The 2012 Joint Meeting and Festival of the Midwestern and Southeastern Historical Keyboard Societies, featuring The Eighth Aliénor International Harpsichord Composition Competition and The Seventh Mae and Irving Jurow International Harpsichord Competition, will be held at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, March 21-25, 2012.

The theme of this 5-day celebration is the harpsichord old and new. There'll be tremendous variety, spanning the full range of historical keyboard topics, by way of the Jurow and Aliénor Competitions, exhibitions, concerts, papers, lecture-recitals, demonstrations, and an area house organ tour. Featured performers include renowned harpsichordists Mitzi Meyerson & Ketil Haugsand, violinists Dana Maiben & Martie Perry, soprano Janet Youngdahl, alongside a continuo masterclass taught by Edward Parmentier & Mitzi Meyerson, and a celebration of the harpsichord innovations of Don Angle. Events will be held in the facilities of CCM, while the organ tour and celebratory receptions will take participants to some of the city’s most treasured neighborhoods. Individual concert & special event tickets and daily passes are available.

Information can be found at Historical Keyboard Society. Canon Robert L. Bozeman will be performing the Missa Della Madonna by Frescobaldi on Thursday evening at this event.

Members and advertisers have been mailed copies of the yearbook. If you have not received your copy, please contact Charles Wetzelberger, yearbook editor. There are extra copies available.

Because of rising paper and mailing costs, the Executive Committee decided to begin sending the chapter newsletter by email using the address you provided on your membership form. This will take effect by the end of the year.

If you are one of the many on our mailing list who is not a Louisville Chapter Member and wish to continue receiving the newsletter, please send your email address to Ann Wade at annwade@iglou.com soon. If you do not have email please call 502-241-4284. We do not plan to renew our bulk mail permit, so these copies will be sent First Class. If we do not hear from you, you will be dropped from our mailing list.

You can always read current and past newsletters on our website. Thank you for your understanding!

The program committee consisting of Bryan Hoover, Mary McCuen, Paula Roberts and chair Ann Wade planned what we hope will be an interesting and varied year. Many programs depend on you to make them hap- pen! These include a member recital and 'Pipes and Pumpkins' (both in October), a program highlighting local composers in February and an anthem reading in April. Please plan to contribute to at least one of them. We have a ton of talent in the AGO and it is not just concentrated in a handful of people! We can also use a few volunteers to help set up and/or clean up after our potluck meals. Thank you for your support!

An OHS convention will be held in Chicago, IL July 8-13. For more information and to register online, see the convention website.

A fitting last concert by the Louisville Bach Society was a performance J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor on May 1st at Harvey Browne Presbyterian Church. The Bach Society ends a wonderful 47 year run with the retirement of its co-founders, Melvin and Margaret Dickinson. In addition to the subscription concerts, they have taken programs to the schools and in 2008 began the Gerhard Herz Young Artists Competition in Vocal Performance.

There are not enough ways to thank the Dickinsons for the invaluable contribution they have made to the local (and beyond) music scene and the influence they've had on Bach scholarship over those many years. The guild offers a hearty BRAVO for a job very well done!

I hope you will get into the habit of checking the national website regularly. There are two new features you should be aware of, and more will be coming. At the moment, both of these features are right on the home page as you enter the website:

• The long-range strategic plan drawn up by Guild people and published last summer in time for the National Convention. It has been distilled into easy-to-read sections and contains some challenging and exciting goals.
• The second is a long-awaited Career Development Center. Unlike the strategic plan, it is not a home-grown product, but a service offered through a third-party vendor. Anyone seeking employment or seeking an employee in the church music field can access it (no password or member number required) and either post or get information on job postings nation-wide. Because the Center is a third-party product, we will not get any assistance in planning how it can best benefit our chapter from any national staff person or any of the folks (Regional or District) in the field. This will not take the place of our local job posting efforts through Barb Ellis, our own website, and the Newsletter, but it will offer a broader perspective for anyone not interested in strictly local people or jobs. You can pass the word informally to others, and any of us in some official capacity can pass along the web address to all inquirers.

