January 2015

Spreckels Outdoor Organ at 100 years

In summer 2001, I had just finished my doctorate at the Manhattan School of Music and was living in New York City when I read about an open position in San Diego as civic organist. I applied along with a hundred other organists. I love all kinds of music and just knew this was the job for me because that is just what the Spreckels Organ venue is about: music for all people of the world.

Harold Chaney, New York City organist, died on November 20, 2014. He was 84. The cause was complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. A native of California, he pursed dual careers as organist and harpsichordist. He earned a DMA from the University of Southern California, and was subsequently awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for two years at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, where he studied under Heinz Wunderlich.

Playing a “coda” at Hexham Abbey

What a thrill it was to hear famed organist Dame Gillian Weir play her final public recital at Westminster Cathedral in London on December 5, 2011. It was a magical and historical moment for the standing-room-only audience of organ aficionados, fans, and professionals. To be a part of history is always exhilarating; to be a part of musical performance history adds a layer of gravitas that tunes our listening in unique ways.

Daniel Roth is widely acclaimed as a leading French organ recitalist, recording artist, improviser, teacher, and composer. He is titular organist of the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where his predecessors included Widor and Dupré, and he has held teaching positions at major institutions in France, Germany, and the United States.

September 5–7, 2014

To encourage young organists—this has been our raison d’être for the past seventeen years of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival, something with which all of us in the profession agree.

Several of my columns in the latter half of 2014 had their subject matter determined by things that had happened recently involving my own students and their lessons. This set of (two) columns also falls into that category. Over the last few months, three different new students have told me in our initial discussions that they needed to learn sight-reading or that they wanted to become better at it.

To be the very best