June 2011
Choral music in Nigeria can be broadly divided into two categories: (1) traditional choral repertoire, and (2) Western-influenced choral works known as modern Nigerian art songs. Traditional choral singing can be observed in naming…
The Organ Clearing House, Charlestown, Massachusetts
The Church of the Resurrection, New York, New York
“Downstairs, Upstairs”
During 1916, Casavant Frères completed 61 new organs, including Opus 665, built for the “Lower Sanctuary” of the…
J. Zamberlan & Co.,
Wintersville, Ohio
Mt. Lebanon United Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
When the church dedicated a new three-manual organ by Fratelli Ruffatti in November 2002, the instrument included a number of prepared-…
Some of the nation’s best-known
organists and scholars braved yet another winter storm on February 21, 2011 to attend the symposium “The Pipe Organ in African-American Worship,” directed by Dr. James Kibbie at the University of Michigan…
After living in Italy, I had the
opportunity to go to Egypt to study Arabic. I had always been fascinated by Arabic literature and music, as well as the prayer chants that are so much a part of life in the Moslem world. They are similar to…
The Power of the Press:
“A Living Legend”
Nicholas Slonimsky (1894–1995), writing about harpsichordist Wanda Landowska for the French journal Disques in 1932, introduced his subject with a three-stanza poem. It begins:
Her fingers on the…
Memory
This month I will write about memorization. More precisely, I will introduce a discussion of memorization with two other related performance issues: sight-reading and looking (or not looking) at the keys. These three matters,…
Aeolus
Ruler of the winds. That’s who he was. According to Greek mythology, he was son of King Hippotes and custodian of the four winds, keeping them in the heart of the Lipara Islands near Sicily. At the request of other gods, Aeolus…
International Carillon Congress in Michigan
Seven churches and three universities in Michigan will host a joint congress of the World Carillon Federation and the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America from June 26 through July 2. The…
Robert M. Fischer died October 21, 2010. He was 95 years old. Born in Buffalo, New York, and raised in Pittsburgh, as a child he bicycled to weekly recitals by city organist Marshall Bidwell on the Skinner organ at Carnegie Music Hall in…