If these two new features give way to more current news on the home page, you can still utilize the internal search engine to find them. Still in development is an on-line membership registration form and payment system. I’ll keep you posted on that. That will simplify the lives of both the Registrar and the Treasurer, and most important, get everyone’s membership current much faster. For those who are not computer-savvy (and it’s OKAY not to be computer-savvy!), paper forms will still be available, never fear.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call me at 944-0110.

Dear Rob,

I want to thank you and the other members of the Louisville chapter Executive Committee for the opportunity to help celebrate the chapter’s 75th anniversary last Friday evening. It was indeed an honor and privilege to perform at such an occasion and share the program with our friend and colleague, David Lang. I am proud to have served as Dean of the Louisville chapter, and grateful to be asked to be a part of such a lovely celebration. It was truly wonderful to see so many friends and colleagues supporting the work of the guild.

I wish for the Louisville chapter another 75 years of success, prosperity, and faithful service to the organ and church music community in Louisville and surrounding area. I look forward to keeping up with my Kentucky friends, and invite all of you to come visit in Winston-Salem. There are many beautiful pipe organs in the Piedmont Triad and throughout North Carolina. It would be my privilege to serve as tour guide.

Again, many thanks for allowing me to share in your celebration. I look forward to many more joyous occasions together.

Very grateful,
John Cummins

I ran acrosss these blog postings few years ago before I purchased Marie-Claire Alain's set of Bach recordings and just rediscovered it on my PC. While music is indeed moving if performed well, the last listener's response was quite accute.

#1 - Listening to the organ music was like touching the robe of Christ. At seventy years I did not think much could move this old soul. I had tears in my eyes as it was beautiful beyond words. I do not read nor play music but will do so here in the future. More of our young people should be exposed to this as it would be a better world.

#2 - I am Chinese. Although I am not a musician, but I really enjoy organ music. Organ music is of great majesty ! It is full of holiness, mystery, even magic charm! I hope your site will serve the people who are fond of organ music and who are from all over the world!

#3 - One day, I chanced to buy a CD with an assortment of classical music. I did that once every so often, since classical CD's are so cheap. I slipped it into my car not knowing at all what I'd just stumbled on. Then this organ piece comes on. My friends. From that moment, I was a different person. It didn't hit me as hard initially, but I couldn't let go of this stupendous work of such magnificence. For days on end, I would play this one piece of organ music, treasuring it as a jewel. I couldn't get over how grand, how utterly wonderful this work was, from every single note to it's entire whole. I've always enjoyed music, but this was something else. It made me feel miniscule. I'll let you know which it was Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Dorian) for the organ by Miklos Spanyi. Not even one of Bach's major pieces.

Brethren, this wasn't the end. After a few weeks of listening to this, I kid you not, I would break down like a child when I played it. Sobbing and crying. Weeping uncontrollably. I'm a grown man, but it happened. I could not understand. I could not remember breaking down this way, so violently, since I was young boy. This is what Bach can do to you. I was listening to angels. I could see them. No way I'll write my full name here in case this gets out. If I listened to it in the car, I would have to stop when Bach's counterpoints started their agonizing attacks of sheer splendor. I would stop the car on the side of the road, racked in sobs. As the Toccata builds to its end, Bach brings your pitiful soul through a wavy staircase lined with golden crescendos that don't seem to end. He then takes your wretched spirit, once strong, but piteous in the face of such perfection, and places it on the doorstep of the Fugue. I am sorry I talk about Bach's organ and his effect on me, but I was just describing just one gem.

In 1989, guild members Bryan Hoover, Micheal Beattie, Alan Martin and Ann Colbert Wade created 'Selecting Musicians', a guide for religious institutions. Its purpose is to assist with forming search committees, developing the objective of a music program, defining the position, deciding criteria from which to evaluate candidates, and provide advice for hiring and negotiating compensation. If you know of a person or religious institution that could use such a document, please contact Bryan Hoover.