Someone You Should Know
Read why these members value the American Guild of Organists and the North Shore Chapter.
October 2015
Generations of Music-Makers
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...
September 2015
Dancing on the Pedals
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...
August 2015
Story of a Newcomer
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...
July 2015
Take Me Out to the Ballgame
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...
June 2015
From South to North
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...
May 2015
Organists: A Large and Diverse Family
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,...
April 2015
Out of Africa
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...
March 2015
Membership in AGO – a Wealth of Opportunities
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...
February 2015
Volunteer!
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...
January 2015
Solitary Creatures
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...