The American Guild of Organists is pleased to announce their affiliation with Vox Humana, a new online journal that presents current ideas, trends, and research about the organ. Articles are published every two weeks by leading organists and scholars from around the globe. Visit Vox Humana.
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Support the AGO on #Giving Tuesday
We invite you to join us on #GivingTuesday, November 27, by making a tax-deductible contribution to the American Guild of Organists. Your gift can be directed toward supporting your local chapter or any one of our national funds.
The AGO Annual Fund supports educational programs nationwide ranging from opportunities for beginning organists to our professional certification program.
The AGO Endowment Fund is our fund for the future that provides annual operating support through earnings from our investments.
The New Organist Fund provides scholarships and support for Pipe Organ Encounters for students of all ages.
In the weeks ahead, concert halls and houses of worship will be filled with the music of the King of Instruments, more so than during any other time of the year. Please join us in promoting the organ and those who play it by making a contribution in any amount.
You can designate your tax-deductible gift in honor of a loved one, a colleague, a student, or a teacher. Give online at agohq.org or by giving us a call at 212-870-2310. If you have already made a gift to the AGO this year, please accept our deepest thanks.
On behalf of the AGO National Council and Headquarters staff, we send best wishes for a blessed holiday season.
Sincerely yours
Michael Bedford, AAGO, ChM
President
James E. Thomashower
Executive Director
P.S. If you are unable to make a gift at this time, please consider making a planned gift to the AGO through your estate plans. By doing so, you will be honoring your interests in our profession and recognized in perpetuity as a member of the Clarence Dickinson Society
A Gift from the AGO
In the spirit of giving this holiday season, and through the generous support of Pro Organo, we are delighted to offer these excerpts from John Walker’s CD, Christmas Rediscovered, recorded at the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, for free download:
Gigout: Rhapsodie sur des Noëls
Reger: Ave Maria
Karg-Elert: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme
Bach: Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel Hoch
We will be honoring AGO Past President John Walker with the 2019 AGO Endowment Fund Distinguished Artist Award Recital and Gala Benefit Reception. Save the date: Friday, April 26! You are invited to join us at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh to enjoy John’s free recital at 7:30 p.m. The AGO Endowment Fund Gala Benefit Reception follows. Learn more about the AGO Gala by clicking here.
Thank you for your support of the American Guild of Organists. On behalf of all of us here at AGO National Headquarters, I send best wishes for a joyful Christmas and all good things to come in the new year ahead.
Sincerely yours,
F. Anthony Thurman
Director of Development and Communications
American Guild of Organists
Accompaniment Adaptation Practicum
The Accompaniment Adaptation Practicum was developed for pianists serving as organists and for organists with little or no training in adapting non-organ accompaniments. It offers suggestions for creative and musical choral accompanying on the organ and is intended as a starting point for those seeking to accompany with greater effectiveness.
To start, access this booklet, Accompaniment Adaptation Practicum, and follow along with the narration and musical examples.
Wayne Hobbs Scholarship
I/we would like to support the AGO New Organist Fund: Wayne Hobbs Scholarship.
Enclosed is my/our tax-deductible contribution in the amount of $___________.
Name: ____________________________________________
Address: ____________________________________________
City, State, Zip: ____________________________________________
Phone: ____________________________________________
Credit Card Type: ____________________________________________
Credit Card Number: ____________________________________________
Credit Card Expiration Date: ____________________________________________
Please print, complete, and mail this form along with your credit card payment or check payable to the American Guild of Organists to:
New Organist Fund
American Guild of Organists
475 Riverside Drive, Suite 1260
New York, NY 10115
AGO Partnership with Church Music Institute
On June 11, 2019, the American Guild of Organists, by action of the AGO National Council, entered into a partnership with the Church Music Institute to provide discounted CMI membership rates for AGO members. AGO members will have the ability to enjoy CMI member benefits for less than half the cost of regular CMI membership, which include access to its fully searchable online Sacred Music Library with over 18,500 curated choral selections and over 13,000 organ composition titles. Members of the AGO may join CMI at the reduced rate of $35 (a regular CMI individual membership is $75 per year) through the AGO website using their AGO membership login credentials.
About the Church Music Institute Sacred Music Library
The Church Music Institute contains an extensive Library of sacred choral and organ music for evaluation and study to support the educational purposes of the Institute. The Library is unique in collecting and preserving music for worship and study. Through electronic resources, members will find appropriate anthems or organ music to use in worship from the convenience of their home or office.
The choral collection includes an archive of thousands of catalogued sacred octavo anthems for adults and children with additional compositions added daily. Each anthem has been chosen for quality of text, music, and function in worship by the professional staff of CMI. Anthems from every stylistic period from the Renaissance through those most recently published are placed in permanent, acid-free folders for preservation, so that present and future generations may identify, study, and utilize them in worship. Additional choral music contained in the collection includes cantatas and oratorios, service and liturgical music. The library’s holdings have been donated to CMI by universities, seminaries, and church music scholars.
The organ collection includes music based on previously existing tunes, including hymn tunes and Gregorian chants. Many works are chorale preludes, while others are re-harmonizations, interludes, and arrangements with other instruments. Sample pages are continuously being added. The collection is being built from libraries that scholarly church organists donated to CMI, online collections in the public domain, and newly published music provided by publishers.
About the Church Music Institute
The Church Music Institute is dedicated to the advancement and stewardship of the best liturgical and sacred music for worship, serving clergy, musicians and congregants. Offerings include educational workshops and courses, inspirational festivals of church music, newsletters addressing current issues in church music, and online and print resources including the largest curated library of sacred choral anthems and organ compositions in the world. CMI also sponsors research in the field of church music.
Creating a home for the best music of the church, CMI provides a place in which proven practices that govern good music-making can operate. This work proceeds in a theological context where music serves the liturgy and is a vehicle for congregations to worship. At CMI, the goal is to equip clergy, musicians and congregants for the glory of transcendent and transformational worship.
CMI is supported primarily by donors who understand the importance of music to religious faith and who want to invest in CMI’s future to maintain modest fees for its events and easy access to its libraries. With generous donations from supporters, CMI is able to equip clergy, musicians and congregants for meaningful worship. CMI is incorporated in the State of Texas and has IRS 501(c)(3) non-profit status.