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David Hurd to play David Boe Memorial Concert at Oberlin

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin Conservatory alumnus David Hurd has been tapped to play a David Boe Memorial Concert on the Fisk organ in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel on Sunday, March 3 at 4:30 pm. His program comprises some two decades of his own compositions.

Boe was a beloved professor of organ at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1962 to 2008 who also served as the ninth dean of the Conservatory.

David Hurd is among the most celebrated church musicians and concert organists in the United States. He received the American Guild of Organists’ Distinguished Composer award in 2010, and currently serves as organist and choirmaster of the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City.

I reached Hurd at home in New York via Zoom to talk about his career, his experiences at Oberlin, and his program on Sunday. I began by asking him about his relationship to Boe as a student. [Read more…]

Oberlin to stream memorial for David Boe on June 14

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin Conservatory has announced a virtual memorial service for the late David S. Boe, Professor of Organ and former Dean of the Conservatory, who died in Chicago on April 28 from complications of COVID-19.

The event, to be live streamed from Oberlin’s Fairchild Chapel on Sunday, June 14 at 4:00 pm, will be led by the Rev. Jimmy Madsen, the retired pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lorain, where Boe served as music director and organist for over 40 years. Tributes will be given by Steven Plank, professor of musicology, and David Kazimir, curator of organs. Music by J.S. Bach, Heinrich Scheidemann, and others will be played by Jonathan Moyer, who holds the David S. Boe professorship in organ.

The two John Brombaugh organs in Fairchild Chapel were commissioned by Boe. The gallery instrument, built in 1981, is a mean-tone organ in the North German style, while a one-manual instrument in the front of the chapel was designed for the Boes’ home and donated to Oberlin in 2012.

Read more about the memorial event here in an article by Cathy Partlow Strauss.

New organ for First Lutheran Lorain continues Boe & Brombaugh legacy

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by Daniel Hathaway

The staff and parishioners of Lorain’s First Lutheran Church must have found images of the burning of Notre-Dame de Paris last April especially poignant. In August of 2014, arson reduced their sanctuary to rubble, taking with it the church’s stained glass windows and its historically important organ built by John Brombaugh in 1970.

On Sunday, August 25, nearly five years to the day after that conflagration, the church will formally inaugurate a new instrument by Paul Fritts of Tacoma, Washington in a 3:00 pm recital by Katelyn Emerson. The recitalist, who graduated from Oberlin in 2015 with degrees in organ performance and French and is now based in Stuttgart, Germany, will play a varied program of music by Lübeck, J.S. Bach, Muffat, Bridge, Brahms, and Franck, as well as the premiere of a commissioned work by Aaron David Miller. The recital is free.

Music director Brian Wentzel said in a recent telephone conversation that working on the project of a new sanctuary and organ has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “It’s one that I never imagined I’d have. But it’s been very fulfilling, and a joy to work with Paul Fritts and his crew. I’m very pleased with the result.” [Read more…]

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