La Belle France #2

KU European Organ Study Tour VI:

The South of France Bonjour! Greetings everyone. I hope you are well and surviving idiosyncrasies of this crazy winter weather. It was in the upper 50’s yesterday afternoon and today we are in the middle of a heavy snowstorm in Omaha. Incroyable! Here we go with the next installment of news, and tidbits about our tour. Business (1) Passport Once again, if you have not already done so, you should begin the process of obtaining or updating your passport as needed. Simply visit your local post office or go online to http://travel.state.gov/passport. Let me know if you have any difficulties with this. There are services that you can use to expedite this process, but I would recommend taking action early so that this is not necessary. In any case, don’t worry, the tour pledges to use all of our influence with the U.S. government if you run into any difficulties. (2) Payments

Just a reminder that your final payment is due March 15. Please make out checks to R&R Travel and send them to Dave Rhodes. The total cost for the three different categories of tour members is as follows: Friends: $3100 Alumni: $2500 Students: $1560 (3) Rooming Assignments After hearing back from you, here is what I am thinking about in regard to roommate assignments. I have tried to honor requests whenever possible. Please understand that this is not set in stone. If you would like to change what you see, please let me know, and I’ll do what I can. Right now it works out very well on paper and the rooming assignments feel appropriate to me. Whatever we start with will be our rooming plan throughout the tour, with the exception of May 25th in Narbonne. Dave Rhodes worked very hard to find us a hotel right on the Mediterranean for that evening, but as a consequence some people will need to be in three person rooms that night. It was the only way that we could use this hotel as it did not have enough double rooms available. Mark Stotler and Carl Edwards Sean Thomas and Michelle Klima John Hess and Valerie Hess Daniel Pyle and Catherine Bull Dean Schoenfeld and Orene Schoenfeld John Schroeder and Margaret Schroeder Mayumi Namura and Francis Stracensky Laura Rau and Chase Becker Cynthia Althauser and Stacie Lightner Jean Henssler and Nancy Owen Claudette Schiratti and Filippa Duke Mary Ellen Sutton and Jo Kraus Shirley Cheng and Katie Burchfield Nicholas Good and Andrés Mojica Chris Gage and Alex Meszler Michael Emmerich and Andrew Lang

(4) Early Arrivals Please let me know right away if some of you are planning to arrive on the 20th or even earlier. There may be a chance to work out rooming together to save money before the tour starts. I’ll keep everyone posted on who will be at the hotel early. (5) Flights If you have not already done so, now would be a good time to book your flights. Once again, ideally, we would like to have everyone arrive in Lyon sometime during the first half of the morning on May 21st. I know that starting in Lyon complicates travel a bit compared to some of our other tours. If you are having trouble finding a flight that arrives in the morning of the 21st, please let me know. (6) Organ Repertoire This is an important topic, particularly given the nature of the organs we will be playing on this tour. At our opening meeting at the beginning of the tour all the organists will draw numbers to establish a playing rotation that we will continue to follow throughout the tour. In other words, if #19 was the last person to play on the previous organ, #20 starts on the next organ etc. We typically offer the host organist the opportunity to demonstrate the instrument for us if he or she would like to do this. This is always a good idea if they take us up on it. While it takes some playing time away from us, we get to hear the instrument played by someone who really knows how to use it. I know that playing is important to many of you. From my own perspective, the most important part of our experience with the organs is hearing them. In terms of our work back in the States after the tour, it is important get a sound in our ears, so that we can do our best to duplicate it on our instruments. Nonetheless, our goal on this, as on all our tours, is for every organist to have the opportunity to play every organ. In actual practice this is sometime difficult. The principal reason for this is repertoire. French repertoire, especially symphonic repertoire, can be quite lengthy. Thus, I want to urge careful selection of repertoire. With some exceptions we have 2 ½-3 hours per organ. We have more time on the first organ we play at St. Francoise in Lyon. On a few other organs the time is limited to around 2 hours. With 24 players, our average playing time divides out to around 6- 7 ½ minutes per

person per organ - and that is without time lost for a demonstration by the organist. Thus, repertoire that last much longer than this is probably not the best repertoire to take with you on the tour. A few suggestions are as follows:

