where he received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. He was a composer, ethnomusicologist, organist, pianist, trumpeter, and music educator. Akpabot was the author of five books and several scholarly articles on Nigerian music. He taught at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, the University of Ibadan, and the University of Uyo, where he retired as a professor of music and eventually died there. He served as organist and choir director in several churches in Lagos, including St. Savior’s Anglican Church. Akpabot composed choral and vocal solo songs, and orchestral works.
Ayo Bankole (1935–1976) was a choir boy at the Cathedral Church of Christ in the early 1940s. It was Bankole’s father who encouraged him to join the renowned Cathedral Choir. Bankole became a private organ pupil of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, and also studied organ with Phillips’s protégé, Fela Sowande. Bankole rose to the position of school’s organist at Baptist Academy (one of the famous high schools in Lagos) at the age of thirteen, in 1948. In the late 1950s, Bankole went on to study music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, University of Cambridge, London, and the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1963, Bankole became the second Nigerian to receive the Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO) diploma. He was an organist-composer, ethnomusicologist, pianist, and music educator. Bankole was a lecturer of music at the University of Lagos, and organist/choir director in several churches as well as several high schools in Lagos. Bankole composed mostly sacred music for choir, solo voice, organ, and orchestra.
Lazarus Ekwueme (1936–) is a Nigerian musicologist, composer, choral conductor, singer, and actor. He is one of the pioneer lecturers of music in Nigeria. As a scholar, he has authored several articles and books on African music and the diaspora. Ekwueme was a chorister at the Cathedral Church under Thomas Ekundayo Phillips in the 1940s. He studied music at the Royal College of Music, London, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, and Yale University, where he obtained the Ph.D. degree in music theory. In the area of composition, he is well known for his tuneful choral works based on Igbo idioms and African-American spirituals. As a music educator, Ekwueme taught at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the University of Lagos. Ekwueme retired as a professor of music from the University of Lagos in the early 2000s; he is presently a traditional ruler in his home town in the southeast region of Nigeria.
Godwin Sadoh (1965–) joined the Cathedral Choir as an adult to sing tenor in 1980 under Charles Obayomi Phillips, and he was a chorister until 1994. In 1982, Phillips appointed Sadoh as an Assisting Organist, gave Sadoh private lessons in piano, organ and general musicianship, and prepared Sadoh for all the piano and general musicianship external examinations of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, London. Sadoh became the Organist and Choirmaster of Eko Boys’ High School, Lagos, at the age of sixteen in 1981. He occupied this position until he graduated from high school in 1982. Sadoh later studied music at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, where he became the first African to earn the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance in 2004. He studied organ and composition at Louisiana State University. Sadoh taught at the first three institutions mentioned above and also at Golden West College, California, Thiel College, Pennsylvania, Baton Rouge College, Louisiana, and LeMoyne-Owen College, Memphis, Tennessee. He was appointed professor of music at Talladega College, Alabama State, in 2007. Sadoh is the author of several books and articles on modern Nigerian music, church music, ethnomusicology, and intercultural musicology. He is one of the leading authorities on Nigerian church music and African art music. In the area of composition, he has composed for every genre—vocal solo and choral works, piano, organ, electronic media, and orchestra. Sadoh’s compositions have been performed all over the United States, Europe and Nigeria; some of his works have been recorded on CDs. He has been a recipient of the ASCAPLUS Award in recognition of the performances and publications of his music since 2003 to the present. Sadoh has served as organist and choir director in several churches in Nigeria and the United States.
Recently, the Cathedral Choir has proudly given two more graduates to the professional world of music. Jimi Olumuyiwa, who now sings bass, joined as a choir boy in the early 1970s. Olumuyiwa was the librarian of the Cathedral Choir for many years, and he has participated in several grand concerts including singing the bass solo in Messiah. In addition to his strenuous schedule at school and the Cathedral Church, he directs the Golden Bells Chorale Group, in Lagos, a choir founded by Godwin Sadoh in the 1980s. Olumuyiwa was a former Choir Director of Eko Boys’ High School, Lagos, from 1982 to 1983. Olumuyiwa recently received the Bachelor of Arts degree in music from the University of Lagos, and he rose to the position of Assisting Choirmaster at the Cathedral Church. Tunde Sosan joined the Cathedral Choir as a choir boy under the leadership of Charles Obayomi Phillips in the late 1980s. He continued singing with the choir after Tolu Obajimi took over the baton in 1993. In addition to singing and accompanying the choir, Sosan received private lessons in organ from Obajimi. Sosan’s faithfulness to rehearsals, services and concerts by providing piano and organ accompaniment when there was no one else to do so has earned him favor with Obajimi, who has blessed him with several promotions: from Assisting Organist to Assistant Organist and presently Sub-Organist. Sosan will be completing his studies at Trinity College of Music, London.

