Schoenstein & Co., Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill

Schoenstein Opus 172 Church of the Redeemer. Parry: Blest pair of sirens.

Schoenstein built their Opus 172 in 2018 for the Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts: three manuals, 25 voices, 31 ranks.

For information: https://schoenstein.com/

Why sell an organ?

Boston has long been a center for pipe organ building starting before 1810 with William Goodrich and Thomas Appleton and continuing with E. & G. G. Hook (later E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings, and later still Hook & Hastings), George Stevens, George Hutchings, Ernest Skinner, Aeolian-Skinner, Andover, Fisk, Noack, and many others. I have calculated that in over two hundred years, Boston organ builders collectively produced around 9,000 instruments. Compare that to the single firm of M. P. Möller, Inc., which built roughly 13,500 organs in around 120 years. Many of those were simple stock models like the ubiquitous Artiste, which in some years were pushed out the door at the rate of more than one a day.

Starting in the early 1960s, several new companies were formed to help usher in the “tracker revival,” most notably Fisk and Noack. Among those lesser known today was Robert Roche, whose workshop was in Taunton, Massachusetts. Bob was of Portuguese heritage, well informed, and a very fast talker—it was hard to get a word in edgewise. Along with his activities building, rebuilding, and restoring organs, he ran a small-scale organ supply company, providing parts, tools, and supplies for pipe organ builders. In the late 1980s when I was starting the Bishop Organ Company, I drove to Taunton to pick up a load of something or other, and during the expected yak-fest, Bob gave me his best advice for a nascent independent organbuilder, “Never build an organ for a wealthy church. You’ll create your magnum opus, and they’ll swap it out in twenty years.” I remember thinking if I ever had a chance to build an instrument for a wealthy church, I would go ahead and take my chances, and as far as I know, Bob never had that opportunity.

Church of the Redeemer (Episcopal) in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, my mother’s home parish, is nestled in an affluent neighborhood a couple miles west of Boston. The original organ by Kimball, Smallman, & Frazee was installed in 1915 when the building was completed. Möller Opus 9475 was installed there in 1961, followed by Noack Opus 111 in 1989. Schoenstein Opus 172 replaced the Noack in 2018, the third organ I have known personally in the same church, and the third organ there in less than thirty years. My first organ teacher, Alastair Cassels-Brown, was organist at Redeemer in the 1980s, and I maintained the Möller for him. My college pal Gregg Romatowski was organist there when the Noack was acquired. Sadly, Gregg died of AIDS shortly thereafter.

My dear friend Michael Murray, who shared organist duties at my wedding to Wendy with his husband Stuart Forster, had a productive tenure at Redeemer during which the Schoenstein organ was commissioned, twelve years after Schoenstein Opus 149 was installed at Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Stuart was organist. The Organ Clearing House removed the Noack and returned it to the Noack shop in Georgetown, Massachusetts, where it was renovated and enhanced for Saint Paul’s Chapel on lower Broadway in New York City, part of the fabled congregation of Trinity Church, Wall Street. We installed the organ at Saint Paul’s, and later helped install the Schoenstein at Redeemer.

Our wedding was at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Newcastle, Maine, home of Hutchings Opus 182 (1888) and the first church building designed by the brilliant ecclesiastical architect Henry Vaughan. Vaughan wanted the ceiling painted with frescoes, but funds were not available, so he did it himself, lying on his back on scaffolding. (Henry Vaughan also designed Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill.) Stephen White, a former student of my father who taught homiletics at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was rector of Saint Andrew’s at the time of our wedding. He and dad celebrated the wedding together. Stephen was the former rector at Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill.

Did you get all of that? It is hard to imagine that I could have so many connections with one church except to add that I accompanied a local choral society in a performance of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem in D Minor on the Noack organ at Redeemer a few days after September 11, 2001.

Of course, there have been hundreds of other churches in my life. Even as adults, my kids still joke that when driving, I navigate by steeples. 

What were they thinking?

From my seat in the Organ Clearing House, the concept of changing organs is always on my mind. Several times a week, I hear from a church wishing to buy or sell an instrument, and I am usually corresponding about ten organs at any given time. It has been especially intense in the last few weeks as we placed an instrument built by Mander Organ Builders in 1991 for Christ Episcopal Church, Pittsford, New York, on the market. It has two manuals and twenty-five stops and an especially beautiful case with brilliant proportions, rich carvings, and polished tin façade pipes with gilded mouths. The organ glows in the dark.

