The Greater Columbia Organist April 2012 A Publication of the Greater Columbia Chapter of the American Guild of Organists APRIL AGO MEETING Conducting at the Console Dr. Alicia Walker Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - 7:00 p.m. Good Shepherd Lutheran Church 3909 Forest Drive Columbia SC 29204 How many of us have found ourselves in the situation of having to do some conducting from the console? Probably it's the one subject that was never covered in all those years of organ lessons! Dr. Alicia Walker, Professor of Choral Music Education at USC, will present a class on this all-important topic for the April meeting of Columbia AGO. Dr. Alicia W. Walker is Assistant Professor of Choral Music Education at USC, where she directs the University Chorus, teaches Conducting and Choral Methods, and supervises student teachers. She holds degrees from Florida State University, (BME), the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (MCM) and the University of Georgia (DMA). Her conducting teachers have included André Thomas, John Dickson, and Allen Crowell. An experienced music educator, Dr. Walker taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels in Florida and Georgia prior to joining the music education faculty at the University of Georgia. She brings a strong sense of the ethics of music education to the choral music students in her classes. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Dr. Walker is a leader in professional music organizations. She is immediate Past President of Georgia ACDA, having previously held positions at the division level, and served on several ACDA convention planning committees. Polyphony, an organization for church musicians, tapped Walker as their first national Leadership Team coordinator, a position she will hold through 2011. An active church musician and advocate for sacred choral music, Walker is in demand as a writer, liturgist, lecturer, and conductor. She has directed church music ministries in Kentucky, Florida, and Georgia, including twelve years at Atlanta’s historic Peachtree Baptist Church. Her recent articles appear in Choral Journal, Georgia Music News, and Review and Expositor. Other professional memberships include MENC, SCMEA, GMEA, Choristers Guild, and the Hymn Society. Dr. Sally Cherrington Beggs August 20, 1959 - March 17, 2012 Dr. Sally Cherrington Beggs, the Chair of the Music Department and College Organist at Newberry College, a Lutheran (ELCA) College for the Southeast, lost her three year battle with cancer on Saturday, March 17, 2012. Born in Allentown, PA on August 20, 1959 she was the third daughter of the late James Cherrington and Doris Cherrington. Services will be April 22, 2012 in Wiles Chapel on the Newberry College Campus. The prelude will begin at 6:30 PM with the service scheduled for 7:00 PM. Friends are invited to visit with the family following the services. Dr. Cherrington completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ from Yale University, where she also received her M. M. A. and Master of Music degrees as an organ student of Thomas Murray and Charles Krigbaum. While at Yale she won the Charles Ives Organ Prize and the Faculty Award from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. She was named the Frank Bozyan Organ Scholar from 1989 to 1991. She was an Instructor in Organ at Yale as well as the Minister of Music at the First Congregational Church in Wallingford CT. During this period she also premiered “Bell Piece” by Percy Grainger with the Yale Concert Band in Carnegie Hall, New York City. She received her undergraduate education at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, where she graduated first in her class. Prior to attending Yale, Dr. Cherrington was the Staff Organist and Teacher at the International Headquarters of the Allen Organ Company. In this capacity she performed extensively (about 150 solo recitals), ran their active teaching program, wrote instructional materials including Allen Organ’s series of three educational videos for church organists, now sold internationally. Dr. Cherrington relocated to South Carolina in 2000 from the Chicago area, where she was the full-time Director of Music at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Park Ridge and the College Organist and adjunct Assistant Professor of Music at Elmhurst College in Illinois. Known affectionately by students as “Dr. Sally” she has served as the Music Department Chair at Newberry College since her arrival and as a substitute organist throughout the Columbia area including regular appearances at Aveleigh Presbyterian in Newberry where she attended with her family until 2010 and St. Francis of Assisi Episcopalian Church in Chapin. She served St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Lexington as a part-time organist from 2010-2011 while battling cancer. Under her guidance the Music Department at Newberry College has doubled in size and become one of the strongest private college Music programs in the state. Dr. Cherrington has