Organ Concert Series
Ninth Annual Organ Concert Series, 2012-2013We are pleased to announce our 2012-2013 season!
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Ken Cowan - October 28, 2012
Christian Lane - February 10, 2013
Janette Fishell - April 14, 2013
We look forward to seeing you at one, or all, of these great performances!
Performances are on Sunday afternoons at 4:00 p.m. in the sanctuary at 1345 Grace Avenue at the corner of Grace and Observatory Avenues in Hyde Park.
*The concerts are free and open to the public.
*Tickets are not required. There is limited reserved seating for our honored guests: media partners and upper level donors.
*Doors open at 3:00 p.m.
*Performances generally last 90 minutes with a short intermission.
*You are cordially invited to a reception to meet the artist immediately following each concert
*Your contributions designated to The Organ Concert Series Fund will enable us to continue to offer quality concerts to our members and to the community.
Ken Cowan is one of North America’s finest concert organists. Praised for his dazzling artistry, impeccable technique and imaginative programming by audiences and critics alike, he maintains a rigorous performing schedule which takes him to major concert venues in America, Canada, Europe, and Asia.
Recent feature performances have included appearances at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa California, Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall, Spivey Hall, and Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as concerts in Germany and Korea. In addition, Mr. Cowan has been a featured artist in recent years at the national conventions of the American Guild of Organists held in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, has performed at many regional conventions of the AGO, and has been featured at several conventions of the Organ Historical Society and the Royal Canadian College of Organists.
Numerous critically acclaimed compact disc recordings are available by Mr. Cowan. His most recent releases are Works of Franz Liszt (on the JAV label), which was recorded on the Michael Quimby organ at First Baptist church in Jackson Mississippi, Ken Cowan Plays Romantic Masterworks (on the Raven label), which was recorded on the 110-rank Schoenstein organ at First Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, and The Art of the Symphonic Organist Vol 4 (on the JAV label), which was also recorded at First Baptist Church in Jackson Mississippi. In addition to his solo recordings, Mr. Cowan also joined organist Justin Bischof in the world premiere recording of American composer Aaron Miller’s Double Concerto for organ, recorded with the Zurich Symphony Orchestra on the Kleuker organ in the Tonhalle, Zurich, Switzerland (Ethereal Recordings). Many of Mr. Cowan’s recordings and live performances are regularly featured on the nationally distributed radio show PIPEDREAMS from American Public Media.
A native of Thorold, Ontario, Canada, Mr. Cowan received the Master’s degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, studying organ with Thomas Murray. Prior to attending Yale, he graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied with John Weaver.
In 2012 Mr. Cowan joined the keyboard faculty of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University as Associate Professor and head of the organ program. Previous positions have included Associate Professor of Organ at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ, where he was awarded the 2008 Rider University Distinguished Teaching Award, Associate Organist and Artist in Residence at Saint Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, Assistant Organist posts at St. James Episcopal Church, the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in New York City, and Saint Clement’s Church in Philadelphia. He has also been on the roster of Associate Organists for the famous Wanamaker Grand Court organ in Philadelphia.
CHRISTIAN LANE
Winner of the prestigious 2011 Canadian International Organ Competition, Christian Lane is
one of America’s most accomplished and versatile young organists.
Consistently acclaimed for his “driving energy and mature interpretation (The American
Organist),” Mr. Lane also earned first prize in four major American organ competitions before
reaching his twenty-first birthday: the 2000 Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition/USA, the 2001
American Guild of Organists (AGO) Region III Competition for Young Organists, the 2002
Augustana Arts/Reuter National Undergraduate Organ Competition, and the 2002 Arthur Poister
National Organ Competition. In 2004, he earned both second prize and the audience prize in the
AGO National Young Artist Competition (NYACOP), widely considered to be the preeminent
organ-playing competition in the United States.
A 2004 graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, Mr. Lane earned
his Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance with highest distinction and served as undergraduate Marshall at the school’s commencement exercises. He simultaneously completed the school’s Diploma program in Sacred Music, gaining valuable insight about and experience within a wide spectrum of Christian worship traditions. At Eastman, his primary teacher and mentor was Professor David Higgs.