When I published the organ’s availability on our website and posted a link on Facebook, several serious potential purchasers responded quickly, as did the all-knowing community of organ watchers who lurk there. “What church would sell an organ like that?” “A praise band must be next.” 

The Mander organ replaced a Wicks built in 1947 that had been “improved” several times by technicians whose intent exceeded their abilities. The new organ, standing prominently on the church’s long axis, brought brilliance and clarity of tone to the room for the first time. The Mander was fifteen years old when the rector encouraged the enhancement of the music program. The music director’s position was expanded to full-time with a mandate to expand the choir program, bringing a new level of excellence and depth to the music of worship. The growing choir, which had been seated in the rear of the church with the Mander, returned to seats in the chancel. Organist David Baskeyfield brought in a Hauptwerk instrument to accompany the choir and lead music from the chancel, and an organ committee is working on plans for the acquisition of a new pipe organ to be placed around and behind the chancel, especially designed for sophisticated choral accompaniment.

All this reflects the church’s thoughtful and constructive commitment to excellence in music, not irresponsibility for the Mander organ. As I write this, I am corresponding with several potential purchasers where the organ would be placed in superior acoustics and appreciated for its many strengths. It is a thrill to watch a church’s music program grow quickly enough to outgrow a brilliant thirty-year-old organ. I commend the church for bringing two fine organs into existence, and I am grateful for the lively chat online about this superb instrument.

Better get it out of there. . . .

In 2002, I was asked to sell an organ built by Hellmuth Wolff in 1976 with two manuals and seventeen stops. Hellmuth was upset that the church was rejecting his organ and asked me to convince them to keep it, but the church’s new organist was eager to have a large four-manual digital instrument and had no interest in retaining the Wolff organ. When I learned that the organist’s domestic partner was the senior warden of the church, I was pretty sure we were not going to stop it, and when that organist suggested that some of the pipes from the Wolff might be retained to enhance the digital instrument, I told Hellmuth that we had better get that organ out of there before something bad happened to it.

The organ was purchased by Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church in Durham, North Carolina, which already owned a one-manual organ by John Brombaugh. In 2003 we moved the Brombaugh to the front of the church and installed the Wolff organ in the balcony. The church brought Hellmuth to Durham for the dedication of the organ, a happy moment for him after so much frustration and disappointment.

Hellmuth Wolff was born in 1937 in Switzerland, apprenticed with Metzler, and then worked for Rieger and Fisk. He moved to Canada in 1963 to work as a designer in the new mechanical-action department at Casavant alongside Karl Wilhelm. In 1964, he and Karl installed a forty-six-rank Casavant, Opus 2791, at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The Organ Clearing House subsequently sold that organ to Saint Theresa Catholic Church in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was relocated by Messrs. Czeluzniak et Dugal in 2005. Juget-Sinclair Opus 4 with two manuals and forty-five ranks was installed at Saint Andrew’s in 2006. Organ Clearing House president Amory Atkins and his wife Virginia Childs were married at Saint Andrew’s in 1991. Hellmuth and Karl both established successful independent firms in Québec. Hellmuth passed away in 2013.

Miles and piles . . .

Nativity Catholic Church in Timonium, Maryland, was home to a twelve-rank Schlicker organ built in 1986. We sold the organ to All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Kapa’a, Hawaii, in 2015. The reason the organ was offered for sale was obvious the instant I entered the building, as predicted by one of the errant Mander commentators. There was an elaborate rock-and-roll setup adjacent to the organ console, with miles and piles of wire coiled and snaking about, woven between microphone stands, mixers, drums, and stools. We found handfuls of guitar picks and used nine-volt batteries instead of the usual pencils under the pedalboard. We sent the organ to Rosales Organ Builders in Los Angeles. They renovated and expanded the organ and installed it at All Saints’ in 2020. Adam Pajan played the dedicatory recitals. Shane Morris Wise is the organist at All Saints’.

If the shoe fits . . .