performed extensively in major churches throughout the eastern seaboard and Midwest, as well as making several concert tours of Europe as a soloist or accompanist including a performance for Pope John Paul II. Programs include concerts with the Chicago Brass Quintet (Nov 2011), and solo recitals at two national conventions of the Organ Historical Society. She was also the organist/choir director for the 2005 National Triennial Convention of the Women of the ELCA. She has been the organ soloist with several orchestras and chamber groups for major works, including the organ concerti of Handel and Poulenc and the Saint-Saen’s “Organ Symphony”. She has presented workshops for professional groups such as the American Guild of Organists, the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, and the Music Teachers’ Association. She has had articles published in The Diapason, Your Church, Grace Notes, and Cross-Accent magazines; her article on “Organ Pedagogy” appears in the new International Organ Encyclopedia published by Routledge. A beloved wife and mother she is survived by her husband of 19 years, Dr. Mike Beggs, and two sons, Zachary, age 16 and Nathan, age 12. She is also survived by two sisters, Linda Svok of Keene, New Hampshire and Peggy Reese of Allentown, Pennsylvania. We wish to thank all who have remembered Sally in prayer and gift through this battle. On line condolences may be sent to the family at www.whitakerfuneralhome.com. HELP NEEDED: Matching Funds for Donations to Regional --Time is Running Out-- 2013 sounds like a lifetime away, but it will be here before you know it. Columbia AGO is hosting the 2013 Regional AGO Convention next July. For an event of this magnitude, planning begins two years in advance. The Steering Committee is now meeting monthly, contracts for commissioned works and for concert artists are being signed, venues are being secured, and lodging and transportation are being arranged. Many of these ventures require immediate payment. As you know, this venture is projected to cost more than $66,000. Response to the membership-wide letter in January has been lukewarm at best. An AGO donor has offered to match dollar for dollar the total of donations up to $3000 made before June 2012. This is an opportunity not to be missed. Your donation will be doubled if you contribute before June 1. Please send your donations to the following address as soon as possible. Frances M. Webb 92 Currant Lane Columbia SC 29210-3521 Other Upcoming Events Dr. Patrick Hawkins performs the complete Orgelbüchlein Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary - Christ Chapel April 22 (Part 2), 2012 at 4:00 P.M. Admission Free to the Public Eddie Huss and Annette Matthews Duo Piano Program Sunday, April 22 at 4pm Shandon United Methodist Church, 3407 Devine Street Columbia, SC They will be performing works by Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn and Poulenc. Everyone is invited to attend. Trinity Cathedral CHORAL EVENSONG Sunday afternoons at 4:00 p.m. followed by Cathedral Artist Series concerts at 5:00 p.m. April 1 (Palm Sunday) Credo (Clavierübung, Part III): The Organ Works of Bach – Christopher Jacobson April 15 Miracles: The Organ Works of Bach – Christopher Jacobson April 22 John Fenstermaker (former Canon for Music, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco), organ April 29 Life and Death: The Organ Works of Bach – Christopher Jacobson For more information, including a complete list of concerts through May 2012, go to the Cathedral website: www.trinitysc.org/music, or call the Cathedral at 803-771-7300. MAUNDY THURSDAY – April 5 - beginning at midnight following the Maundy Thursday liturgy Le Chemin de la Croix (Stations of the Cross) Organ Meditation by Marcel Dupré Christopher Jacobson, organ TCHAIKOVSKY’S ALL-NIGHT VIGIL, OP. 52 performed in Church Slavonic by COLLA VOCE Larry Wyatt, conductor Monday, April 23, 7:30 PM Cathedral Church of the Epiphany 2512 N. Beltline Blvd. Columbia, SC 29204 Tickets at the door: $10 adults; $5 students First performed in July of 1882, Tchaikovsky’s All-Night Vigil, opus 52 was the first large work in the 19th century by a major composer that made almost exclusive use of the traditional canonical chants of the Russian Orthodox Church. The work inspired two generations of composers, leading eventually to Rachmaninoff’s better-known and more densely-scored setting of the same service. Like other works of Tchaikovsky, the All-Night Vigil is beautiful and expressive, yet meditative and worshipful. South Carolina Bach Choir 2012 Concert The South Carolina Bach Choir has scheduled its 2012 Spring Concert for April 29 at 4:00 p.m. in Christ Chapel on the campus of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, 4201 N. Main St. in Columbia. The choir, accompanied by orchestra and organ continuo, will present J.S. Bach's Cantatas 17 and 187, as well as the opening chorus from Cantata 150. Soloists will be Kelly Mayo, soprano, Sarah Cameron, alto, Daniel Gainey, tenor and Jacob Will, bass.