The Tacoma Chapter is very proud to present a masterclass with concert organist Bruce Neswick on Monday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m.  at Kilworth Chapel at University of Puget Sound.  Mr. Neswick will begin the evening with a short performance and end it with an improvisation.  In between he will work with four performers on either repertoire or improvisation (free or hymn-based).

To sign up as a performer for this masterclass, please visit this page and register before Monday, April 2.  There are four slots which will be assigned to members on a first-come/first-served basis.  We encourage all who are interested to start practicing and register!

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Bruce Neswick

Bruce Neswick is Canon for Music at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Portland, Oregon. Prior to this appointment he was the Director of Music at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, where he directed the choirs and had oversight of the musical life of that historic Cathedral.

Mr. Neswick holds the Fellowship degree from the Royal School of Church Music, for whom he has conducted numerous courses for boy and girl choristers. He has served on the faculties of, and performed for, several church music conferences, including the Association of Anglican Musicians, Westminster Choir College Summer Session, the Sewanee Church Music Conference, and others. Recital engagements in 2016-17 have taken him to Seattle, Vancouver, Silver Spring (MD), Sacramento, and Detroit. He was a featured recitalist at the National AGO Conventions in Washington, DC (2010) and Boston (2014).

A celebrated composer of organ and choral music, Mr. Neswick’s music is published by Paraclete, Augsburg- Fortress, Selah, Vivace, Hope, Plymouth, and St. James’ presses. Mr. Neswick’s skill at improvisation garnered him three first prizes from the 1989 San Anselmo Organ Festival, the 1990 American Guild of Organists National Convention in Boston, and the 1992 Rochette Concours at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland.

He is a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University and the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music. His teachers include Robert Baker, David Dahl, Gerre Hancock, Margaret Irwin-Brandon, and Lionel Rogg. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2016 by the University of the South, Sewanee, TN.

Bruce Neswick is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.

In commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of their founding, the congregation of First Lutheran Church of West Seattle commissioned David Dahl to write a celebratory anthem.  That anthem, entitled “How Dear to Me is Your Dwelling,” will be published by The Sacred Music Press.  Its premiere performance will be at First Lutheran Church, West Seattle, in September 2018 during a commemorative service.

Andrew King, organist at First Lutheran, and one of David Dahl’s first organ students at Pacific Lutheran University, asked for a setting of the opening verses of Psalm 84, to be followed by the last stanza of the Lutheran Chorale “Praise to the Lord the Almighty.”   David admits, “It became a challenge to write ‘new’ music for a hymn text wedded to such a familiar chorale tune as Lob den Herren.”

The finished work consists entirely of newly conceived music, inspired by the various poetic texts of the psalm and the hymn, featuring alternating accompanied and unaccompanied sections, mostly four parts.  The organ accompaniment is inspired by the organ in the church–an eighteen-stop mechanical organ built by the Fritz Noack company in 1976.

David Dahl is organist emeritus at Pacific Lutheran University, a member of the Tacoma Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and a prolific composer of organ music and choir anthems.

For our January joint meeting with Seattle, AGO members Cheryl and Tim Drewes will present a program entitled “Wonderful Things Come in Small Packages: E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings – Opus 591, 1871”.

Join us on Saturday, January 20 at 10:30 a.m., when Cheryl and Tim Drewes will present a description and history of the 1871 E. & G.G. Hook and Hastings organ at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Auburn. They will illustrate the versatile sounds and breadth of this small instrument by performing literature spanning the centuries and styles.  Join us in exploring this exquisite gem, and bring some music to try it out for yourself!

About the 1871 E. & G.G. Hook & Hastings, Op. 591:

This 2-manual 10-stop organ was originally built for Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA. and moved to Christ Lutheran Church, Camden, NJ.  It was restored and moved to St. Matthew’s in 1999 by Patrick J. Murphy & Associates, Stowe, PA. The Swell oboe, which had been removed, was replaced with pipes from Johnson & Son Opus 572 (1882), and the pitch was lowered to A-440 from approximately A-450.

(Thanks to Cheryl Drewes, Tom Clark, and Mark Brombaugh for contributing to this post.)

The Tacoma Mall is an unlikely place to find a tracker organ, but that is exactly what happened the evening of December 15, 2017, as the Seattle and Tacoma AGO chapters collaborated on an event to expose the public to real organs and live organ playing.

The Seattle chapter owns a three-stop tracker organ built by Marceau, and later expanded by the Fisk organ company. For several years, the Seattle chapter has taken the organ into shopping malls to engage the public. This year, thanks to a connection between former Seattle dean Norma Aamodt-Nelson and the Tacoma Mall, where Norma’s daughter is the director of marketing, the list of malls included Tacoma.

The organ is built so that it can be disassembled for transport. The top half sits on four dowels that rise from the bottom half. The pedalboard can be removed, and the keyboard retracted. AGO members Carl Dodrill and David Lepse have become somewhat expert in moving this organ, though it is very heavy and not a trivial task. The organ attracted a few onlookers as it made its way from the curb into the Macy’s court, followed by a steady stream of listeners and curious shoppers as organists played Advent and Christmas music for three hours.

Organists included Tom Clark, Kathy Eggleston, Norma Aamodt-Nelson, David Lepse, and Tim Drewes, all of whom are members of the Tacoma Chapter. In addition, two members displayed dual talents. Karen Bredberg played cello, accompanied by organ, including some “real” pieces and some carols from the 1982 Hymnal. Member Cheryl Drewes, known nationally as an organist, surprised many of us with her expert tuba performance. She and Tim Drewes attracted an audience with a number of jazzy renditions.  Satya Jaech and Tom Clark improvised some carol duets.

A few people sat and listened the whole time, and many more shoppers stopped by to investigate.   AGO members were on hand to answer their questions, to demonstrate how organs and pipes work, and generally to provide education about real organs.

Members Wendell Brunk, Donald Dunscomb, and Tom Clark arrived early to help our Seattle colleagues set up the organ.  Wendell and Don were joined at various times by members Satya Jaech, Nancy Ferree-Clark, and Sandy Tietjen as they engaged the public.  Special thanks to member spouses Dick Tietjen and Rick Jaech who stayed to help get the organ back in the trailer, along with Tim Drewes and Tom Clark.

In an age where fewer people are exposed to organ music through church connections, and where most people equate organs with electronic devices, it is important to find opportunities to expose people to real organs and organ music.  Perhaps one or more of those curious children at the mall will go home and ask to take organ lessons.  Maybe one of those curious onlookers will be on a church music committee.

Many thanks to our Seattle colleagues for proposing this event, for providing the organ, and for transporting it to Tacoma to support our  shared mission of advancing the cause of organ and choral music in a very public way.

The Tacoma AGO scholarship committee has awarded the 2017-2018 scholarship to Collin Whitfield.  Collin is a student of Paul Tegels, and the organist at Mason United Methodist Church.

Collin has sent the following message to our chapter:

I am grateful to the Tacoma AGO scholarship committee for awarding me a grant to help further my organ studies.  Most of my experience and training has been in composition and piano.  I have been studying piano for 18 years (since I was 7) and hold a Bachelor of Music in Composition degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where I studied with David Conte and Mason Bates.  For the last year, I have been working as music director and organist for Mason Church in Tacoma.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to learn organ “on the job” at the church.  This scholarship will pay off every week at our church services as I work to incorporate what I learn from lessons.  In the near future, I hope to pursue a Master of Music degree in either Organ or Composition.

Many thanks to the scholarship committee, consisting of David Dahl, Betsy Buck, and Cheryl Drewes, for formalizing our application process, developing award criteria, and for awarding the grant.