Conclusion
As the premiere choir in Nigeria, the accomplishments of the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir are immense, and it has played a major role in shaping the direction and development of church music in Nigeria, especially in the Anglican Church. The choir continues to play a leading and model role in Lagos and in Nigeria as a whole. The magnitude of musical excellence filtered into the ears and minds of the Lagos congregations is felt not only in the Anglican church, but in other denominations as well. The annual choir festivals, Advent carol services, festival of lessons and carols, variety concerts and the choir picnics continue to attract choristers and music enthusiasts from the Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reformed, African, Evangelical, and non-denominational churches from different parts of the southwest regions of Nigeria to the Cathedral Church of Christ. The choir rightly connects the American culture with Nigeria through the use of spirituals in the compositions of its ex-choristers and their musical training in American universities. As they celebrate their ninetieth anniversary in November 2008, they can certainly look forward to many more years of outstanding and meritorious accomplishments in the Nigerian church music ministry.

The author is grateful to his very good friend, Jimi Olumuyiwa, for providing most of the documents used in writing this essay.

Photos are used with kind permission of Christopher Oyesiku.

Part one of two

Edward Maki-Schramm is director of music at Central United Methodist Church in Detroit, Michigan. He received the MMus and DMA from the University of Michigan and BMus from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. While a student he was the first place winner two years consecutively, 1994 and 1995, at the Jean and Broadus Staley Organ Competition in Organ Improvisation, sponsored by the American Center for Church Music. In 2005, Dr. Maki-Schramm was the organist for the Grammy Award-winning recording of William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. In September 2004, Maki-Schramm made his European debut playing a recital at the Schlosskirche in Altenburg, Germany (the church of Johann Ludwig Krebs). In 2003 he was the organist for the Detroit Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and was the organist for Ann Arbor’s Annual New Music Festival featuring the music of composer-in-residence Richard Webster. He performed the commissioned work for the AGO Region V Convention in 1999, and in 1995 was a featured soloist of the OHS national convention. His recordings have been featured on Pipedreams. He is now beginning his sixth year as Dean of the Ann Arbor AGO Chapter. For information: .

Joy Schroeder, FAGO, teaches at the Flint Institute of Music and the Monroe County Community College. She worked in church positions for 36 years, and is now a substitute organist and choir director. In 1999, she was the convention coordinator for the Region V convention held in Ann Arbor, spent six years as the District Convener for Michigan, and is now the Education Coordinator for Region V and serves on the AGO National Committee on Seminary and Denominational Relations. She has a DMA from The University of Michigan in organ performance and a MM from Wayne State University in choral conducting.
 

In beginning a daunting task such as reviewing a national convention, I thought it best to canvas convention-goers for their reactions. Not surprisingly, everyone asked had an opinion not only about the convention but also how the review should appear—easier than filling out the questionnaire tucked into the mammoth, 400-page convention book or losing it in the largest convention bag of recent memory. I received all kinds of advice on not only content but also style: “Don’t let it be boring,” and “nothing too long.”
In deference to them, I offer this concise opinion of convention events: Peter Gomes, Janette Fishell, Stefan Engels, Rollo Dilworth, the Bach Week Festival Orchestra, St. Clement Choir and Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin—fabulous. 7:00 a.m. bus rides, long evening concerts that cut time away from the exhibits, competition with fireworks, and the final concert—not so fabulous.
If you’ve made it this far, perhaps you’ll read a bit further for more details and highlights.

