Lincoln Organ Showcase is a program component of the Lincoln Chapter of the American Guild of Organists

2008-2009 Season Programs How do I obtain tickets? Showcase Board Showcase founded in 1981 How is Showcase organized? Who has performed on LOS?

2008-2009 Season Programs

Friday, September 5, 2008 -- 7:00 p.m. Cameron Carpenter, Organist New York City First-Plymouth Congregational Church (UCC) 2000 D Street Lincoln, Nebraska Organ Specs

Dubbed “The Maverick Organist” by The New York Times (2006), Cameron Carpenter is known for his intensely personal, often flamboyant, performances. His organ technique is widely regarded as unmatched: his readings of Chopin’s Ètudes, Op. 10 question the limits of organ technique, particularly when Chopin’s relentless chromatic runs are played only by the feet. Cameron’s repertoire spans the organ and piano literature; his original compositions; film scores, especially from Japanese animé; and improvisations influenced by folk song, jazz, disco and pop. From his use of color, to the concert clothes and organ shoes he designs - prompting press such as Women’s Wear Daily to nickname him the “organist/runway model” - his approach to the organ is unique. In early 2008 Cameron signed with TELARC® Records. His Telarc debut, Revolutionary, references Chopin’s Revolutionary Ètude, the opening track on a CD+DVD program including Bach, Demessieux, Dupré, Liszt, Horowitz, Grainger, Ellington, and the world premiere recording of Cameron’s own Love Song No. 1 (2008). In 2008 he was appointed Artist-In-Residence at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City’s East Village, an ethnically and musically diverse congregation to which his tastes and abilities are perfectly suited. Cameron holds Bachelor’s (2004) and Master’s (2006) degrees from The Juilliard School in New York City.

Growing up In rural northwestern Pennsylvania, Cameron was an acknowledged child prodigy who flourished under his parents’ home schooling and then, from age 11, as a student at the American Boychoir School in Princeton, New Jersey. As a boy soprano he was a soloist in such venues as Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and with pop star Joe Jackson on Jackson’s 1994 album Night Music. He performed Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier at 11 and gave his European debut as an organist shortly after leaving the School at age 13. He later attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, where he was simultaneously organist of the First Baptist Church and Resident Organist at Reynolda House Museum of American Art, both in Winston-Salem.

Starting with his transcription for organ alone of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 – a one-year project finished on his 16th birthday – pushing the limits of what is physically performable on the organ has been an ongoing passion. This continues today in his recent arrangements of virtuoso piano music (such as selected Fairy Tales by Medtner and Etudes-Tableaux by Rachmaninoff [2004/05]; Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1 [2007]; Horowitz’ Variations on a theme from Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ and Godowsky’s Studies on Chopin’s Ètudes [2008]), as well as “experiments” (from Art Tatum’s improvisations, and solo readings of two-piano settings of Gershwin’s piano rolls, to Patsy Cline’s Back in Baby’s Arms and Laura Nyro’s Time and Love) in an ongoing celebration of what it can mean to play the organ.

Cameron’s mentors are Dr. Beth Etter (formerly of Allegheny College, Meadville, PA, and his boyhood teacher from the age of 4), and the New York City-based pianist and Adele Marcus student Miles Fusco, with whom he coaches regularly. His high school studies were with Dr. John E. Mitchener and Clifton Matthews at the North Carolina School of the Arts; at The Juilliard School, he studied with Dr. Gerre Hancock, Dr. John Weaver, and Paul Jacobs.

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Sunday, September 21, 2008 -- 3:00 p.m. Todd Wilson, Organist Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland Institute of Music Indiana University Nebraska Wesleyan University O'Donnell Auditorium 50th Street and Huntington Avenue Lincoln, Nebraska

