South Dakota Chapter The American Guild of Organists

• Dean

Mallorie Hansmann

3900 Carnegie Cir. #102

Sioux Falls, SD 57107

(605) 361-3097

malloriehansmann@yahoo.com

• Sub-Dean

Del Hubers

817 W 16th Street

Sioux Falls, SD 57104

(605) 338-7232

dhubers@sio.midco.net

• Secretary/Treasurer

Sharon Buwalda

2504 E Yorkshire St.

Sioux Falls, SD 57108

(605) 271-3185

jsbuwalda@sio.midco.net

• Member At Large (11)

Ken Mannes

323 N Cedar

Freeman, SD 57029

(605) 695-8946

marymannes@hotmail.com

• Member At Large (12)

Eric Grane

28358 476th Ave

Canton, SD 57013

((605) 987-4190

ericgrane@yahoo.com

• SDAGO Academy Director

Elizabeth Soladay

PO Box 145

Fulton, SD 57340

(605) 770-0767

bowsconbrio@santel.net

The Mission of SDAGO is...

to bring the excitement

and inspiration of the organ and its music

to children and adults through events of

education, entertainment and discovery.

October 2011October 2011October 2011October 2011

Greetings Fellow SDAGO Members!

I hope you are enjoying the fall!

This past September we enjoyed a

wonderful presentation by Dr. Christopher Marks,

learning much about pedal technique and especially

the evolving technique taught by Dudley Buck. Our SDAGO year is underway!

This month we are looking forward to a masterclass taught by Dr. Norma Stev-

lingson. SDAGO members will be playing various works by Jehan Alain. Join us

on Saturday, October 29 at 9:00 a.m. at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Sioux

Falls for this event. I would also encourage you to mark your calendar for the

re-dedication of the Skinner organ at Slagle Hall in Vermillion on Wednesday,

November 2 at 7:30 p.m. David Higgs will be presenting this recital. You will

not want to miss it!

Also, if you are on facebook, please “like” the SDAGO! We have a page that we

can update regarding events and any other type of “organ news.” This is one

way of spreading the word regarding our chapter and perhaps inviting some-

one who might not yet be involved.

See you on October 29 !

from the Dean NOTES

Prairie Pipings News from the South Dakota Chapter of The American Guild of Organists

October Chapter Event

The Organ Music of Jehan Alain A Workshop presented by Dr. Norma Stevlingson

Saturday, October 29 at 9:00 a.m.

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church—909 W. 33rd St., Sioux Falls

2011 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of this brilliant and often under-appreciated

contemporary composer, and the subject of our composer study this year. Dr. Stev-

lingson will present information about Alain and his music in October and chapter

members will present a recital of Alain’s music in February.

Prairie Pipings Page 2

NORMA STEVLINGSON

Dr. Norma Stevlingson is a recognized authority on French Organ Music, particularly that of Jehan Alain.

Working in concert with internationally renowned concert and recording organist Marie-Claire Alain, she

translated Mme. Alain's book on the organ music of Jehan Alain. Dr. Stevlingson's English version was pub-

lished by Leduc, Paris, in December, 2003. She studied for two years in Paris with Mme. Alain as her first full-

time American student.

Dr. Stevlingson is originally from Boise, Idaho, where she began her organ studies with C. Griffith Bratt at St.

Michael's Episcopal Cathedral, then at Boise Junior College. She attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and

holds the degrees Bachelor of Music and Master of Music cum laude from the University of Michigan, where

she studied organ with Robert Glasgow. She received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University

of North Texas in Denton where she studied organ with Charles S. Brown and harpsichord with both Brown

and Dale Peters. In addition to her studies in Paris, she attended the Summer Academy for Organists in

Haarlem, Holland, where she participated in organ classes with Mme. Alain, Anton Heiller, and Luigi

Tagliavini, and harpsichord classes with Gustav Leonhardt.

Dr. Stevlingson won first prize at the American Guild of Organists (AGO) Northwest Regional Competition in Boise, Idaho, and took second

prize at the Fifth International Organ Playing Competition at St. Albans, England, which included a contract for a broadcast recital on the

BBC. She has also been heard on classical radio in this country, including Public Radio Station KERA in Dallas and National Public Radio's

"Pipedreams."

Dr. Stevlingson has performed solo recitals in the United States and Europe, and is often in demand as a lecturer for AGO functions and other

events on both a regional and national level, as an adjudicator for organ competitions, and as a consultant in organ building projects. In addi-

tion, she has held several positions as organist or organist/choir director for churches throughout her career.

Dr. Stevlingson is a member of the music faculty at University of Wisconsin-Superior where she teaches organ and harpsichord, Freshman

Theory, Music History, Counterpoint, and Form and Analysis. She is a member of the American Guild of Organists (past officer of the Arrow-

head Chapter), the American Musicological Society, Sigma Alph Iota National Music Fraternity, Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honorary,

and is a Nationally Certified Teacher of the Music Teachers' National Association.

JEHAN ALAIN 1911-1940

Jehan Alain has been called the Grigny of the twentieth century. Fate granted very little time to an artist

who died prematurely at the very beginning of the Second World War at the age of twenty-nine, but what

richness there is, what maturity in a body of work that includes some 120 compositions written between

1929 and 1939.

Jehan Alain was not only an organ composer, as his vocal works, chamber music and piano compositions

show, but it remains true that he dedicated to this instrument the most essential elements of his genius.

This is not surprising when we remember the origins of the composer and the context in which he came to

music.

Like Debussy, Alain was born at saint-Germain-en-Laye, on 3 February 1911, into the family of the organ-

ist and composer Albert Alain. Equally enthusiastic as an organ-builder, Albert Alain had built in the family

living-room an instrument that must have influenced the musical taste of his eldest son, as did the long

hours he spent by the side of his father at the organ of the Church of Saint-Germain or at the piano of his maternal grandmother, Alice Al-

berty, an excellent amateur musician who had once studied with a pupil of Chopin. Having quickly understood his son’s inclination to mu-

sic, Albert Alain provided him with the first foundation of the art, before making him take piano lessons with Auguste Pierson, organist of

Saint-Louis at Versailles.

Alain’s talents took him to the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied harmony with

Andre Bloch, fugue with Georges Caussade, composition with Roger-Ducasse and

Paul Dukas and organ and improvisation with Marcel Dupré. The length of his course

of study, crowned in 1939 by the award of a first prize for organ and improvisation,

can be explained by the various events that complicated his existence at this time,

trouble with his health often associated with pneumonia contracted in 1933, military

service in 1933 and 1934, the shock of the death of his sister Odile in 1937 and his

marriage with Madeleine Payan in 1935. This last happy event made it necessary for

him to give a great deal of time to his duties as organist at the Church of Saint-

Nicolas de Maisons-Lafitte and at the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth synagogue in

order to meet his household expenses.

His studies barely completed, Alain found himself at war as a soldier in the Eighth

Motorised Armoured Division: “A troubled time, suspended over the unplumbed

depths of democracy and of war. Luckily the smile of good old Bach, the tears of ob-

stinate Beethoven, the sighs and cries of some others form a solid base onto which

we hang on the dark ladder of circumstances” , he noted in his diary. Alain was killed

by enemy fire on 20 May 1940.

Coming Events—mark your calendars!

David Higgs Recital Wednesday, November 2 at 7:30 p.m.

Slagle Hall at USD in Vermillion, SD

Dedication of the refurbished EM Skinner Organ

Paul Jacobs Recital Sunday, December 4

th, 3:00pm

First Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls

Re-dedication of Aeolian-Skinner, Op. 1342

renovated and completed by Schoenstein & Co.