Chicago

Chicago—it was my kind of town. The love affair began the moment I arrived in the Loop. Organists from all over the world met in Chicago, July 2–6, to convene for the 48th time. And Chicago was an excellent choice of city. Visitors to Chicago experience a virtual explosion of cultural activity, civic pride and multicultural expression. The first thing that struck me was the greenery. There were parks everywhere—not just tennis courts and country clubs like Los Angeles—but real parks with ample areas of grass and 29 miles of Lake Michigan lakeshore in the heart of the Midwest. Organists sampled everything from stunning architecture and world-famous museums, churches and concert halls, to lakefront parks and vibrant ethnic neighborhoods.
The almost 3 million residents of Chicago and the city’s organists and enthusiasts were hosts to over 2,000 organists in some of the best weather for which one could have asked. Chicagoans were approachable and helpful. Temperatures were pleasant, which made making use of the buses a bit easier as attendees had the expected lines waiting their turn to board. So thank you, Windy City, for one spectacular week.
It is impossible to attend every event at a convention in a city such as this. The varied opportunities and scheduling options leave each attendee with a slightly different experience. All convention attendees had an early shock on Monday morning when they had to start boarding the buses at 7:00 a.m. I think no one but organists would be asked to board a bus for their first weekday session the day before a national holiday when most people are in a vacation frame of mind. The buses were prompt, and passengers quickly boarded for their transportation to Valparaiso, Indiana. At the annual meeting, attendees applauded G. Ronald Vanderwest, convention coordinator, and the convention committee’s decision to get the early day over early in the week. Little did we realize that we would be asked again on Thursday to board buses at 7:00 a.m. Some people simply gave up at that point and rejoined the convention midday.

Monday, Annual Meeting Rockefeller Chapel

The annual meeting at Rockefeller Chapel began the Monday afternoon sessions. We were greeted on the lawn by the sounds of the carillon and the impressive grounds of the chapel. After the official welcome by President Frederick Swann, organist Dan Miller played Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 3 in A. The tuning of the instrument was so excellent that upon hearing it, I made a note to personally thank the organ technicians for their good work. After reading the back page of the program and hearing President Swann’s announcement that the historic Skinner organ was inoperable and we were listening to a Rodgers Model 957, I crossed out my note. We were duped by those enviable acoustics.
At the meeting, things went as smoothly as possible. These are the types of events where our president really shines. Fred Swann graciously and humorously guided us through what could have been an interminably long meeting. The need and pressure to keep the meeting on time is immense. President Swann asked Dan Miller to cut his playing of the Fanfare by John Cook. This is just the behavior we try to teach our clergy colleagues to avoid. In turn, Miller must have felt that pressure. It was disappointing to hear Miller’s carefully prepared pieces rushed and cut. The acoustic just did not allow a rushed performance of Bach’s Toccata, BWV 538.
Awards were given and noteworthy to mention among all the awards is membership. Memberships were up, especially in Singapore by 47.5%. A higher percentage of young people in attendance was noted several times at this convention. The future of our craft seems to be ensured for another generation.

Monday workshop

All afternoon sessions were marked by their variety and diversity, and Monday afternoon was no exception. The “Celebration of Black Saints in Hymns” given by Wallace M. Cheatham was an incredible excursion into the lives of Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Martin Luther King, Jr., St. Monica, Augustine of Hippo, Simon of Cyrene, Cyprian of Carthage, and Philip the Evangelist. Dr. Cheatham’s enthusiasm for this treasury of hymnody was contagious. He possessed a thorough knowledge of and passion for his selected material and painted the picture and circumstances in which these saints were born. As Cheatham pointed out, they were not derived from theological differences but from the atrocities of our history. He was very generous in giving all attendees of the session a copy of all the hymns with permission to copy one of his works to distribute as widely as possible. After the afternoon sessions, convention-goers dispersed for dinner and either evening fireworks on the Navy Pier, the NCOI Finals, or other events of their choosing.