(1) You need to bring repertoire appropriate to our French classic organs. For those who have the time to do this, I would plan to bring at least one example of each of the standard types of pieces employed by French classic composers: Plein Jeu, (perhaps a petit plein jeu as well), Fugue, Basse de Trompette, Duo, Trio, Tierce en Taille, other Récit movements, Grand Jeu. On these organs we should be able to get everyone playing time without too much problem. I don’t know that we will have time to play the really big French classic movements very often. I’m referring to the Marchand Grand Dialogue in C, the Couperin Offertory etc. If you have these works in your repertoire and want to bring them along, please feel free to do so, but they may be of limited use. I always think it is better to play complete movements rather than portions of pieces, which might be necessary with these larger works. If you have not played much of this repertoire, good starter composers would be Clerambault (either of the suites), Francoise Couperin, and Guilain.

(2) 19th and 20th cen. French music. Length is the first factor, Franck chorales, for instance, simply won’t work as tour repertoire. We even need to be judicious about individual movements of symphonies etc., please time the movements that you plan to bring along and try to stay within the time frame I suggested earlier. The second consideration regarding this music is registration. With little time to prepare registrations, we basically have to register on the fly. This is especially difficult with French symphonic repertoire because the scores do not always contain all the details you need to know. These are also difficult instruments to manage and require people on both sides of the console to assist the performers. I hope that many of you will want to help us with this process. It is one way to get to the know organs better. The best way to achieve a successful performance of a movement is to select music that doesn’t change registrations very often. Keep in mind the Vierne Pieces de Fantasie, and the 24 pieces in free style. Also think about shorter Dupré works – antiphons etc. If you play anything from the first four Widor Symphonies they tend to involve less registration changes than later symphonies of Widor or some of the Vierne works. Some Messiaen actually

fits this category pretty well and sometimes offers interesting sound combinations to hear. For less experienced organists, the Vierne 24 Piéces en style libre would be especially good selections. You might look at the Boëllmann: Suite Gothique, Op. 25, the Franck L’Organist collection, or Lefebure-Wély as possibilities. Finally, I would suggest thinking about ordering: Annotated Performer's Editions, No. 5, Louis Vierne: An Introduction to the Organ Music of Louis Vierne, published by Wayne Leupold. This is “A graded and fingered anthology of the seventeen easiest and most popular organ compositions. [It] Includes extensive information on performance practice, the Notre-Dame Cathedral organ, and notes on the music.”

(3) In addition to the French classic and symphonic organs, we will also play an Ahrend German Baroque organ in Toulouse. Please bring some Bach and/or 17th cen. German or Dutch music (Buxtehude, Scheidt, Sweelinck, etc.) to play on this organ. In addition we will play a modern Italian copy, so you need to bring some Italian music (Frescobaldi, Cavazzoni, Gabrieli etc.) to play here. Finally, we will play a one manual South German Baroque copy, so some Kerll or perhaps Pachelbel would be good to have along. For the German/Dutch Baroque literature, I would like to suggest especially partitas. The Joann Gottfried Walther partitas are particularly good options. They have short combinations of movements that work well in terms of time and also in terms of hearing a variety of sounds on the organs. Please don’t everyone bring a large Bach prelude and fugue as your German offering. One important point regarding the large organs: there are many different sounds combinations to try out on these organs. If everyone brings up large, loud pieces, we don’t get to experience what these organs have to offer. My suggestion is that you bring a mix of music along, and be sure to include softer pieces and pieces that engage a variety of different stop combinations. If you’d like, feel free to send your tour repertoire to me in an email sometime before we go. I might have suggestions or comments that could help you in your deliberations. (7) Poitiers – I am excited to announce that we have added the Cathedral in Poitiers to our itinerary. Many of us believe that this is one of the finest organs of any kind in the world. The last day of the tour will include both St.