Regarded across America and around the world as one of today’s finest concert organists, Todd Wilson serves as Professor of Organ at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where he was recently appointed to the organ faculty. In addition, he also serves as Organ Curator of the E.M. Skinner pipe organ at Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio (home of The Cleveland Orchestra). Prior to his appointment at Indiana University, Mr. Wilson was based in Cleveland, Ohio for nineteen years, where he was Director of Music and Organist at The Church of the Covenant and Head of the Organ Department at The Cleveland Institute of Music. Mr. Wilson received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, where he studied organ with Wayne Fisher. Further coaching in organ repertoire was with Russell Saunders at The Eastman School of Music. He has won numerous competitions, including the Grand Prix de Chartres (France) and the Ft. Wayne Competition. An active member of the American Guild of Organists, Mr. Wilson holds the Fellow and Choirmaster certificates. He was a featured performer for the Centennial National Convention of the Guild in New York City in July 1996 and at the 2008 National Convention of the Guild in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Todd Wilson has been heard in concert in many major cities throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, including concerts at Symphony Hall (Birmingham, UK), Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall, Chicago's Orchestra Hall, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Dallas’ Meyerson Symphony Center, and Uihlein Hall in Milwaukee. In June of 2003 he dedicated the organ in the new 21,000-seat Mormon Conference Center in Salt Lake City, in October 2004 he performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra on the first orchestra subscription series concert featuring the new organ at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, and in January 2005 he performed his Japan debut recital in Tokyo. He has appeared as a solo recitalist for Austrian Radio in Vienna as well as in concert with the Slovakian Radio Symphony. Past orchestral appearances include performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, members of the Atlanta Symphony, the Naples (FL) Philharmonic, the Calgary Philharmonic, City of London Sinfonia, the Canton Symphony, the New Mexico Symphony, the Ft. Worth Symphony, and the Orchestra at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. A sought-after adjudicator, Todd Wilson has been a jury member for numerous national and international playing competitions. An active interest in improvisation has led to his popular improvised accompaniments to classic silent films.

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Sunday, November 30, 2008 -- 7:00 p.m. John Behnke Concordia University, Mequon, Wisconsin Organ, Instruments and Praise First Lutheran Church 1551 S. 70th Street Lincoln, Nebraska Organ Specs

Dr. John Behnke is Professor of Music at Concordia University in Mequon, Wisconsin where he teaches organ and directs The Alleluia Ringers, Concordia's touring handbell choir.

Dr. Behnke is a frequent organ recitalist, handbell clinician, and festival director. He enjoys composing and arranging having handbell, choral, and organ compositions in print with eleven different publishers in the United States, Germany, and Taiwan.

He was honored in December of 1993 being named "MVP" Most Valuable Player in the Milwaukee area by Milwaukee Sentinel music critic, Nancy Raabe. He has also received an ASCAP Composers Award in 1998 and 1999.

A 1974 graduate of Concordia-River Forest, IL. he received his M. Mus. in Church Music and Organ from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. in 1978. His D. Mus. was awarded to him in 1984 by Northwestern University where he was elected into the Alpha Chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, a National Honorary Music Society. From August 1978 to July 1979 Dr. Behnke studied at the Westphalian Church Music Institute in Herford, W. Germany, where he passed the “A” Exam in Organ with the grade of “1-Excellent”.

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Sunday, February 13, 2009 -- 7:00 p.m. John Scott, Organist St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue New York City Westminster Presbyterian Church 2110 Sheridan Boulevard Lincoln, Nebraska Organ Specs

John Scott was born in 1956 in Wakefield, Yorkshire, where he became a Cathedral chorister. While still at school he gained the diplomas of the Royal College of Organists and won the major prizes. In 1974 he became Organ Scholar of St. John’s College, Cambridge, where for four years he acted as assistant to Dr. George Guest and held the University John Stewart of Rannoch Scholarship in Sacred Music. His organ studies were with Jonathan Bielby, Ralph Downes, and Dame Gillian Weir. He made his debut in the 1977 Promenade Concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, playing Reubke’s Sonata on the 94th Psalm. He was the youngest organist to appear in the Proms.

On leaving Cambridge, he was appointed Assistant Organist at London’s two Anglican Cathedrals, St Paul’s and Southwark. During this time he won the first prizes from the Manchester and Leipzig J. S. Bach International Organ Competitions in 1978 and 1984 respectively.

In 1985 he became Sub-Organist of St Paul’s Cathedral and in 1990 he succeeded Dr. Christopher Dearnley as Organist and Director of Music where he served for fourteen years before moving to New York.

His work at St Paul’s involved the training and direction of the choir, and the overseeing and development of the Cathedral’s busy music program. In recent years he was responsible for the music at a number of high-profile events, including the National Service of Thanksgiving for the Millennium, the services to mark the 100th birthday of HM The Queen Mother and the Golden Jubilee of HM The Queen (for which he was asked to compose an anthem) and the service held on 14 September 2001 following the terrorist atrocities in the USA. Under his direction, the St Paul’s Cathedral Choir has toured extensively in Europe, Japan, and North and South America, made many widely acclaimed recordings, worked with a number of distinguished orchestras and ensembles and given world premieres of many works commissioned especially for them.