Tuesday
St. James Episcopal Cathedral

In contrast to Monday’s beginning, attendees had to walk to all of the Tuesday events. This was welcomed by most as a way of getting to know the Windy City and its people. With cool, sunny skies and the help of a city map, we all made our way to the various worship opportunities made available. The service at St. James Episcopal Cathedral was packed, and began with the prelude: The Joy of the Redeemed by Clarence Dickinson, well suited for the instrument. The voicing was typically Victorian, a bit tubby, but the use of color stops and full organ brought the full import of the piece to the fore. Guest organist Jonathan Oblander’s playing of Sowerby’s Prelude on “Deus tuorum militum” made judicious use of the chamade. And it was gratifying to hear Sowerby’s music at the prelude and his Toccata at the postlude because of Sowerby’s connection to Chicago. (For a complete discussion of this connection one simply had to attend Robert Parris’s afternoon session, “Leo Sowerby: A Chicago Legend.”) The service of Morning Prayer that followed the prelude was executed exceedingly well by the clergy and musicians of the cathedral, Bruce J. Barber, II, director. The Reverend Joy E. Rogers, homilist, spoke with passion leavened with humor. Her support and respect of church musicians and her feeling of a shared call was welcomed by all. The most memorable line of her homily was that she never told her music director “no.”
The recitals that followed the worship services were the type where a recitalist’s tires hit the road, so to speak. With the services beginning the day and the recitals starting shortly thereafter, a recitalist has little or no time to warm up to reduce any performance anxiety. And yet the two recitals that morning were among the most well played of the convention.

Holy Name Cathedral

Janette Fishell at Holy Name Cathedral was up to the task, and played a flawless recital. Fishell plays music about which she is passionate, and her choice of program, “Music That Moves,” allowed her to be just that. While one could argue her choices of interpretation of the two Bach trios on Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr—especially the added zymbelstern on the final cantus firmus entrance in the pedal, which I actually liked—one could only admire her sense of skill and bravura. It was wished, however, that the organ was up to the organist’s task. Out in the sanctuary near the altar, the sound did not carry, which was surprising. It seemed to be the fault of the building and not the organ. After all, the organ comprises 117 ranks! The building carried all the upperwork but not much foundation.

Fourth Presbyterian Church

The other stellar recital of the morning was that given by Stefan Engels at the Fourth Presbyterian Church. Here was the perfect marriage of organist and instrument. Engels’ thorough knowledge of the organ from his time as an assistant organist there allowed him a full expression of the extremely difficult and complex repertoire. In Karg-Elert’s Partita Retrospettiva III, op. 151, Engels made good and thoughtful use of the instrument, including the required harp and celesta, while managing extremely wide contrasting dynamic ranges that included an extended use of the antiphonal organ in the rear gallery. It was simply the right piece on the right organ played by the right person. The commissioned piece by Naji Hakim that followed was a pure delight. The Capriccio for Organ and Violin is a fine work. The crowd loved this piece and expressed their appreciation to Engels, violinist Yuan-Qing Yu, and finally the composer who was in attendance. The piece has a clear form, a carefree theme in an abridged sonata form that developed and kept a good balance between solo violin and accompaniment, and also allows the organ a few shining moments. The beginning, based loosely on a dominant seventh chord, set the expectation of things to come. The work leans toward romanticism with wit in the middle percussive section.
The program concluded with Max Reger’s little-known Fantasie über den Choral “Straf’ mich nicht in deinem Zorn,” op. 40/2. The work is typically dense, but in Engels’ capable hands it unfolded in a wave of tumultuous sound. It was again Engels’ experience with the instrument that allowed him to take full and convincing advantage of the piece’s contrasting sections of solo stops and organo pleno. It was nothing short of thrilling.

Tuesday workshop

The Tuesday afternoon sessions offered again a great variety. Rollo Dilworth undertook “Gospel Music and Spirituals for Your Choir.” His focus was on introducing the works of newer, lesser-known artists as well as the tried and true. Clearly apparent was this man’s talent as a leader and director. His charisma and skill brought out his desired results from the attendees as they sang the pieces so generously provided by the publishers. If your choir needs a kick in the pants, Dr. Dilworth is your man. He knows his repertoire, and he knows what to do with it.

