I recently joined the NSAGO this past summer after I began my new position as Minister of Music and Organist at First United Methodist Church in Evanston. My wife Annastasia and I are both from Kenosha and we were excited to move back to the Midwest after several...
I never thought about myself living in the United States for 30 years when I first arrived O’Hare airport in August, 1986. Time flies. After 30 years, I work as a music cataloger at Northwestern University Libraries, and play the organ every Sunday at North Shore...
First, thank you for inviting me to share my story with fellow members of the NSAGO, an organization near and dear to my heart. The church has always played an important role in my life, particularly First Presbyterian Church in Wilmette. I was baptized, confirmed and...
My interest in music began at an early age, while growing up in Deerfield. My late grandmother was my first piano instructor. She and my grandfather brought me to weekly services at Trinity United Church of Christ in Deerfield, where I first heard the wonderful W....
I was doomed to start piano lessons as a child. My great-grandmother and grandmother were both piano and organ graduates of music schools – Cincinnati Conservatory and Julliard, respectively. When people asked me what I wanted to be as a child, I said I wanted to be a...
I cannot remember a time in my life without music. According to my mother, I would stand in front of the piano in my diaper, unable to see the keys, and would just listen to the different notes I could play with my fingers. My grandfather noticed my fascination with...
At the age of seven, I took my first keyboard lessons from my mother on a “pump organ” (i.e. harmonium) in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Africa – my parents were missionaries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My mother was a good pianist, so she and...
As musicians--organists--church musicians--we are rather solitary creatures. We have spent much of our lives practicing alone. We are often the only musician on a church staff. The Guild offers the opportunity to find friends who share dreams, disappointments, and...
I started taking organ lessons in 7th grade. I was involved with music at church from a very early age and was always fascinated by the sound of the organ and all the buttons! I started taking piano lessons in 2nd grade and never really liked it. When I started...
Computers, organs, and Chicago! I never expected any of it. Well, to be truthful, I guess the organ part was to be expected. Visiting my aunt and uncle in suburban Pittsburgh when I was growing up was always a treat. Along with helping my uncle’s woodworking shop...
Sometimes I marvel at the twists and turns of my path in music, considering that no one else in my family really reads music. I grew up in Toledo, Ohio and began in third grade with $1 piano lessons! In sixth grade, I was blessed with an amazing organ teacher. Her...
Growing up on a farm in a small community in Central Illinois (Paxton), I was very fortunate to have excellent teachers and mentors who helped to foster my love of architecture and music. All throughout grade school and high school I played French Horn and trumpet in...
The AGO has been important to all of us for a variety of reasons. It presents concerts and workshops, and it also gives us an opportunity to participate in them. Church work can be a lonely occupation (I have done it for 61 years). Much time must be spent alone at...
I was born in Burlington, North Carolina, the second child of four. My father was a minister in the United Methodist Church, and I remember at a very young age watching the organist at the Pittsboro UMC play the organ and then going home to imitate the manual...
Many years ago I was asked to play a piano solo at the church my family attended, Rogers Park Presbyterian in Chicago. This was during the summer when the choir was on hiatus, and I had taken several years of piano lessons by that time, so I gladly obliged. A...
As a boy of seven, I began taking piano lessons. (Mother made me.) But so did most of the other kids at that time. Nowadays, kids spend their extracurricular time playing soccer, football, rugby, ice skating, hockey, baton twirling, etc. But piano? Not so much. ...
“And when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the LORD, "For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever," the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to...
When I moved to the North Shore in 2010, recently married and freshly hooded from the University of Iowa with a DMA in Organ Performance and Pedagogy, I immediately sought NSAGO membership. After a summer spent interviewing for church jobs, an issue of Overtones...
I am the Director of Worship and Music at Trinity Lutheran Church in Evanston where I direct three adult vocal and handbell choirs, play the organ/piano for all worship services and the choirs, and do worship planning in consultation with the pastor and coordinator of...
Music has been a part of my life since I started taking piano lessons at the ripe old age of five. The piano that I had was a player piano, so pumping the pedals was a lot of fun – I loved the music “I” was able to create. Who knew? My dad, however, thought my hands...
Although my first piano lessons were sometime in kindergarten, I’m a relative newcomer to the organ world — I’ve only been playing for about four years now. Between lessons and band rehearsals, music was an integral part of growing up. As a pastor’s kid, church was...
I began studying piano at the age of 9 and was thrilled to find something that interested me since sports really wasn’t my thing. I had always been interested in the organ because of its variety of sounds and really wanted to study the organ, not the piano. Luckily,...
We all know that volunteerism has been on the rise for several decades in North America. Collecting “community service” hours is now even common in secondary and higher education and in courts of justice. I myself, however, like to believe that participation in...
On a bone-chilling January 1, 1963 we arrived in Evanston to make our home, but that frigid reception was soon replaced by the warmth of friendships that quickly developed among the welcoming area organists, who for the most part were members of the recently formed...