Your Executive Committee is trying to gauge interest in having a meal together before meetings on an occasional basis in order to provide some social time.  These meals might be in a restaurant located near the meeting venue, or, if there is enough interest, catered at the meeting venue.  This sort of activity has been successful in other chapters.

There is a poll on our website where you can indicate your level of interest.  If you haven’t done so yet, head over to https://tacomaago.org and vote.

In order to vote, you must be logged in.  There are still a few people who don’t have passwords.  An article  (available on the website and reprinted in the August newsletter) explains how to obtain a password and why it is important.

Tacoma AGO member David Dahl has another new publication!  The Sacred Music Press has just released David’s new work “Partita on Old 124th.”  This work was commissioned for the 40th anniversary of John Brombaugh’s Opus 9, and consists of a harmonization of Old 124th followed by ten variations, beginning with a canonic setting and ending with a harmonization intended for congregational singing with a descant.

On June 24, member Mark Brombaugh performed the world premier of Old 124th at Central Lutheran Church, Eugene, OR, the home of John Brombaugh and Associates Opus 19.  The recital was jointly sponsored by the church, as part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the organ, in conjunction with the Oregon Bach Festival.  Several hundred people attended and responded enthusiastically.  Mark will premier this piece in Tacoma on Friday, September 30 at Christ Episcopal Church.

The printed edition can be purchased from The Sacred Music Press.  On the same order page, there is a recording of this work played by Mark Brombaugh on Opus 9 freely available for listening.

We are looking forward to a year of interesting programs for 2016/2017. While not all details are final yet, the basic outlines are  settled. Our programs will feature various interesting area organs, lecture-performances on important organ repertory, a presentation on new hymns, an open house at the Pasi shop, and some favorite Tacoma traditions.  In addition to the actual programs themselves, we are incorporating social activities that will allow members to meet and visit with each other.  Here I introduce the first four programs for the fall/winter.   As the program chair, I sincerely thank the wonderful members of the board, whose ideas and support were so essential to this planning!

We begin the year with a visit in September to a wonderful turn-of-the-previous century organ. Cheryl Drewes will introduce the 1905 Jesse Woodberry organ at Spanaway Lutheran Church, where she is organist. We ask you to invite particularly area organists of your acquaintance who are not active in our chapter to this meeting! As further incentive, there will be an after-meeting reception in the narthex/courtyard.

In October, we present the first of two lecture/demonstrations that will feature important organ repertory.  Jonathan Ryan will give a presentation at Christ Episcopal Church on J S Bach’s Clavierübung III, Bach’s monumental setting  of a mass for organ using German chorales.  This complements Mr Ryan’s complete performance of that work on October 9 in Lagerquist Hall as part of PLU’s organ recital series.  Tacoma AGO members will enjoy reduced admission ($10 instead of $15) to the recital.

The November meeting will feature a joint presentation on exciting new hymns by Cooper Sherry, Director of Music Ministry at St. Mark’s on the Narrows in Tacoma, and Shari Shull, Minister of Music at Angus Dei Lutheran Church in Gig Harbor.  They will share their extensive knowledge of church music and new hymnody with us, using the  organ and piano at First Lutheran Church in Tacoma.

Rounding out programs for the fall is our annual Advent/Christmas party,  which will be held this year at the Tacoma residence of Paul Fritts, with beautiful views of the Sound and the enchanting sounds of the Fritts Op 7 house organ.  We are quite certain that our host will be in a celebrating mood as he returns from installing his Op 37 (the largest organ built by his company to date) at the Notre Dame University Basilica in South Bend, Indiana.

The following fall programs will all be held on Mondays at 7:30 pm:

September 19 at Spanaway Lutheran Church:  Cheryl Drewes presents the 1905 Jesse Woodberry organ.  Reception to follow.

October 10 at Christ Episcopal Church, Tacoma:  Jonathan Ryan presents J S Bach’s Clavierübung III (Recital performance on October 9 at 3 pm in Lagerquist Hall, PLU).

November 14 at First Lutheran Church, Tacoma:  Cooper Sherry and Shari Shull present “The Best of New Hymns”.

December 12 at Paul Fritts’s residence in Tacoma:  Annual Advent/Christmas party featuring seasonal organ music and hymns.

Our new Tacoma AGO website is sporting a new feature–classified ads.  It can be used by AGO members to list their services, and by others who are interested in hiring AGO members.

Any church, organization, or person seeking the services of an organist can post their own classified ad.  There is no need to write one of us to process their request. If you get any inquiries about advertising a church organist position, just direct them to our site.

Ads for Tacoma AGO members who teach or substitute are created automatically from the AGO national site.  If you have indicated on the national site that you are available to teach or substitute (or both), an ad (or two ads) will be automatically created for you on our local site.  Please make sure your teaching and substituting preferences are correct on the national site.  If they are not, change them, and the changes will be reflected locally within a day.

The automatically created ads have minimal information, but do allow the public to contact you without disclosing your email address.  The communication is handled by the website without showing your email address.  If you want to enhance your ad, you may “claim” and edit it as follows.

First, you have to change your password on the Tacoma AGO site and login.  That procedure, announced in the June newsletter, is still available here.

After logging in, choose the Classified Ads menu item located under the fourth full measure of the Quodlibet on the main page (on a standard sized screen).  Find your ad, then choose the Edit link at the bottom.  The system will email you the key necessary to edit your ad.  You may add additional contact info, a biography or other information, and pictures.  Anything you put in your ad will be public, and will be uploaded to search engines within a few hours.  The only way to delete your ad is to go to the AGO national site and uncheck the service you wish to discontinue (teaching or substituting).

The American Guild of Organists held its most recent biennial national convention in Houston, Texas, June 19-23. It was a pleasure to hear several outstanding concerts and recitals and workshops. Among standout events were four recitals, three of which took place on organs built by our own local distinguished organ builders.

Michel Bouvard from Toulouse, France, played the official opening recital on the large Martin Pasi organ at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. Enhancing the superb organ and excellent playing were the highly reverberant yet completely clear acoustics. The large space of the cathedral permitted the entire 1200 of the convention to be seated.

Two other first-rate events took place at St. Phillip Presbyterian Church, home of the superb three manual organ by Paul Fritts and Co.  German organist Ludger Lohman played a very fine program of Bach, Brahms, Chelsea Chen and Liszt. The other recital featured Hans Davidsson, Swedish organist, together with three professional ballet dancers (two of which are Davidsson’s sons) in a stunningly choreographed program using the organ music of Georg Böhm. Colorful registrations from the organ were joined with evocative dancing, all of which made for a most memorable experience.

The fourth outstanding recital (for this reviewer), was played by Daryl Robinson on the Rosales/Fisk organ at Rice University. The large organ housed in a relatively small recital hall is conceived in a French symphonic style. Robinson used the organ deftly with superb musicianship, especially apparent in his performance of the Cesar Franck Chorale II in b minor.

I also had the pleasure of hearing the premiere of my own commissioned hymn prelude on DUNEDIN as part of a Choral Evensong held at Christ Church Cathedral.

The well organized convention ran smoothly except for a couple of bus snafus, one of which involved an unnecessary two-hour bus ride in the direction of Austin, Texas that should have been only ten minutes. Yes, we missed that recital. Even the three thunderstorms and the humid 90s-degree weather did not dampen our ability to enjoy a great variety of musical treats at AGO Houston, 2016.

David Dahl