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Purpose of AGO
The purpose of the American Guild of Organists is to promote the organ
in its historic and evolving roles, to encourage excellence in the
performance of organ and choral music, and to provide a forum for mutual
support, inspiration, education, and certification of Guild members.
American Guild of Organists
The American Guild of Organists (AGO) is the national professional
association serving the organ and choral music fields. Chartered in 1896
by the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, AGO
now serves more than 20,000 members throughout the United States and in several
foreign countries. There are over 300 local chapters in nine regions, with
national headquarters in New York City. AGO is said to be the largest membership
organization devoted to a single musical instrument.
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AGO publishes a monthly magazine, The American Organist, which
is the most widely read journal devoted to organ and choral music in the world. It is the official journal of the American Guild of Organists and the
Royal Canadian College of Organists, dedicated to furthering their
ideals,
objectives, and cultural and educational aspirations; and it is the
official magazine of the Associated Pipe Organ
Builders of America.
Each summer AGO holds conventions: a national convention in even-numbered years, and regional
conventions in odd-numbered years.
For more information about the American Guild of Organists or The
American Organist magazine, see the AGO National Web site.
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Los Angeles Chapter
With about 400 members, the Los Angeles Chapter is one of the
largest AGO chapters. Chartered June 6, 1910, as the first AGO chapter in
the area, we are now one of ten chapters in Southern
California, and are part of the Angeles District of Region IX (Far West).
Learn more on our Chapter History page.
Our chapter activities include a number of performances, educational
events, social gatherings, and various other programs each
year. We also sponsor performance competitions for young organists and
administer several scholarship funds. We publish a newsletter, LA Pipeline; the AGO
Calendar, which lists events for three chapters; and the annual AGO Southern California
Directory, which lists members, officers, programs and other information from all ten chapters.
After several years of program collaboration with the Pasadena Chapter,
that chapter was merged into the Los
Angeles Chapter in 1999.
Membership is open to all: professional organists and choir directors,
students, and organ enthusiasts alike, regardless of musical ability or
denominational affiliation. For information about joining this chapter, see
the Membership page.
The Los Angeles Chapter has named the
following distinguished individuals Honorary Life
Members:
David Craighead, BMus, DMus(hon), FRCO(hon)
Born in Strasburg, Pennsylvania in 1924, David Craighead studied organ
with Clarence Mader in Los Angeles and Alexander McCurdy at the
Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Before completing his degree,
he began his career as a touring concert organist, served as organist of
Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, and joined the faculty of Westminster Choir
College in Princeton, N.J. After graduation he was appointed organist of
Pasadena Presbyterian Church, where he played bi-weekly organ recital
broadcasts and accompanied numerous oratorios. From 1948 to 1955 he taught
at Occidental College.
From 1955 until his retirement in 1992 he was
professor of organ and chair of the organ division at the Eastman School
of Music and organist of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Rochester, N.Y. He
was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Lebanon Valley College in
Pennsylvania and an honorary fellowship in the Royal College of Organists
in London. He was the first recipient of the Eisenhart Award for teaching
excellence at the Eastman School.
Recognized as one of America's great
organ artists, David Craighead was voted the 1983 International Performer
of the Year by the New York City Chapter of the AGO, and in 2003 was
awarded an Honorary Life Membership in the Los Angeles Chapter. For 47
years Mr. Craighead was married to organist Marian Reiff Craighead. Until
her death in May, 1996 they presented concerts for organ duet in numerous
cities.
Wilbur Held, SMD, AAGO, FAGO
Wilbur Held was born into a musical family in 1914 in the Chicago suburb
of Des Plaines. He attended the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago,
studying organ with Frank Van Dusen and theory and composition with John
Palmer. For seven years he was Leo Sowerby's assistant at St. James
Church. Soon after completing his master's degree he received the AAGO and
FAGO certificates. In 1946 he joined the faculty of Ohio State University
as professor of organ and church music and head of the keyboard
department. He remained in this position for over 30 years and for most of
that time was also organist-choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in
Columbus.
He earned a doctor of sacred music degree from Union Theological
Seminary in New York, and studied organ with Marcel Dupré, André Marchal,
and Vernon de Tar, and composition with Normand Lockwood and Wallingford
Riegger. He has served on the national councils of both the AGO and the
Hymn Society of America, and has appeared as recitalist at their national
conventions.
His Nativity Suite, published in 1959, has sold well over
25,000 copies. Having written several suites primarily for pedagogical
use, he turned his attention to broadening the repertoire for church use,
continuing to stress modest technical requirements and flexibility of
registration. To date he has published 325 organ works. In 1978, he
retired to Claremont, California, where he has continued to be active as
clinician, recitalist, and composer.