His career as a recitalist has taken him to five continents. In November 1989 he inaugurated the new Rieger organ in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and in 1990, he was one of five international Cathedral organists invited to play in Washington National Cathedral to celebrate the completion of the Cathedral. Recent engagements have included recitals in the USA, Germany, Hong Kong, St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Notre Dame in Paris and Slovakia, and a complete cycle of organ works of J.S. Bach and the Vierne and Widor Symphonies in concert in St Paul’s. In 2003 he gave a series of recitals in St Paul’s featuring the complete organ works of Franck in five recitals, and in 2004 he performed the complete organ works of Buxtehude in a series of ten recitals at St Paul’s.

John Scott’s many recordings include the organ sonatas of Elgar, organ music by William Mathias, the complete organ works of Duruflé and Mendelssohn, as well as two discs of music by Dupré. He has also recorded the solo organ part in Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.

John Scott is a Council member of the Royal College of Organists and the Royal School of Church Music. He is President of the Percy Whitlock Trust, a Past-President of the Incorporated Association of Organists and in 1998 was nominated International Performer of the Year by the New York Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. He was a member of the Jury for the Concours International d’Orgue “Grand Prix de Chartres” in 2002 and chaired the Jury for the Dallas International Organ Competition in 2003.

In the summer of 2004 he moved to New York to assume the post as Organist and Director of Music at Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York, in succession to Dr. Gerre Hancock, where he directs the renowned choir of men and boys. Just prior to his move to the United States, he was awarded the title Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO), a personal honor from Queen Elizabeth II. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in music by Nashotah House in Wisconsin, an Episcopal-Anglican theological seminary.

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Sunday, April 26, 2009 -- 4:00 p.m. Robert Hobby Trinity English Lutheran Church Fort Wayne, Indiana Hymn Festival Grace Lutheran Church 2225 Washington Lincoln, Nebraska Organ Specs

Robert Hobby has spent all of his life in Indiana. He was particularly attracted to music at a very early age. The son of a Lutheran pastor, Mr. Hobby grew up in a church music environment and began his career as an organist at age 10 at his father’s church in Columbia City, Indiana. After receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Church Music from Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, and a Master’s Degree in Organ Performance from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, he became Associate Director of Music at Trinity English Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. At the time, this church was 3500 members strong with a well-established and respected music program.

Three years later, upon the retirement of Richard Carlson, he was named Director of Music. Among the numerous activities during his tenure, Trinity Church has established a choral series with seventeen composers commissioned thus far, hosted a regional convention of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, produced four recordings, and expanded the opportunities for music ministry, including a youth choir of forty teenagers. His academic pursuits have included study with Donald Busarow, Craig Cramer, Paul Manz, Richard Hillert, and English composer, Andrew Carter. As a nationally recognized composer, conductor, performer and clinician, Robert Hobby is widely sought after by churches and church music organizations across the country. Active in numerous local and national music organizations, he also serves on various committees in a wide range of capacities and responsibilities. He is represented in the catalogs of numerous American music publishers with choral, organ and instrumental compositions.

To date, most of his composition time has been spent writing commissions for churches and organizations throughout the country. Over one hundred of Mr. Hobby’s compositions are in print with Augsburg Fortress Publishing House, Choristers Guild, Concordia Publishing House, G. I. A. Publishers, MorningStar Music Publishers, Northwestern Publishers, Pavane Publishing Co., and Warner Brothers Publishers. His music has been heard on nationally syndicated radio programs such as “The Lutheran Hour”, “Pipe Dreams”, and “Sing for Joy”. A representation of his writing for organ, choral, and instrumental forces can be found on “Thine Is the Glory,” a recording produced by MorningStar Publishers. In 2006, Mr. Hobby premiered a major work of his entitled “The Good Shepherd” which is scored for tenor solo, adult and children’s choirs, and orchestra; the work is scheduled for publication with MorningStar in the spring of 2007.

As a performer and clinician Mr. Hobby keeps an active schedule throughout the United States. He has played for several of the national conventions of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada and for both national and regional conventions of the Association of the Lutheran Church Musicians and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He has been a featured artist with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, performing Poulenc’s Organ Concerto and Haydn’s Organ Concerto #2 in C. In addition, his clinics on service playing and creative hymn singing have gathered wide acclaim from chapters of the American Guild of Organists and other similar organizations.

Mr. Hobby is a member of a number of professional music organizations and has held a variety of leadership positions. Until recently, he chaired “Young Lutherans Sing,” a national summer choral program for children, sponsored by the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. In addition, in 1996 he designed and coordinated a hymn festival that was performed simultaneously at one hundred sites around the United States and Canada to commemorate the tenth anniversary of ALCM. He also has served as a member of the Program Committee for the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

Robert and his wife, Jennifer, are the proud parents of three daughters: Hannah, Lydia, and Elizabeth.