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Glendale, California, was home to a forty-four-rank Schlicker organ with three manuals built in 1963. In 2008, the organ was ready for renovation, and the people of Saint Mark’s chose to offer it for sale so they could acquire a more “Anglican” instrument. First Lutheran Church of Montclair, New Jersey, purchased the organ in 2010. It was renovated and relocated by the Organ Clearing House, and installation was completed in 2015. Pastor Will Moser of First Lutheran Church, now retired, is also an organist. He had grown up in the thrall of Schlicker organs, considering them to be the quintessential Lutheran instrument.

Saint Mark’s Church in Glendale acquired Skinner Organ Company Opus 774, built in 1930 with three manuals and thirty ranks. It was restored and installed by Foley-Baker, Inc., in 2009. With two expressive divisions, three pairs of celestes, and three colorful orchestral reeds, that organ is ideally suited for the Anglican liturgy and the accompaniment of Anglican choral music and chants. Two radically different organs were exchanged to provide their congregations with instruments especially well suited for their individual musical traditions.

§

I have written about organs being sold because styles and opinions change, or because an active church outgrows an instrument, but of course the most common reason for the sale of pipe organs is the closing or merging of churches. When a congregation dwindles and its resources are stretched too thin for feasible operation and starts planning for the sale of their building, they should also begin planning for the future of their organ. Conversely, real estate developers often contact me about selling an organ in a building they have purchased when there is a month or less before they start demolition.

When selling a pipe organ, a year is like a lightning strike. When a church is considering acquiring an organ, there is typically a long committee process. A group travels to audition an available organ and organbuilders inspect it and provide proposals for renovation and relocation, which are presented to the congregation. Organ committees, music committees, finance committees, and parish councils or vestries discuss the proposals. Sometimes fundraising does not start until that entire process is complete. The organ that was offered for sale a month before demolition has long been reduced to rubble.

A church that is considering closing should start working on the sale of an organ as soon as feasible. It may be a bitter pill to swallow, but it is better than watching an organ go down. When there is time to work with, an organ can command a higher price—its cash value plummets as time runs out. This also applies to the church that has commissioned a new instrument and faces a deadline for the removal of an organ. The worst case in that situation is for a church to have to pay to scrap an organ that has run out time. If your church has decided to replace its organ, get the old one on the market right away, even before the new contract is signed.

Another option to remember when selling a church building is the possibility of retaining ownership of an organ in a sales agreement. If the building sells before the organ, the buyer might agree to allow for the removal of the organ six months, a year, or more after the building changes hands. We once removed a large organ from a church building that had been sold over a year earlier. The original congregation still owned the organ, and the new one was contractually obligated to allow for its removal, but they were not pleased with the impending disruption, and there were some contentious issues to work out. When we offered the use of our scaffolding for the installation of planned new lighting, all the squabbling ended.

The cash value of a vintage pipe organ is determined largely by circumstances and by the market. Any church considering the acquisition of a vintage instrument will be facing significant expense for renovating and relocating the instrument. When a seller insists that the asking price should be comparable to new, I simply remind them that the cost of a new organ includes transportation and installation and assumes that the organ is in mint condition. You have to subtract the cost of relocation, installation, and any necessary renovation to determine a reasonable asking price.

There is a finite amount of money spent on pipe organ projects in the United States every year, and I have adopted the attitude that I need to do all I can to be sure that those precious resources are spent on wonderful instruments. If a church owns a simple organ in poor condition and wants to keep using it, I am ready to encourage them to spend money on repairs, but if there is no hope of a project resulting in a credibly useful organ, I do not see the point. There is such a thing as an organ without any artistic merit. I try to encourage churches looking to purchase an organ to consider those of highest quality first. I am not comfortable advocating a mediocre organ when excellent instruments are available at similar cost. That guides my decisions regarding accepting new listings. There are always many times more organs available than we will ever be able to place, so let us concentrate on the best.

It is immensely satisfying to place a fine organ in a new home once its time has run out somewhere else. New organs are typically planned carefully for the spaces they will inhabit, but it is remarkable how often an instrument adapts beautifully to a new home with minimal changes. We’ll never be able to save them all, but it’s fun to try.

James Hejduk

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

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

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

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

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

Dominic Joseph Radanovich

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

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

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

Thomas Wikman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joy Schroeder holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from University of Michigan in organ performance. She is currently a student, ABD, at the University of Oregon in music theory.

