Cover Feature: Schoenstein & Co./Bishop Gadsden Retirement Community
Schoenstein & Co. Pipe Organ Builders, Benicia, California; Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community, Charleston, South Carolina
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Organ Projects: David E. Wallace & Company, LLC/Lathrop Tilton
David E. Wallace & Company, LLC, Gorham, Maine
Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church, Jay, Maine
Pierre Firmin-Didot (1921–2021): A tribute marking the one hundredth anniversary of his birth
Following her graduation from the University of Michigan in 1971, Franco-American organist Lynne Davis moved to France to study with Marie-Claire Alain, and then Jean Langlais and Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé. While there, she met her future husband, Pierre Firmin-Didot, and ended up staying thirty-five years. After receiving the Certificat d’Aptitude de Professeur d’Orgue from the French Republic, she served as organ professor at the Conservatory of Music in Clamart and at the National Regional Conservatory in Caen.
In 2006, she was appointed the Robert L. Town Distinguished Professor of Organ at Wichita State University, where she produces and performs in the Rie Bloomfield Organ Series: Distinguished Guest Artists and Wednesdays in Wiedemann. In 2012, she was awarded as a French citizen the distinction of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. After receiving the Excellence in Creativity Award from Wichita State University in 2011, she was honored with the medal of the city of Wichita from Mayor Carl Brewer in 2013. In 2016, she received the Burton Pell award from the Wichita Arts Council and in April 2021 was promoted to full professor at the university. Her unique living and vast working experience and her lineage of study in France makes her an authority in all French organ repertoire, culture, and aesthetics to which she has added work as a translator from French to English. She is represented in North America by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.
This past summer 2022, we witnessed the last musical moments of the great organ at Chartres Cathedral. At the end of August, scaffolding was built to take down the entire instrument—the pipes, the console, all the mechanical elements, and the Renaissance organ case—to leave space for a new instrument that will be built in three to four years. It will be an exceptional time for the organ case, which has never been taken down or restored in its long life. This is all great and wonderful news that will certainly enchant the organ world, both nationally and internationally.
Harpsichord Notes: Mattheson's Fingersprache
A new edition of Mattheson’s Fingersprache
Die Wohlklingende Fingersprache (The Melodious Talking-Fingers), by Johann Mattheson, edited by Colin Booth and Matthew Brown. Soundboard, 2020, 70 pages, with preface in English and German, $37.00. Available from ravencd.com.
Carillon News: 2023 Franco Proposal Contest
The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America (GCNA) announces results of its 2023 Franco Proposal Contest. Thirty-three submissions were received for this first proposal-based composition contest. Submissions included prior works by the composers in any genre and a statement by the composer regarding the proposed work. Submissions were made to be anonymous for the jury, which included Margaret Angelini, Linda Dzuris, Alex Johnson, Thomas Lee, Scott Orr, Tiffany Ng, and Charles Zettek.
Nunc dimittis: James Cameron Taylor
James Cameron Taylor, organ builder in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, died June 29. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 25, 1948, his early motorcycle travels in the 1970s led him to apply for work at Andover Organ Company where he worked closely with Walter Hawkes and Robert Newton. After his time in Massachusetts he returned to Wisconsin, working for organ builder Ronald Wahl in Appleton before setting up his own shop in the Fox River Valley of northeast Wisconsin.