Subsequently, as a Robert Baker Scholar at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and School of
Music, Mr. Lane earned a Master of Music in Organ Performance in 2008. During his time at Yale,
he was awarded two noteworthy prizes: the Charles Ives Prize for an outstanding organ major and the Mary Baker Prize for excellence in organ accompaniment. His primary lessons were with a foremost specialist in romantic organ performance, Professor Thomas Murray. In addition to intensive study on the famed Newberry Organ in Woolsey Hall, his studies spanned the broad spectrum of organ repertoire – including performances on the university’s new Taylor & Boody organ in meantone temperament. At Yale, he was also a teaching fellow in music history and a secondary organ instructor, teaching undergraduate students for credit-earning lessons. He regularly performed as accompanist and continuo player with the university’s premier choral ensemble, the Yale Schola Cantorum under the direction of Simon Carrington; these collaborations included a tour of southern France and a recording of the Bach and Mendelssohn Magnificats released by NAXOS.
Passionate about commissioning new music and using the organ in collaborative settings,
Mr. Lane regularly performs with internationally acclaimed soprano Jolle Greenleaf. Focusing on
repertoire of the Renaissance and Baroque periods coupled with works from the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries, these collaborations have been well received in concerts across the United States. In the fall of 2007, the pair premiered a cycle by composer Nicholas White, From Earth to Heaven, featuring six songs based on medieval English texts. Notably, Mr. Lane also commissioned and premiered a work for organ and tenor voice and an organ prelude by composer Nico Muhly, one of America’s most noteworthy young composers, having recently completed a commission from the Metropolitan Opera.
As a soloist, Mr. Lane performs regularly throughout the United States and in Europe.
Notable venues include St. Patrick’s Cathedral (New York), both St. Paul’s Cathedral and
Westminster Abbey in London, and Washington National Cathedral. He was a featured performer
at the 2005 AGO Region VI Convention in Colorado Springs and a “Rising Star” performer at the
2002 National AGO Convention in Philadelphia. The 2010-11 season featured the final gala
concert on the monumental Fisk organ at Harvard before its removal, a tour of the United Kingdom, a week of teaching at the venerable Oundle for Organists program in England, and the recording of three separate discs with Harvard choirs. In the coming year, he will release his first two solo recordings and will perform extensively in the United States and Canada, including a highlighted performance in conjunction with the 2012 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists. Mr. Lane has been privileged to serve within some of the country’s most respected parish music programs, including two in Rochester, NY: Third Presbyterian and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where he succeeded Eastman Professor Emeritus David Craighead following 48 years of distinguished service. In New Haven, Mr. Lane was Assistant Organist at the Episcopal Church of Trinity-on-the-Green where he worked with one of the last remaining choirs of Men & Boys in the country. Notably, Mr. Lane also served for two years as assistant organist to John Scott at the Episcopal Church of Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue, New York City. At Saint Thomas, he worked with the parish’s world-renowned choir of Men & Boys amidst six choral services per week, and was also head of music for the church’s residential choir school.
Christian Lane is currently Associate University Organist and Choirmaster at Harvard
University. There, he works with the University Choir and the Choral Fellows in Sunday services
broadcast on public radio and at the university’s daily services of Morning Prayers, a Harvard termtime tradition since 1636. In addition, Mr. Lane serves as primary teacher to Harvard organ
students and is resident tutor in music at Harvard’s Lowell House. He is a member of the Executive Committee for the Boston Chapter, American Guild of Organists, and directed a summer organ festival, including two concurrent Pipe Organ Encounters, on its behalf in 2011.
JANETTE FISHELL
Janette Fishell holds degrees in organ performance from Indiana University and Northwestern
University; her teachers include Wilma Jensen, Wolfgang Rübsam, Richard Enright, Anita Werling,
Robert Byrd and Clyde Holloway with further coaching on Baroque and German Romantic repertoire
with Ludger Lohmann. Named Young Organist of the Year by Keyboard Arts, Inc. while still an
undergraduate, Dr. Fishell is a recitalist and teacher of international standing. She has performed in
many of the world’s greatest concert venues including Suntory Hall, Tokyo; King’s College,
Cambridge; Berlin’s Schauspielhaus; the Liszt Academy, Budapest; the Prague Spring Festival; and has
been a featured recitalist and lecturer at five national conventions and five regional conventions of the
American Guild of Organists. Her solo recitals for the 2006 national convention of the AGO in Chicago
were critically acclaimed as “flawless” and a convention highlight. The author of numerous articles and
a book on service playing published by Abingdon Press, she is widely recognized as a leading authority
on the organ music of Czech composer Petr Eben.