Robert (Bob) Mitchell, BA, FAGO, ChM, FTCL
Born in Sierra Madre near Los Angeles in 1912, Bob Mitchell began studying piano at age four and
organ at ten, and holds
the distinction of having been an organ student of Ernest Douglas, the first
dean of the Los Angeles Chapter. He started accompanying silent movies at
twelve, and when talkies replaced silent films, he
turned to church and choir work. At eighteen he was named the youngest
Fellow of the AGO. He studied on scholarship at both the Eastman School of
Music and the New York College of Music, and worked as a pianist and
singer on radio and in a Manhattan speakeasy.
In 1934 he founded the
Mitchell Choirboys in Los Angeles, well known for some 100 film
performances. They were the "best choir in the world" according
to Bing Crosby, with whom they performed in the 1944 Academy Award winning
Going My Way. The short film Forty Boys and a Song, about
Bob and his boys, was nominated by the Academy in 1939. World War II sent
Bob to the Pacific with the Navy. Composer Meredith Willson brought him
back for the Armed Forces Radio Service. He was staff pianist-organist on
numerous radio stations and early television shows. His choir work, which
gave many boys a boost in life, led him to the biographical spotlight of
Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life. In 1962 the Dodgers and Angels
chose him as organist for all games at Los Angeles' new ball park, making
him the only "player" in baseball to ever play for both major
leagues at the same time. Bob can still be heard several times each month
at the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood.
Orpha Ochse, BM, MM, PhD
Orpha Ochse is Professor of Music Emerita at Whittier College. She
held teaching positions at Central College, Western Illinois State
College, and Phoenix College before moving to California in 1957. She was
Director of Music at the First Congregational Church, Pasadena, for twelve
years, and Lecturer in Music at the California Institute of Technology for
fifteen years. She joined the Whittier College faculty in 1969, and
retired from teaching in 1987.
Dr. Ochse's activities in the organ profession have included European
recital tours, published compositions for organ, and research studies in
various aspects of organ playing and organ history. She has served as Dean
of the Central Arizona and Pasadena chapters and as a member of the
National Council of the American Guild of Organists. In 1991 she was
elected a lifetime honorary member of the Organ Historical Society.
Her first book, The History of the Organ in the
United States (1975), received international recognition. A second
book, Organists and Organ-playing in 19th-Century France and Belgium,
was published in 1994, and a third, Austin Organs, in 2001. Her
most recent book is Murray M. Harris and Organ Building in Los Angeles,
1894-1913, published in 2005 and based on research done by the late David Lennox Smith.
A native of St. Joseph, Missouri, Orpha Ochse enjoys a
wide variety of interests in addition to organ research. International
bicycle tours and cross-country ski excursions are annual events on her
calendar. She is a member of the Pomona Lawn Bowling Club, a volunteer in
a local library, and a founding member of the board of directors of the
Ruth and Clarence Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund.
James Vail, BM, MM, DMA
James Vail has been organist and choirmaster at churches in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, and La Jolla, California. In Los Angeles, he served at St.
John’s Episcopal Church and, since 1969, at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church,
where he has conducted St. Alban's Choir in well over 100 major choral
works, mostly with orchestra.
Dr. Vail is Professor Emeritus of Choral and Church
Music at the University of Southern California, where he taught from 1961
to 1999 and chaired the Choral and Church Music Department from 1976 to
1991. The USC Concert Choir, which he conducted for thirty years, appeared
under his direction throughout the western and mid-western United States,
Germany, Austria and Italy, and sang at a number of national and regional
conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and the Music
Educators National Conference. His teaching included courses in Choral
Literature, Choral Conducting, Choral Development, and Liturgical Music.
Upon his retirement, Dr. Vail was chosen by his fellow faculty members as
the 1999 recipient of the coveted Ramo Music Faculty Award "in recognition
of his outstanding contribution to music and education, to the School of
Music and the University of Southern California.”
As an organist, Dr. Vail has presented frequent recitals
at St. Alban’s as well as in other parts of the country—most recently at
the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in
Washington, D.C. and for the American Guild of Organists in Fayetteville,
N.C. He is a past dean of the Los Angeles Chapter of the AGO and a past
president of the Choral Conductors Guild.
A native of Los Angeles, Dr. Vail holds the B.M. degree
in organ from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he
studied with Alexander McCurdy, and the M.M. and D.M.A. in church music
from USC.
The award was bestowed May 14, 2007 by Dean Ronald Sinanian during a
Guild Service at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Los Angeles. The service
was a Solemn Eucharist with a musical offering of Haydn's Lord Nelson
Mass performed by St. Alban's Choir, soloists, and orchestra under
James Vail's direction. The presentation said in part:
In the
mission statement of the American Guild of Organists, one of our purposes
is “to encourage excellence in the performance of organ and choral music,”
and this ideal has always been exemplified in your work as organist,
choirmaster, teacher, and conductor.
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