The Cipher March 2017

The Executive Committee of

Grand Rapids AGO

2016-2017

Officers

Peter Kurdziel, Dean

Emily Brink, Secretary

Errol Shewman, Treasurer

Council Members at Large

Barbara Dulmage, 2017

Rebecca Snippe, 2018

Joel Gary, 2019

Jonathan Tuuk, 2019

Members Ex-Officio

Joel Gary, Education Coordinator

Herman Keizer, Chaplain

Dennis Buteyn,

Webmaster, Cipher Editor

Dear Colleagues,

Today is a great day to be the dean of the Grand Rapids Chapter. Last

week began with a well played members’ recital and ended with two

stimulating meetings in which we discussed the chapter’s program

for next year and the 2019 convention. This coming Sunday is the

long awaited performance of Isabelle Demers.

It is also a great day to be a member of this chapter. You are going to

hear a program on Sunday you won’t soon forget. Please be sure to

give your friends and family an extra reminder about this concert.

Hopefully they’ve seen it online and heard it announced at Blue Lake

Public Radio. Take the time now to email or call in one last reminder.

We want Mayflower to be a full church this Sunday at 4pm!

Isabelle’s program is part of the annual Bach Festival. Take a moment

to visit grsymphony.org for a full schedule of events.

Last but not least, Bruce Klanderman has been working hard on the

competitions that are coming up in April. Once again he will have

posters to be distributed around town. He plans to have them at the

concert this Sunday. Please see me before

you leave and I will be sure you get a poster

to take with you. It’s very important that we

support all of the work that Bruce does for

these competitions by taking an active role in

getting the publicity out.

A blessed Lent and Easter to all of you.

Peter Kurdziel, Dean

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Sunday, March 5, 2017 4:00 p.m.

Bach Festival Recital: Isabelle Demers, Concert Organist

Mayflower Congregational Church

2345 Robinson Rd S.E. Grand Rapids, MI 49506

Co-sponsored by Mayflower Congregational Church and the Anne Heyboer Vander Heide Fund

Isabelle Demers is Organ Professor and Head of the Organ Program at Baylor University in Texas, where she teaches organ and courses in the organ curriculum. A native of Québec, she is rapidly becoming recognized as one of North America’s most virtuosic organists. Her concert at the 2010 national convention of the American Guild of Organists, in Washington, D.C., was received with great acclaim not only by critics, who deemed it “one of the most outstanding events of the convention.” (The American Or-ganist), but also by the standing-room-only audience, which called her back five times. A review of her concert for the joint ISO-AIO convention in 2010 said that “she enchanted the entire audience with her virtuoso perfor-mance,” leaving the entire congress in an atmosphere of “Demers fever.”

She began piano and organ study at age eleven at the Montréal Conservatory of Music. After graduation in 2003 she studied on scholarship for a year in Paris at the École Normale de Paris-Alfred Cortot. She received her Master’s and Doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School in New York City, where she studied with Paul Ja-cobs. Her dissertation – an analysis of Bach’s St. John Passion – was awarded the Richard French Prize for best dissertation at commencement.

Isabelle Demers was a featured performer at the 2008 national convention of the American Guild of Organists in Minneapolis, and her performance was later broadcast to a national radio audience. She was a featured artist at the 2009 national convention of the Royal Canadian College of Organists in Toronto, at the 2010 na-tional convention of the American Guild of Organists in Washington, DC, and at the 2010 joint convention of the American Institute of Organbuilders and International Society of Organbuilders in Montréal. She has been a prize-winner and finalist in several international performance competitions and performs widely in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Highlights of her 2012 season included her Davies Hall and Disney Hall debuts in March 2012 as well as a 14-concert tour of England and Germany in the summer.

Her debut recording on British label Acis was met with critical acclaim. On a recent broadcast of Pipedreams, presenter Michael Barone featured the Fugue from Reger’s Op. 73, describing it as “a masterful score, here masterfully played,” and Isabelle Demers as, “definitely a talent to watch, to hear….” The RSCM’s Church Music Quarterly awarded the “exciting, expressive and successful” recording its highest recommendation for its “profound and searching” performances. Fanfare Magazine proclaimed the “superbly produced” and “clear, tightly focused recording” with its “brilliantly played program.” Her second disc, featuring the organ works of Rachel Laurin, was released in June 2011, and her recording of Max Reger’s Seven Chorale-Fantasias this past November. Isabelle Demers is represented by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists.

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Matt Sandgren, Chris Dekker, David Heinze, Rhonda Sider Edginton, Eric Strand, Helen Hofmeister Hawley

Recap of February Program at Westminster Presbyterian Church Monday, February 20, 2017

GRAGO Members' Recital: Music for Lent and Easter

The program was as follows: You may listen to several performances by following the links

Chris Dekker - J. S. Bach - Prelude & Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543

David Heinze - J. S. Bach - O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622

Helen Hofmeister Hawley - Thomas Hewitt-Jones - Carnival

Rhonda Sider Edginton - William Bolcom - Sometime I Feel (Gospel Preludes) - Margaret Sandresky - I desire that in every place men should pray lifting holy hand above

Matt Sandgren - Charles Marie Widor - Adagio from Symphony 5

Eric Strand - Haig Mardirosian - Fantasia/ Improvisation - Christ ist erstanden/Christus Vincit

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Thank You The Tuuk family would like to thank the AGO membership for their many thoughtful expressions of sympathy at the passing of their mother, Hylda Jean Tuuk.

Park Congregational Church 10 East Park Place N. E. Grand Rapids Music at Mid-Day (Tuesdays at 12:15 PM, free) We invite you to join us for a simple yet delicious lunch and excellent music from musicians around the greater Grand Rapids area, and sometimes beyond! The concerts are free to the public and lunch is $5. Come enjoy this gift to the community in the beauty of Park Church’s sanctuary!

Concerts begin at 12:15pm. They last roughly 30 minutes. There is no cost for the concerts. Lunch is available both before and after the concert. Lunch is 11:15 am – 1:15 pm and costs $5.00 Each week delicious soup, salad bar, fresh bread, beverage, and fresh cookies are served. We hope you will join us! March 7 Dr. Larry Visser, Organ, (LaGrave Christian Reformed Church) March 14 Dr. Stephen G. Jones, Trumpet March 21 David Wells, River Rogues March 28 Grand Rapids Christian High School Choir

If you have any events you would like publicized please send them to dlbuteyn@sbcglobal.net and they will be emailed to the membership as well as posted in the monthly Cipher.