Her numerous compact disc recordings include performances of the music of Marcel Dupré,
Petr Eben and J.S. Bach as well as duet literature performed with her husband, British organist Colin
Andrews. Pas de Dieu: Music Sublime and Spirited, a recording of French Romantic repertoire and the
world premiere of Frank Ferko’s Livre d’Orgue, was released by Loft Recordings in July, 2006, the
premiere recording on C. B. Fisk opus 126. She has been featured in live radio broadcasts worldwide,
including live recital broadcasts for the BBC from St. Marylebone Church, London, NHK, Tokyo, and
Czech Radio. A frequent adjudicator, she has been tutor and artist three times at the Oundle
International School for Young Organists and was a judge for the recorded round of the 2000 National
Competition for Young Artists sponsored by the American Guild of Organists. She served as Chair of
the NYACOP committee from 2004 to 2006.
Dr. Fishell is Professor of Organ and Chair of the Organ Department at the Jacobs School of
Music, Indiana University, where she teaches applied organ and courses in the sacred music curriculum.
From 1989 to 2008 she headed the Organ Performance and Sacred Music degree programs at East
Carolina University and was Director of Music/Principal Organist at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church,
Greenville, NC where she oversaw a full schedule of choral services and led the choir on two successful
English Cathedral Choral Residencies and the recording of a critically acclaimed compact disc.
Her students have distinguished themselves in academia and the performance stage including
first place honors in the AGO Competition for Young Organists, the MTNA National Collegiate Organ
Competition and at the Oundle International Summer School for Young Organists. Her former students
successfully serve in churches and on university faculties throughout the US and Asia.
Dr. Fishell’s commitment to the creation and sustenance of excellence and creativity in organ
performance and sacred music has led to a variety of projects: she founded the East Carolina Religious
Arts Festival, and was pivotal in the design and fundraising for the C. B. Fisk opus 126 pipe organ that
functions both as the organ for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Greenville, NC, and the major teaching and
performance instrument for East Carolina University School of Music. She has received numerous
commissions for choral compositions and hymn tunes, some of which are featured on Love Bade Me
Welcome: Music from St. Paul’s, and is a regular contributor to professional journals, a participant on
panels and an active lecturer and adjudicator.
Most recent and upcoming engagements include venues across the United States and multiple
concert tours of Asia and Europe, including recitals at the Beijing National Center of the Performing
Arts, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, Sydney Town Hall, Lilia Hall, and Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris.
In the United States she performs under the management of Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.
Thank You to Our DonorsDonors cite various reasons for supporting church ministries. HPCUMC’s organ concert series resonates with benefactor Ron Thain because the organ is a complex instrument that “exposes people to lots of other instruments” through its various sound qualities.
Sentimentality is at the essence of Larry McGruder’s underwriting: Twenty-seven years ago, Larry and his then-bride-to-be Jill arrived at the stone chapel where they were to be married, only to discover that a moving truck was ready to haul away the chapel’s antique organ. “We convinced movers to hold off loading the instrument until after the wedding. And since then, beautiful organ music holds special meaning for us.”
HPCUMC thanks these donors and others—and welcomes inquiries into funding future performances.Past Seasons of the Organ Concert SeriesPrior to 2004
Frederick Swann, David Higgs
2004-2005
Pierre Pincemaille, Sonia Kim, and Paul Jacobs
2005-2006
Stefan Engels, Olivier Latry, and Carol Williams
2006-2007
Vincent Dubois, Martin Jean, and Anthony & Beard (Gary Beard, organ, and Ryan Anthony, trumpet)
2007-2008
Alan Morrison, New York Organ & Piano Duo (Daniel Sullivan, organ, and Jason Cutmore, piano), and Thierry Escaich
2008-2009
Thomas Trotter, The Chenaults organ duo, Lynne Davis
2009-2010
Christopher Houlihan, Anthony & Beard, Bradley Hunter Welch
2010-2011
Clive Driskill-Smith, Brenda Portman, Raul Prieto Ramirez, Isabelle Demers
2011-2012
Frederic Blanc, Michael Unger, Douglas Cleveland
Casavant Organ SpecificationsHyde Park Community United Methodist Church
Organ by Casavant Frères, Opus 3671
The organ at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church (Opus 3671) was built by Casavant Frères of Quebec, Canada. It was completed in 1990 and was first heard in a dedicatory recital given on September 25 of that year by organist and director of music, Mark Schaffer, who with his predecessors, Edwin Domb and Todd Wilson, assisted in the design of the instrument. Tonal designer was Jean-Louis Coignet. Final voicing was carried out by Yves Champagne. It was designed in the tradition of French organs to fulfill the dual role of Orgue de Choeur, an accompanimental organ for the choir in the chancel, and Grand Orgue, or main organ, speaking down the central axis of the nave from the gallery.
