Summary

Summary Report of the 2014 Washington DC Regional Organ Workshop
Washington DC Stake Center
April 11-12, 2014

Last year on August 24-25, 2013, the first Multi-Regional Organ Workshop Washington DC 2013 took place in the Mount Vernon Chapel on 2000 George Washington Parkway in Alexandria, VA, with 177 people registered for the workshop. While the first workshop was targeted to 8 stakes, in total 19 stakes were represented by about 140 registrants and 10 walk-in attendees. The response to the first workshop was so impressive that at the end of the workshop an announcement of a follow-up workshop was made. Marj Volkel, the Mount Vernon Stake Music Chairperson, was the local liaison, and Dr. Doug Bush from BYU planned the workshop and events. Unfortunately, Dr. Bush became ill and could not come to Washington DC, so he sent Brian Mathias as an instructor in his stead. In addition to the Saturday workshop, two other events were scheduled. On Saturday evening, Brian Mathias performed an amazing organ concert on the famous Visser and Associates’ Opus 127 organ at Saint Luke's Episcopal Church in Alexandria, VA. A Hymn Sing Fireside, directed by David Hardin, was held on Sunday evening at the aforementioned Mount Vernon Chapel in Alexandria, VA.

Dr. Bush passed away shortly after the workshop, so Dr. Don Cook then took the helm and started to plan the follow-up workshop at the Washington DC Stake Center on April 11-12, 2014. The local liaisons from the Washington DC Stake were Sunni Mumford and Ceri Benson. The organizing committee included the liaisons, Rebecca Green, Elizabeth Mansfield, Jeff Smith, Melinda Baird, Michelle Killian, and Li-Fang Tsai. The event was advertised to the 43 stakes in the region, first by President Ron Harrison and then by Dr. Don Cook. Each stake then advertised to their individual units. As a result, a record-breaking 233 people registered from about 30 surrounding stakes.

The performers for the Friday night concert were the five workshop instructors, namely, Dr. Don Cook by Dr. Don Cook, Associate Professor in the BYU School of Music; Sherry Peterson, BYU graduate student in organ; and three BYU organ graduates, Felipe Dominguez, Ceri Benson, and Jonathan Evans. On Friday evening, they performed an organ concert/hymn sing fireside. The instructors took turns in playing organ pieces from the LDS Hymns and from works by Brahms, Wammes, Mouret, Dominguez, and Buxtehude. With Michelle Killian as the Music Director, the audience joined in singing the opening hymn, “Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise,” the closing hymn, “High on the Mountain Top,” “Come,Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” and “Faith in Every Footstep.”

On Saturday morning, registration began promptly at 8am. Donuts and juice were provided. Beginning at 8am, 15-minute one-on-one mini-lessons were given by several of the instructors. In total, the 15 mini-lesson slots were excellent opportunities for students to play a piece and to receive critique from the instructors. After the opening exercises at 9am in the chapel, the students were able to choose from one of three parallel tracks, running constantly until 1pm. During the closing exercises, Dr. Cook taught and encouraged the students to continue their organ training after the workshop. Pizza was served afterwards.

Students registered for the workshop from as far south as Asheville, NC, and as far north as Scranton, PA, as far east as Wilmington, DE, and as far west as Martinsburg, WV. Ages of registrants spanned from 8 to 79. Beverly Benson Parker, President Ezra Taft Benson's daughter, came from Springfield, VA. She and her husband brought their granddaughter, Grace McConkie, from Delaware to attend the conference.

Evaluations received from about 50% of the registrants were collated. Here are the results. The top 5 reasons (see Figure 1) for choosing to attend this year’s DC organ workshop were: 24% to enhance music skills, 21% to receive new information, 21% to receive technical training, 18% to receive inspiration/motivation, and 14% to get help for church calling.

Figure 1. Pie chart showing top reasons for attending this year’s DC organ workshop.

The four most effective ways (see Figure 2) of hearing about the organ workshop were: 44% receiving email, 18% receiving encouragement from church leader, 13% receiving a flyer, and 9% hearing an announcement at church. The top 6 suggestions for future classes were: how to choose stops, pedal techniques, registration for prelude/postlude, arranging hymns into simple preludes, improvisation, and marking common hymns. The top 6 suggestions for future workshop improvements were using video to enhance demonstrations, more space, more classes, more individual instruction, more pizza, and longer classes.

Figure 2. Pie chart showing top methods for learning about this year’s DC organ workshop.

Quantitatively, the workshop was impressive: 233 people preregistered, 190 people attended, 29 stakes represented, 15 classes, 15 Mini-lessons, 5 organs at the same time in the stake center, and 5 impressive instructors. More importantly, the workshop provided ample amount of proper instruction from professionals on how to play the organ. Handouts plus a lot of advice were poured upon the students. There were many opportunities to mingle with the experts and to ask plenty of questions. The students were given encouragement and motivation to continue training after the workshop and to improve their organ skills in the service of others. The organ workshop emphasized the importance of proper music for worship in our church.

The number of students who were positively influenced and inspired from the organ workshop made it all worth the effort to organize the event. This organ workshop reinforced the concept that “Inspirational music is an essential part of our church meetings.” To the extent that organ playing and the hymns played on the organ “move us to repentance and good works, build testimony and faith, comfort the weary, console the mourning, and inspire us to endure to the end,” (Hymns, ix) this organ workshop was successful and suggests that future workshops may be needed in order to continue to encourage the training and improvement of more organ players throughout the church. We thank Dr. Cook and all of the instructors, the local liaisons, the organizing committee, the Washington DC Stake Presidency, and Marjorie Volkel for making this organ workshop possible and extremely successful.

Benjamin Tsai
High Councilor in Washington DC Stake and advisor to organ workshop organizing committee
June 4, 2014