October 2002

This second installment of my travel journal begins in Peer, Belgium, where I left off in last month's column.

Elizabeth Birkshire Brothers Sherman, age 91, of Little Rock, Arkansas, died on July 21. She was a longtime active member of the Central Arkansas AGO chapter and served as Dean from 1970-72. She was organist at various churches in Little Rock, including Pulaski Heights Presbyterian Church and St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Sherman is survived by two sons, a sister, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Quimby Pipe Organs, Inc.,

Warrensburg, Missouri

SkyRose Chapel, Rose Hills
Memorial Park, Whittier, California

Opus 46

Since 1985, the Summer Institute for French Organ Studies (SIFOS) has given American organists a unique opportunity to play and study historic French organs in depth. Unlike the more usual organ tours, which enroll many people and visit a large number of instruments briefly, this institute is restricted to five or six participants and spends a week each at an eighteenth-century organ in Souvigny and at a nineteenth-century one in Lyon. In addition to attending daily classes on the instrument and the literature appropriate for it, each person has at least one daily practice session at the organ.

Robert Armbruster's magnificent NBC studio orchestra that played so brilliantly on the Kraft Music Hall in the late 1940s had to accompany, perform overtures and other legitimate repertoire, and also make a good showing against popular orchestra leaders such as Paul Whiteman. All of this was done within the confines of a modest-size studio and the well-controlled budget of a broadcast that had to pay its own way. This is directly analogous to the age-old quest of providing cathedral music in a parish church setting. Getting the most out of a limited number of stops has been a fascinating challenge and, when successful, a point of great pride for organ builders over centuries.

Below follow tributes in Noehren's honor, by William Osborne, Bunker Clark, and Haig Mardirosian, and a review by Ronald Dean of Noehren's Bach CD which was released last year, in addition to a listing of his articles and news releases as featured in The Diapason. Requiescat in pace.