The organ has 88 ranks of pipes - 63 in the gallery and 25 in the chancel - and is operated from a single four-manual console located in the chancel. It has a total of 4,843 pipes. Opus 3671 has been compared to other fine instruments built by Casavant Frères, including those in Saint Clement Church in Chicago and the Basilique Notre-Dame-du-Cap near Montreal. The complete specifications for the organ follow.
Gallery Grand Orgue (II)
Violon 16
Montre 8
Flûte harmonique 8
Flûte à cheminée 8
Violon 8
Prestant 4
Flûte ouverte 4
Doublette 2
Cornet V
Fourniture harmonique II-IV
Plein Jeu IV
Bombarde 16
Trompette 8
Trompette royale 8 (from solo)
Grand Orgue Unisson Muet
Chancel Grand Orgue (II)
Montre 8
Flûte à cheminée 8
Prestant 4
Flûte à fuseau 4
Flûte à bec 2
Cornet II
Fourniture IV
Grand Orgue Unisson Muet
Gallery Récit (III)
Bourdon doux 16
Principal 8
Cor de nuit 8
Viole de gambe 8
Voix céleste 8
Octave 4
Flûte octaviante 4
Octavin 2
Plein Jeu V
Basson 16
Trompette harmonique 8
Hautbois 8
Voix humaine 8
Clairon 4
Tremblant
Récit Unisson Muet
Chancel Récit (III)
Bourdon 8
Viole de gambe 8
Voix céleste 8
Principal 4
Flûte ouverte 4
Doublette 2
Plein Jeu IV
Bombarde 16
Trompette 8
Tremblant
Récit Unisson Muet
Gallery Positif (I)
Bourdon 8
Salicional 8
Principal 4
Flûte douce 4
Nazard 2 2/3
Flageolet 2
Tierce 1 3/5
Piccolo 1
Clochette 1/3 (c: 2/3, c’: 1 1/3)
Cymbale harmonique II-V
Clarinette 8
Postif Unisson Muet
Trompette royale 8 (from solo)
Gallery Solo (IV)
Trompette royale 8
Gallery Pédale
Principal 32
Montre 16
Violon 16
Soubasse 16
Bourdon doux 16
Flûte 8
Bourdon 8
Octave 4
Contre bombarde 32
Bombarde 16
Basson 16
Trompette 8
Chancel Pédale
Contre Bourdon 32
Bourdon 16
Octavebass 8
Bourdon 8
Octave 4
Bombarde 16
Trompette 8
Couplers
Gallery Grand Orgue / Pédale 8
Chancel Grand Orgue / Pédale 8
Gallery Récit / Pédale 8
Gallery Récit / Pédale 4
Chancel Récit / Pédale 8
Chancel Récit / Pédale 4
Gallery Positif / Pédale 8
Gallery Solo / Pédale 8
Gallery Récit / Grand Orgue 8
Chancel Récit / Grand Orgue 8
Gallery Positif / Grand Orgue 8
Chancel Récit / Positif 8
Gallery Grand Orgue / Positif 8
Gallery Récit / Positif 8
Gallery Grand Orgue / Solo 8
Chancel Grand Orgue / Solo 8
Gallery Récit / Solo 8
Chancel Récit / Solo 8
Gallery Positif / Solo 8
Gallery Organ ON-OFF
Chancel Organ ON-OFF
Adjustable Combinations (Solid State, 32 memories, capture system)
General Pistons: Eight, controlling Gallery and Chancel Organs
Divisional Pistons:
Gallery: Six per division (seven for Récit)
Chancel: Three per division (five for Récit)
Reversible Pistons
Gallery Grand Orgue / Pédale - Thumb & Toe
Chancel Grand Orgue / Pédale - Thumb & Toe
Gallery Récit / Pédale - Thumb & Toe
Chancel Récit / Pédale - Thumb & Toe
Gallery Positif / Pédale - Thumb & Toe
Gallery Solo / Pédale - Thumb & Toe
Gallery Récit / Grand Orgue - Thumb
Chancel Récit / Grand Orgue - Thumb
Gallery Positif / Grand Orgue - Thumb
Gallery Grand Orgue / Solo - Thumb
Gallery Récit / Solo - Thumb
Gallery Positif / Solo - Thumb
Zimbelstern (10 bells) - Toe
Gallery Full Organ - Thumb & Toe
Chancel Full Organ - Thumb & Toe
Summary
Gallery: 44 Stops, 63 Ranks
Chancel: 18 Stops, 25 Ranks
Total: 4843 Pipes