March 2010

Dear fellow organists and organ enthusiasts:

I am grateful to you all for your participation in our chapter programs this year. Your AGO officers desired fewer and more substantial programs, and I believe we have succeeded. This is due in large part to the extraordinary efforts of our sub-dean Muriel Phillips. Thank you, Muriel. However, I am grateful to all the AGO officers for their time and valiant efforts—Karla Fowkes, Tim Hinck, Matthew Krepps, Virginia Marion, and Beth Nichols. I am thankful for the opportunity I’ve had to serve the Chattanooga Chapter of the AGO, and look forward to another year of exciting programs! If you have ideas for future programming, please convey them to an AGO officer!

We have two more events as we approach the close of the 2009-2010 program year—Lift High the Cross: A Lenten Hymn Festival and the annual May picnic with elections. I hope to see you all at the Hymn Festival on Sunday, March 14, 5 p.m., at Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church. Multiple church choirs will be participating, placed strategically throughout the congregation to support singing (as Martin Luther did with his choristers); the Chattanooga Girls’ Choir will sing; brass quartet with timpani will play; and the organ will sound! Please join us in singing with all your might and joy!

O God, whom saints and angels delight to worship in heaven,
Be ever present with your servants, who seek through art and music
To perfect the praises offered by your people on earth;
And grant to them even now glimpses of your beauty,
And make them worthy at length to behold it unveiled forevermore,
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

[from the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer]

Soli Deo Gloria!
Adrienne Olson, Dean