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Sunday, May 17, 2009 -- 3:00 p.m. Annette Richards, Organist Cornell University Ithaca, New York Cornerstone UMHE Chapel 640 N. 16th Street Lincoln, Nebraska Organ Specs

In her work as a music historian and keyboard player, Annette Richards draws on her training in English literature, art history, musicology, and musical performance. Musical and visual aesthetics and criticism are of particular interest to her, as is music in literature, and changing attitudes and approaches to performance in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Her book on the musical picturesque explores the intersections between musical fantasy and the landscape garden in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music culture, ranging across German-speaking Europe to England; other topics on which she has written include Mozart and musical automata, the German keyboard song and solitude, and Haydn and the grotesque. Current projects include the organ works volume for the new complete edition of the music of C. P. E. Bach with David Yearsley, and essays on the musical portrait and portrait collections in the later eighteenth century and on the character piece and French genre painting in 1750s Berlin. Her larger project is a book that expands on her work on death, fantasy, and the grotesque to explore the dark hermeneutics of musical life in the age of European enlightenment and revolution -- Music and the Gothic on the Dark Side of 1800.

As a performer Annette Richards specializes in music of the Italian and North German Baroque, and has played concerts on numerous historic and modern instruments in Europe and the United States. She also regularly performs music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and has won prizes in international competitions including the 1992 Dublin International Organ Competition and first prize for organ duo with David Yearsley at the Bruges Early Music Festival in 1994. Her CD Melchior Schildt and the North German Organ Art was recorded on the historic organ at Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark.

Ms. Richards has won numerous honors, including the Giballe Dissertation Prize Fellowship at the Stanford Humanities Center (1993-94), a fellowship at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in Santa Monica (1994-95), and at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell (1998-99). In 2002 she was awarded a New Directions Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation to explore further the role of the visual arts in German and English music around 1800, and in 2004-05 she was an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow at Humboldt University, Berlin.

At Cornell University Ms. Richards teaches courses on eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century music aesthetics and criticism; intersections between music and visual culture; music and the uncanny; the undergraduate history survey; music of the Baroque; and the organ and its musical culture, as well as organ performance. She has organized several conferences and concert festivals at the university, including "German Orpheus: C. P. E. Bach and North German Music Culture" (1998) and "British Modernism" (2003).

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Lincoln Organ Showcase Board

Director:	Christopher Marks
Treasurer:	Gene Bedient
Secretary:	William Long
Ticket Director:	Jim Lytton
Publicity	Sinda Dux/Jim Lytton
Board Members:	Dan Ahlin Kurt Knecht Mark Miller C. Richard Morris
Ex-officio:	James J. Lytton, ChM

Showcase founded in 1981

In 1981, Lincoln Organ Showcase was founded as a way to unite the efforts of various churches and academic institutions into one recognizable series. In the past 25 years, the arts scene in Lincoln has changed considerably, with more events available than ever before. In that time, Showcase has presented over 100 artists in more than 20 locations in Lincoln and surrounding communities.

How Showcase is organized

Lincoln Organ Showcase is a standing subcommittee of the Lincoln Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. As such, Showcase falls under the chapter's 501(c)3 status, and can legally solicit tax-deductible contributions to support the series. Showcase is run by a board of volunteers. A chair or co-chairs, treasurer, secretary, and ticket chair are key officers.

The series co-sponsors concerts with participating churches and institutions. Host sites are scheduled on a biennial basis, and each one contributes to the series financially. Once the sites are selected, the board helps to schedule the artists. Often the host site has already chosen an artist to perform in their venue. Showcase tries to schedule a diverse group of artists each year -- artists who will provide concert goers with a variety of musical styles over the course of the season.

Each participating church (or institution) is allowed unlimited free single-admission tickets for their members (or students) for the concert at that church or institution.

In the effort to foster interest in the organ among young people, admission to the concerts is FREE to young people under the age of 12. Complimentary season tickets are offered through private instructors to junior high and high school piano or organ students. A ticket is also given to the chaperone/driver who brings the student to the concert.

Tickets for Showcase are very reasonably priced so that no one will be discouraged from attending concerts. With the rising cost of travel and artist fees, Showcase has had to step up its fundraising efforts to keep pace. Our supporters have responded admirably, and with their continued support, Showcase looks forward to the next 25 years!

Who has performed on LOS?