The fifty-eighth annual organ conference at the University of Michigan celebrated women’s contributions as performers, composers, educators, and builders of the organ, harpsichord, and carillon. Distinguished guest artists and lecturers from North America and Europe joined University of Michigan faculty, students, and alumni in presenting an impressive range of events, beginning with the annual improvisation competition and concluding with the restaging of three choreographies by the American modern dance pioneer, Doris Humphrey, set to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The conference explored not only the music, performance practices, and pedagogy of women in the field, but also how their individual careers in a male-dominated profession have helped shape the current landscape.

A prelude to the conference

Jennifer Pascual, director of music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, performed a recital at the First Presbyterian Church of Ypsilanti on September 23. The performance was presented by the Ypsilanti Pipe Organ Festival and the Ann Arbor Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Her program included a mixture of well-known organ works by Bach, Guilmant, Duruflé, Yon, Ravel, and Cherubini (both arranged by Machella), lesser-known pieces by Hakim and Lidon, and music by women composers Clara Schumann, Jeanne Demessieux, Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, and Sr. Mary David Callahan, serving as an introduction to the conference the following weekend.

Saturday, September 29

The First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor hosted the Seventh Annual Improvisation Competition, and three contestants had been selected to enter the final round. The contestants improvised on the hymntune, Wondrous Love, and a selected chromatic theme. First place and audience prizes were awarded to David Simon, currently a student at Yale University; second prize to Alejandro D. Consolación, II, from Manila; and third to Christopher Ganza from Minnesota. The judges were James Biery, Ann Labounsky, and Anne Laver. Kola Owolabi chaired the event with assistance from preliminary round judges Joseph Gascho, Darlene Kuperus, and Stephanie Nofar-Kelly. Timothy Huth of the American Center of Church Music provided historical anecdotes along with host representative Richard Ingram.

Sunday, September 30

First Presbyterian Church hosted a hymn festival titled “Sing Justice! Proclaim Justice! Hymnody in Word and Song by Women Poets and Composers.” Scott Hyslop served as the organist, while the Reverend Kendra Mohn gave several meditations on injustice, with support from the First Presbyterian Choir and interim director of music, Richard Ingram. The program featured works by Catherine McMichael (prelude), Jane Marshall (anthem), with hymn texts by Mary Louise Bringle, Carolyn Winfrey Gilette,
Shirley Erena Murray, Jaroslav Vajda, and Rusty Edwards, arranged by Alice Parker and Hyslop.

That evening, the faculty recital featuring works by Pamela Decker, Rachel Laurin, and a world premiere of a work by Catherine McMichael was presented at Hill Auditorium with Susan Clark Joul, soprano; Joan Holland, harp; James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi, organ. McMichael’s The Apostle: A Symphony in Three Linked Movements drew thematically from the biblical character of Paul of Tarsus—persecutor, poet, and apostle. The last piece by Rachel Laurin, Fantasy and Fugue on the Genevan Psalm 47, op. 62, was a duet performed by Kibbie and Owolabi. The work has contrasting registrations and themes utilizing four manuals and pedal of the organ.

Monday, October 1

The day began with two lectures. Michael Barone discussed women organists past and present (including music presented during the conference) in “Ladies Be Good: One Guy’s Overview of Women Organists and Composers.” Sylvia Wall presented “Call Me Fran: Harpsichordist Frances Elaine Cole.” An American harpsichordist, Frances Cole (1937–1983) was a musician from Cleveland, Ohio, who taught at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, and died in New York. She organized numerous harpsichord festivals, and her life was commemorated in the lecture by Wall and by Cole’s niece, Mia Cole Washington. Following, Annie Laver discussed and performed “An Introduction to the Organ Works of Judith Bingham.” Bingham has written about 300 works of which some twenty are for organ.

In the afternoon, conference attendees heard music in a program entitled “Élizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Claveciniste Extraordinaire,” including the Chamber Sonata in D Major, the Harpsichord Suite in A Minor (played by Nico Canzano), and the dramatic cantata Semelé. The recitalists, Nico Canzano, Ellen Sauer, Leah Pemick, Leo Singer, Antona Yost, Alyssa Campbell, Alex Baker, and Neil Robertson are all students of Joseph Gascho.

