The
Carol Teti Memorial Organ Scholarship Committee at IUP is pleased to
present former resident of Indiana and current president of the American
Guild of Organists, John Walker, in a free organ
recital at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, 2015. The performance takes
place in
DiCicco Hall, Cogswell Hall, on the IUP campus.
Walker will be
played
on the recently installed Ronald G. Pogorzelski and Lester D. Yankee
Memorial Organ, an instrument brought to campus through a special renewable lease from the American Guild of Organists.
A fund-raising reception and
dinner will be held on campus in the Oak Room following the recital. Reservations may be made by calling Jean
Blair at 724-349-1996. Contributions to
the scholarship fund are welcome and gratefully accepted and may be made at
the recital or by mailing a check made out to the Foundation for IUP, Account
#5215 to the Foundation for IUP, Sutton Hall, Room G1, 1011 South Drive,
Indiana, PA 15705.
Music to be performed includes “Voluntary on the Old 100th” by Henry Purcell; “Toccata und Fugue in E-Dur” by Johann Krebs; “Concerto del Sigr. Meck” by Johann Walther; “Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam, BWV 684” and “Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541” by J.S. Bach; “Sonata VI in D Minor” by Felix Mendelssohn; “Canon in B Minor” by Robert Schumann; and “Voluntary for Trumpet and Organ” by Domecq Smith, with IUP trumpet professor Kevin Eisensmith as guest soloist.
Walker is interim organist at
Grace and St. Peter’s Church, minister of music emeritus at Brown Memorial Park
Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, and a member of the organ faculty at
Peabody Conservatory of Music. Earlier
positions have included distinguished tenures in similar positions at Shadyside
Presbyterian Church and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and at the Riverside
Church and Manhattan School of Music in New York City. His former students occupy distinguished
positions in churches and universities throughout America and in Asia.
His active performance schedule
has taken him throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He has performed three times at Notre Dame
Cathedral in Paris and also at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and other
cathedrals and churches in England, France, Holland, Switzerland, and
Sweden. In Taiwan, he has performed
frequently at the National Concert Hall in Taipei and as soloist with the
National Symphony Orchestra. He has
appeared frequently with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the baton
of Michael Tilson Thomas, even sharing one concert billing there with the
Grateful Dead.
As a student of Herbert Nanney,
Walker earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stanford University,
where he was assistant university organist. He holds two Master of Music degrees cum laude from American
Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where he was also a member of the
faculty. Walker was the 1984 alumni
recipient of the Professional Achievement Award from Westminster College. In 1999 he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship
to teach and to perform in Taiwan.
For more information on the recital, contact the Lively Arts at 724-357-2787 (ARTS).