Bach Week Festival Orchestra
The Cathedral Singers

One of the two concerts on Tuesday evening featured the Bach Week Festival Orchestra, Richard Webster conducting, and the Cathedral Singers, Richard Proulx conducting. Both groups made some spectacular music but the program was simply too long. In the very hot Holy Family Roman Catholic Church with its many statues and light bulbs tracing the antebellum architecture, many people suffered what one attendee called “fanny fatigue.” The first half of the concert, which consisted of two major Bach works and the Concerto in C Major of Mozart, would have sufficed as the entire concert. It lasted one hour and 20 minutes—and then a 20-minute intermission—and then another 45-minute program by the Cathedral Singers. Because the concert ran longer than expected, even by the performers and convention programmers, people complained that their shopping time was cut short. I was told the first half of the concert was cut for the repeat performance on Wednesday evening. To add to the discomfort of the concert, some very loud fireworks were set off near the church. One had the feeling that we were near Beirut.
Despite all of these obstacles, the musicians met the high mark for which their reputations are known. The Bach Week Festival Orchestra played with all the stylistic interpretation appropriate for the music: Orchestral Suite No. 3 and Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. David Schrader’s performance of the Mozart Concerto was played flawlessly, entirely from memory. His command of the harpsichord (not a piano!) was stellar. The Cathedral Singers, despite the distractions of the fireworks and heat, sang accurately and seemed at ease. The women sang in straight tone but the choir still had a full and warm sound.

Wednesday
St. Luke’s, Evanston

Wednesday morning was spent in Evanston, where Thomas Murray played at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The Skinner organ, Op. 327, a.k.a. “Lucille,” was in capable hands. She seemed best suited for the final work of the recital, Elgar’s Severn Suite transcribed by Murray. The crescendi and decrescendi were seamless, suave and his playing dry but poised. And he managed all of this with only five generals.

St. Clement Choir
First United Methodist Church, Evanston

The St. Clement Choir (of Chicago) sang at First United Methodist Church, Evanston. I enjoyed this choir the most, if only for their diversified, impressive and still useful repertoire. It was a refreshing change from the Cathedral Singers’ all-Latin program the night before. Randall Swanson, conductor, was energetic, clearly understood, connected and at all times sensitive to the music and text. The choir has 32 singers, eight of whom were sopranos who sang in a warm straight tone; the repertoire alternated between a cappella and accompanied works. Marie Rubis Bauer provided superb accompaniment—she followed every nuance given by Swanson. This was no small task as she had to see around that massive console. The choir displayed their artistic mettle in Colin Mawby’s Ave verum corpus. The contrasting, lush and expressive portions of the work were handled most ably by the choir, with muscle for the fortissimo sections and sensitivity and grace in the pianissimo sections.

Thursday workshop

The final event of particular note was the workshop given by
Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin on Thursday afternoon, “Improvisation in the French Manner,” a packed event in St. James Cathedral. Cauchefer-Choplin outlined the French education system; since 1968 one could choose interpretation, improvisation or both. She then went on in her wonderful accent to outline the graduated steps of learning and teaching improvisation. The crowd ate every word. Other than her gift for improvisation, which she demonstrated, she was zealous to share her knowledge and passion for the art.

Final concert

The final concert held at Moody Memorial Church was, in a word, disappointing. I understood where the convention committee wanted to go with this event. As the celebratory culmination of a national convention, it missed the mark. The organ did not speak well in the room, and the acoustical tile on the ceiling didn’t help. To make matters worse, Mickey Thomas Terry’s memorized solo performance on the worst organ of the convention was not to the level one would have expected. It simply was not on par with the prior performances of the convention. With missed notes and inappropriate rushed sections, added to the boredom of the audience in a dimly lit sanctuary after a long week at the convention, we simply didn’t care at that point. Dupré’s Variations sur un Noël, op. 20, called the most life out of the Reuter organ, even though most of the movements were played under tempo.
The concert was salvaged by the Chicago Community Chorus. The second half of the concert began with an impressive procession by the chorus, an unauditioned chorus reflective of the diversity that is Chicago. The procession resulted in a crescendo as each choir member was added to the chancel. The choir’s sound is dark and robust, not unlike a good cabernet, with sopranos who have gusto and stamina for days. Their charismatic conductor, Keith Hampton, was entertaining to watch. His choice to include two movements of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor was a curious one. Although the chorus handled the work well, the pacing of the Gloria was a bit pedantic and unlike anything else in the program. Moreover, it seemed to prove their spirit as a community chorus as well as a possible symphony chorus. Where the chorus really shone was in the published works of their conductor and Moses Hogan. At only three years old, this chorus will be interesting to watch grow and prosper.
Dr. Hampton played the world premiere of the AGO Celebration Suite for Organ. This memorized performance proved him to be an able player and was refreshing to hear, especially after the first half of the concert. This commissioned piece by Sharon Willis was well proportioned, useful and improvisational in style. Of all the commissioned works for this convention, I highly recommend this work and the piece by Naji Hakim. Note to future convention committees: choose your performers carefully; they really do sell the piece.