Following the performance, a lecture, “Sylvia’s Little Black Book: an Intimate View into the Pioneering Life of Harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe,” was presented by Christina Scott Edelen. Marlowe (1908–1981) was an American harpsichordist who commissioned many works from leading composers and performed Baroque repertoire. This recital included works by Virgil Thomson, François Couperin, Vittorio Rieti, and Henri Sanguer. Italian virtuoso Letizia Romiti completed the afternoon’s events with a recital, “Women, Italy, and the ‘Queen of Instruments.’” The program featured works by Andrea Gabrieli, Merulo, Majone, Frescobaldi, Madame Ravissa de Turin, a manuscript from the Convent of Notre-Dame de Vitre, and Clara Schumann.

The evening began with a carillon recital at Burton Memorial Tower performed by Margaret Pan of Boston, Massachusetts. The pieces played were mainly by late twentieth-century women composers and included Reflections from the Tower (1990) by Emma Lou Diemer. The evening concluded with a recital at Hill Auditorium, “Music by Women Composers,” presented by students of James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi, including Jenna Moon, Kaelan Hansson, Joseph Mutone, Sarah Simko, Joseph Moss, and Julian Goods, with featured works by Pamela Decker, Judith Bingham, Libby Larsen, and Florence Beatrice Price.

Tuesday, October 2

The last day of the conference began with Ana Elias and Sara Elias presenting “An Evolution of Women’s Role in the Carillon World and Its Implications for Arts Entrepreneurship.” Starting with the historical evolution of women’s role in the carillon, the current state of the profession in Portugal was discussed. Female entrepreneurship was encouraged, and the presenters’ traveling carillon was exhibited. Following, “Florence Price: The First African-American Woman Composer Successful in Classical Music: Newly Found Organ Works” was presented in lecture and recital by Calvert Johnson. In particular, Johnson discussed Price’s Passacaglia and Fugue of 1927.

Later that morning, the panel “The ‘Solo’ Keyboardist: When You’re the Only ____ In Your Workplace—Professional Perspectives” was moderated by Tiffany Ng, university carillonist, and featured panelists Anne Laver (Syracuse University), Susan Tattershall (ID Project at Colorado Legal Services), Elena Tsai (freelance harpsichordist and technician), Colin Knapp (Michigan Opera Theatre), and Anne Huhman (associate director of University of Michigan Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center).

In the afternoon, students of James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi played music by women composers at the First Congregational Church. The recitalists were James Renfer, Matthew Durham, Allison Barone, Samuel Ronning, Clayton Farmer, and Emily Solomon performing the music of Pamela Decker, Ruth Zechlin, Erzsébet Szönyi, Brenda Portman, and Efrida Andrée.

“Living Legends . . . Lasting Legacies: Emma Lou Diemer, Marilyn Mason, and Alice Parker” was presented by Darlene Kuperus and Marcia Van Oyen, with music by Diemer, Parker, Larry Visser, and Joe Utterback, along with videos and remembrances of each “legend.” The afternoon concluded with a presentation of “The Work of Dana Hull, Organ Builder & Restorer” by Tom Curry and Elgin Clingaman, followed by a reception in honor of Hull.

Tiffany Ng began the final evening with a carillon recital that utilized added electronics. The recital, “Women Who Rock the Bells,” was divided into sections: “#METOO: The Movement to Support Survivors and End Sexual Violence” (music of Pamela Reiter-Feenstra); “Breaking the Tower Ceiling: Black Composers” (music of Yvette Jackson and Jessie Montgomery—both Michigan premieres); “Frontiers of Space and Imagination” (music of Laura Steenberge, Margo Halsted, Agniezka Stulginska), and “Not Your Quiet Model Minority” (music by Carolyn Chen).

The conference concluded with University of Michigan Dancers, the University of Michigan Baroque Chamber Orchestra (Aaron Berofsky and Joseph Gascho, directors), and James Kibbie on organ, recreating choreography staged by Gail Corbin, Jillian Hopper, and Michela Esteban of Doris Humphrey (1895–1958) to the music of Bach. Non-danced music of de la Guerre was also included in “An Evening of Doris Humphrey and J. S. Bach:  Romantic Post-Modernism in Dance and Music.” The final piece, Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, was played by Kibbie with stunning choreography by Humphrey from 1938. Jillian Hopper and Christian Matijas-Mecca are directors of the Dance Legacy Project.

The conference was one of trailblazers, presenting music chiefly by women, many of whom are unknown. Indeed, the conference itself was a trailblazer in its presentation of women composers, the breadth and varied scope of the offerings, and the immense educational benefits to all attendees.

Photo credits: Sherri Brown