Croix in Bordeaux, the famous Dom Bedos organ, as well as Poitiers in the afternoon on our way to Paris. It should be a fantastic way to end the tour. (8) Versaille and post-tour Paris. – if some of you plan to remain in Paris after the tour, I want to suggest a possibility. As some of you know, I am playing a recital at noon on the Thursday after the tour is over at La Trinité. Jean-Baptiste Robin has made a general offer to me to show us the organ at Versailles. I don’t know what my practice schedule is yet, and when I find out, I need to work around this schedule, but if I can make it work with my schedule and Jean Baptiste’s, I’d be willing to set up a visit to this instrument with anyone who wants to join us. This is just a preliminary notice to see who is planning to stay later in Paris, and who would like to join us on this excursion if it becomes a possibility. Featured Tour Members of the Day Andrés Mojica

Andrés Mojica is the University Organist and Organ Professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. Since the beginning of his position at UPR Mojica performs monthly organ recitals and lectures with a captive audience of hundreds of people. This enthusiasm has attracted various piano students to study the organ. Mojica’s passion for the instrument has given him the opportunity to premiere various compositions for organ by Puerto Rican composers. Together with flutist Ana María Hernández the form the duo Mojica-Hernández that has premiered and arranged Puerto Rican works for the flute and organ. Andrés has played recitals at recognized concert halls as St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. John the Divine in NYC, Methuen Memorial Hall, Trinity Church Boston to mention a few. Mojica has held various positions as Music Director and Organist in Puerto Rico, Wisconsin, New York, Massachusetts and Ohio. He also served as School Organist and Advisor to

Latino students at Phillips Academy, Andover. As a choral conductor, Mojica has worked with choir of all levels and ages ranging from children musicals to classical works for choir with small ensembles. Mojica is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied under the guidance of David Higgs and Haskell Thomson. He is currently enrolled in the DMA program in organ at KU where he studies with James Higdon. Andy Lang While I was born in Michigan, I've spent more than half of my life outside of it, having resided in Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, Kansas, Ohio (very briefly), and North Carolina (where I now live). I am a senior administrator in the College of Arts & Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, and I lead an organization of IT professionals who support ~1000 faculty, ~2500 grad students, 1500 staff members, and to some extent, the 16,000 undergrads in the College. I am a certified data security analyst and am responsible for data security in the College, but I also have a hand in security matters university-wide. One of the nice aspects of my job is that I get to go to Europe often: last year, I went three times in six months! With that in mind, you might ask, why on earth would an IT person want to go on an organ tour? I'm glad you asked! I used to be a doctoral student in organ at KU and went on the organ tour to France in 2005. I do play in churches a good bit, but mostly I continue to study literature, and I'm a pretty active recitalist as well (btw, I got a terrific review in The Diapason a few years ago, in fact). I studied with James Higdon, but also John Ditto (at UMKC, where I got one of my master's degrees) and James Kibbie at the University of Michigan. In terms of hobbies, I enjoy many things. Some highlights are that I have a black belt in Isshinryu Karate, practice wine making, and do gardening. More recently, I decided to take up the gentle art of gymnastics five years ago, and so I enjoy doing all sorts of crazy stunts with my friends in the gymnastics club at UNC and at Wake Gymnastics in Raleigh. My preferred apparatuses are floor, bars and vault. On this trip, I might even dare to do a round-off, back handspring, back tuck down the aisle of one of these great churches we visit... but only if I'm asked *real* nicely! Oh, and please call me "Andy" unless you're my mother!

Walking Once again, I will stress the importance of walking a lot before the tour. Either get out your snowshoes or get to the gym. You should plan to be able to walk at a good pace for two miles. Get good, comfortable walking shoes in advance. Don’t plan to break them in on the tour. French word or phrase of the day: “ça va bien”, or “ça va” for short, is a phrase you will encounter a lot, especially when we meet for breakfast in the morning. It simply means “how are you?” An appropriate response would be “Très bien, merci, et vous ?” – “Very well, thank you, and you? Featured Web Sites of the Day One of the first really great organs we will see is St. Maximin en Var located at the Basilique de Ste. Marie Madeleine. For more information about this magnificent organ, see James Cook’s excellent site: http://faculty.bsc.edu/jhcook/orghist/history/hist028.htm Another excellent site devoted to this instrument is: http://pleasuresofthepipes.info/StMaximin-LaSainteBaume.html Here you can hear several recordings. Happy viewing. Days Until We Depart: 90 Until next time… Au revoir, Michael Bauer