Closing reception

The final reception was chaotic and unnecessarily so. The ballroom was packed with extremely long lines waiting for liquor and food; all the while Paul Bisaccia played the piano and was largely ignored by the crowd. He tried to play above the noise of the assembly to no avail. With long lines and a grumpy crowd, the convention ended in a whimper instead of a grand Amen. —Edward Maki-Schramm

The ChicAGO 2006 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists was hosted July 2–6 by the Chicago, Fox Valley and North Shore AGO chapters, with all three chapters planning and presenting events. Events were not only held in Chicago, but also in Valparaiso, Evanston, Lincoln Park, Naperville, and Wheaton. Some of these venues are a fair distance from downtown Chicago and the convention hotels.

Sunday, July 2

The gala opening concert took place at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. The Metropolis Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Julian Wachner, joined with organists Philippe Bélander, David Schrader, Maxine Thevenot, and Thierry Escaich for a program of newer compositions for organ solo and organ with orchestra: Triptych for Organ and Large Orchestra by Julian Wachner, Ha’llel-an organ solo by Shulamit Ran (a convention commission), Concerto for Organ and Strings by Richard Proulx (AGO 2006 Distinguished Composer), Sleepy Hollow—a tone poem for organ and orchestra by Aaron David Miller (also a convention commission), and Concerto pour Orgue et Orchestre by Thierry Escaich. In this memorable event—long memorable event—all music was performed with great skill by soloists and orchestra alike, and the crowning jewel was the 1998 Casavant organ, inspiring even those of us who had tickets in the very last row of the top balcony. Long after the concert was finished, musicians spoke of two works as standing apart and fresh from the rest, due to changes in medium—the Proulx work used only the strings of the orchestra—and due to a change in composition style—the Wachner work, which was written to be performed in St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, with a 10-second reverberation.

Monday, July 3

Monday, July 3, conventioneers traveled to Valparaiso University for the opening worship service and a concert by James O’Donnell, then to Rockefeller Memorial Chapel for the AGO annual meeting. In the worship service, music of Bach (including the motet Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden, BWV 230), Mendelssohn, Richard Proulx (a convention commission), and Richard Webster (another commission) was sung interspersed with hymns, readings and a sermon by Rev. Peter Gomes. Martin Jean, the Valparaiso University Bach Choir, Guild Chaplain Rev. Gregory Norton, the Dean of the Chapel Rev. Joseph Cunningham, and guild dignitaries were part of this service that used historical and new ideas.
After this, James O’Donnell gave a recital of music by Michael Berkeley, J. S. Bach, Augusta Read Thomas (convention commissions Angel Tears and Earth Prayers), Alain, Ad Wammes, and Patrick Gowers. The Schlicker organ was refurbished in 1996 by the Dobson Pipe Organ Builders and gained stops in several divisions to make an incredible instrument.

Monday workshops

The bus then returned to Chicago for the national meeting. Buses were late returning to the hotel, and so the workshops were late starting and sparsely attended. Workshops offered an eclectic mix of presentations of music, methods of interacting with other musicians, computer programming advice, and two recitals, one by Alexander Fiseisky and one by Chelsea Chen. Emphasis in the workshops seemed to be on music of various denominations and cultures: Gregorian chant, evangelical church music, Hispanic resources, handbells, and the celebration of black saints in hymns. This reviewer attended the dramatic skit “Interviewing for a Job” with role players Donna Wernz, James Thomashower, Edwina Beard, Barbara Gulick, Roy Roberts, and James Owen (who was the job applicant). Because the workshop started late not all parts of the skit could be acted, but general, confrontational, overly broad, and illegal questions received sample answers for those who might find themselves in similar situations.

Monday night featured a dinner and fireworks spectacular at Navy Pier, and the NCOI Finals. Unfortunately, it was impossible to attend both.

Tuesday, July 4

Tuesday was Chicago day, beginning with worship services at St. James Episcopal Cathedral, Fourth Presbyterian Church, and Holy Name Cathedral. Hearing the liturgical music of Albert Alain in the liturgy of the Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Portugal at Holy Name Cathedral made the service one of great beauty. The service featured organists Matthew Walsh, Ricardo Ramirez, and Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, and the Cathedral Gallery, Chamber and Women’s Schola of Holy Name choirs, with the Most Reverend Joseph N. Perry, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, participating.
Afternoon workshops were offered on music of Sowerby, the Netherlands, Wilhelm Middelschulte, Calvin Hampton, Colonial Mexico, organ methods, gospel and spirituals, the musician-pastor team, AGO chapter endeavors, the life of Russell Saunders, teaching organ, repertoire, and a composer’s forum. This reviewer attended the workshop on improvising hymns in jazz style, by longtime convention exhibitor Joe Utterback, who distributed examples of his improvisations on hymn tunes and performed at the piano.
Tuesday evening, half of the conventioneers went to the Bach Week Festival Orchestra concert—in the middle of what sounded like a war, but were fireworks just outside the church door—the other half to Trinity Church Wall Street’s concert.

Wednesday, July 5

On Wednesday morning, buses traveled to Evanston and got lost on return, so that we went many miles north, instead of south, and some were late for future events. Afternoon workshops covered organ restoration, music of Buxtehude, women composers, Canadian composers, handbells, Reger, psalms, African-American organ music, children’s choirs, anthems, counterpoint, assertiveness training, the new ELCA hymnal, teaching styles, reading sessions, and improvisation, plus there were two Rising Star recitals and the NYACOP winner’s recital.
On Wednesday evening, the choir of Trinity Church, Wall Street, gave a performance at St. Mary of the Angels Roman Catholic Church. After an introduction to the Marshall and Ogletree, Opus 1, Epiphany Series III/85 organ, which was situated in the front of the sanctuary, Owen Burdick, conductor and organist at Wall Street, played Bach’s Pièce d’Orgue, BWV 572, on a Werckmeister III tuning that had been set to sound “sweet” in G major. This was a startling experience for this reviewer, for it was truly “sweeter” and very different from the standard equal temperament tunings, or even Werckmeister in a C major home key; and it certainly could be argued to be an accurate historical event, for harpsichordists changed tunings frequently in the Baroque period. Only such a complex instrument of the 21st century as the Marshall & Ogletree instrument can now be programmed to apply these alternate tunings, and present such an alternate listening experience. The piece actually seemed more “major,” more “bright,” and was radically different from other hearings.
An audience rehearsal followed of hymns from A Song of David by William Albright, and after intermission, choir, conductor, organist Robert Ridgell, narrators, and audience performed this haunting, seemingly unending, highly repetitious, extremely melodious, and emotionally moving, even draining, 75-minute work.

Thursday, July 6

On Thursday, the buses left for Naperville, Wheaton, Lincoln Park or Fox Valley. My bus got lost in the city. Thierry Escaich’s concert at St. Pauls UCC (no, it doesn’t have an apostrophe, for it is a direct and proud translation from German) offered music of Tournemire, Messiaen, Escaich and Duruflé in the mezzo-forte to fortissimo range, with the improvisation on “Yankee Doodle” at the end serving to show the soft flutes and strings of the Aeolian-Skinner organ.
Going from a loud performance to the next, that of a nine-voice a cappella group in the reverberant St. Clement Church, made the ears twitter, for the tuning, vowels, selections, and blend of this group was excellent; this was a concert to remember, truly, forever. The group, Chicago a cappella, chose a varied repertoire, and actually started the concert twice, due to a mix-up in starting times, and buses arriving at different times from other venues. But they could have started 50 times—it was a magic moment.
Again, on Thursday, workshops were presented. Offerings included music of France, Karg-Elert, Hakim, Liszt, Hungary, Gerald Near, the Marilyn Mason library, Virgil Fox, AGO exam preparation, improvisation, fundraising, teaching, medical aspects of performance, computers, reading sessions, Indian pipe organs, worship questions, and regional conventions.
The closing concert was in a totally different style, with an African-American volunteer choir that has only been in existence for three years, and was a very enjoyable experience to finish the week.
Chicago is a stunning city. The convention was stunning with its near-perfection in music. Other than the endless bus rides, I would love to return and do it all again. Congratulations to the committees and all the hard workers for a fine convention!
—Joy Schroeder
 

Hymn Festival

The hymn festival was held at St. Raphael RC Church in Naperville. The organ is a Berghaus (III/60), completed in 2005, which incorporates portions of a previous Kimball. The venue was superb for a hymn festival, incorporating natural light from many windows and a clerestory. The theme of the festival, “Light from a Fire Within,” was enhanced by the marvelous, sparkling room. The quarry tile floor and lack of fabric and carpeting (minimal paraments and two small flags) created a resonant space for hymn singing. Aaron David Miller played the service with great expertise and was assisted by brass (Concordia University faculty), handbells (The Agape Ringers) and the Heritage Chorale. A good variety of tunes was provided, including “Splendor of God’s Brightest Glory” by Dr. Miller, “Ermuntre Dich,” “Delig Er Den Himmel Blaa,” “The Glory of Christ,” by K. Lee Scott, an Iona song, “Take, Oh, Take Me as I Am” and a rousing closing hymn, “When the Morning Stars Together” sung to the tune, Weisse Flaggen.
Commissioned pieces included an organ work, People Look East, by Emily Maxson Porter, and Lyric Piece for handbells by Carl Wiltse and Donald Allured. Choral anthems included Angelus and Take My Life by Dr. Miller. The readings continued the theme of “Light” throughout the festival.
Excellent hymn accompaniments, including alternate harmonizations and interludes, were provided, along with a cappella SATB stanza treatment and with nice, full accompaniments for female voices on selected hymn stanzas, instead of the usual and obligatory thin treble textures. This festival was so well done that its overall impact surely was “better than the sum of its parts.” A verse from Susan Palo Cherwien’s Music from Crossings best summarizes the event:

There is a noble sound of pipes and voice
That marries the mind and the heart
That transfigures the spirit.

House of Hope Choir with Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus

The concert was a partnership between The Motet Choir of the House of Hope Presbyterian Church and the Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus. The venue was Grace United Methodist Church, Naperville. The choirs were conducted by Thomas Lancaster and Emily Ellsworth. Nancy Lancaster served as the organist. The organ is a Reuter III/41 with a few digital 16' and 32' sounds. Solos were provided by Sandra Schoenecker, mezzo-soprano. The adult and children’s choirs each numbered around 35 singers. The children’s group included approximately five boys. Works presented included an organ piece by Stephen Paulus, As If the Whole Creation Cried, which is movement three from Triptych, and the choral works There Is No Rose by Stroope and Psalm-Cantata(2000) by Frank Ferko.
The Stroope selection was memorized by the children’s choir and contained a beautiful accompaniment for piano and oboe. This challenging piece was sung with clear diction and good expression.
The composer’s program notes for the Psalm-Cantata indicated that the work’s “performing forces” include a mixed chorus representing the past and present and a children’s chorus representing the future. Sections of the work alternated between the two choirs and combined singing. The organ accompaniment was very well played, and it provided nice color and relevance to the work, as a whole. The Psalm and hymn texts built in intensity from “Lord Who May Dwell” to “Praise God, Hallelujah!” The aural accompaniments to these texts were enhanced by visual elements consisting of bright red and black vests over white shirts worn by the children and by the organ grille/screen which was a flame motif beautifully executed in a reddish hardwood.
—W. James Owen
(Reprinted from The American Organist with permission.)
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