UNT Organ Alumni

Sunghee Kim - In 2006, I won the Fort Wayne organ competition which is the oldest competition in the United States, and graduated in December 2006. Currently, I am studying at Indiana University with Dr. Smith. Now I am doing the Artist Diploma. Next year, I will start the doctoral program.

Hee Sook Kim - Since I found an organist and pianist job at Christ Servant Lutheran Church in Texas, I have studied organ with Dr. Eschbach from the very beginning.  After my senior recital I changed major from music education to organ performance and graduated with a masters degree in August, 2006.  Now I am an organist at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Dallas which has beautiful sanctuaries and organs, and 7,000 church members.  My job includes 4 services on Sunday and directing a children’s choir on Wednesday night.  Organ means God’s special blessing to me as a church musician.

Gwyn Bacon - I am currently and have been for 2-1/2 years serving
as organist/associate director of music for a 3200 member Methodist
congregation. In addition to providing service music for two traditional
services on Sunday mornings, many weddings, and funerals, I accompany two
adult choirs, and one youth choir. As associate director of music, I
direct an adult ladies handbell choir, assist with selection of music for
worship services (such as choir anthems, hymns for services, Call to
Worship, and other elements of the worship service such as The Great
Thanksgiving and other spoken liturgy). I also coordinate the elements of
the service with those involved. For example, I contact the Altar Guild if
acolytes are to process differently, or contact parents of infants to be
baptized and direct them in when to come forward in the service (if during
the singing of the last verse of a hymn), contact the minister over the
ushers and greeters if something is to be done differently, etc. etc. I
also assist with vocal selections for the staff singers solos for the
worship services and assist with rehearsals if the director of music is out.

I'm giving some thought toward taking some seminary courses too, if they
will allow without working towards a Master's.

Ockie Vermeulen (MM 2004) has begun his DMA with Wim Viljoen at the University of Pretoria and preparing for the performer's licenciate exam at the University of South Africa. He also has concerts coming up and has been invited to give a recital and master classes in Victoria West. Vermeulen has just been appointed organist at the Reformed Church Brooklyn in Pretoria.

Szymon Januszkiewicz is currently enjoying his 12 months of curricular practical training in the United States. After spending six months with Bedient Pipe Organ Company in Lincoln, NE, he is now working in Schenectady, NY, and sometimes in Gloucester, MA on a joint project of Schreiner Pipe Organs and C. B. Fisk: a pipe organ for a church in Winston-Salem, NC. Szymon will continue to work with John Schreiner and the Fisk crew until the end of the installation, which is scheduled to start in December 2004.

Contact and other information about Szymon can be found on his website www.organy.net.

Rudy Devos graduated from UNT with the MM degree in organ performance in August, 2004. He goes on to the Eastman School of Music to pursue a DMA degree, studying with David Higgs. Devos received a scholarship and Graduate Award from ESM, essentially giving him full tuition. He will also be organist/associate choirmaster at St Anne Catholic Church, one of the biggest and best paid positions in Rochester, NY. He can be contacted by email:
rudolphdevos@yahoo.com

Janet Evelyn Hunt, DMA '95, is Director of Music and Organist at the Roman Catholic Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta , Georgia . Georgia's oldest Catholic parish, Holy Trinity's present building dates from 1863 and houses a two-manual 30-rank Jardine organ from the same era. Since her arrival in Augusta four years ago, Dr. Hunt has continued the church's commitment to excellence and the preservation of traditional church music in her leadership of the parish's ambitious music program. In addition to playing organ for all Masses, she oversees two adult choirs, a children's choir, a handbell choir, and a chant schola. Once a month, the schola leads a Novus Ordo Latin Mass which is attended by people from several counties in Georgia and South Carolina .

Dr. Hunt coordinates the church's monthly concert series, Celebrate Music! Included on this series each year are a Baroque chamber orchestra concert, organ and harpsichord recitals, a Gospel-style Evensong in observance of Black History Month, and a polyphonic Latin Mass sung in context.

Equally accomplished on organ and harpsichord, and a finalist on both instruments in several prestigious competitions, Dr. Hunt concertizes frequently in the Southeast, having played most recently at the Piccolo Spoleto festival in Charleston in 2003. She recorded two compact discs of organ works by Franck and Vierne in 1997; reviewers praised her discs not only for her interpretation but also for her sensitivity to the instrument on which they were recorded. Future projects include a recording of the Jardine organ at Most Holy Trinity, as well as a disc of harpsichord repertoire. She also free-lances as a singer and flutist in the Augusta area. Currently, she is researching organ continuo practice in the sacred vocal music of Peter Philips (c.1561-1628), with the goal of publishing performance editions of selected works. She is also constructing her own website which should be operative by late spring of 2004.

Joseph Golden is University Organist, Professor of Organ and Director of Opera/Musical Theater in the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, Columbus, Georgia. He recently designed and supervised the installation of the Jordan Concert Organ, Orgues LeTourneau, Opus 60, a 63-rank, 3 manual and pedal mechanical action instrument, dedicated in January, 2001. The organ is housed in the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts, a new $67 Million complex that is the home of the Schwob School. Professor Golden has served as Editor for Music and Literature for RILM and is currently a permanent member of the Council for Creating Original Opera at the Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York City.

K. Scott Warren, MM '96, is organist, accompanist, and conductor in three venerable institutions on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

As Organist and Director of Music at the historic Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, he is working to revitalize the liturgical and choral music program.  He conducts the semi-professional choir in repertoire ranging from Gregorian Chant and the German Baroque Masters to music by contemporary English and American composers.  He continues the restoration of the 63-rank 1895 Odell/1989 Randolph organ.

Warren also serves as Assistant Organist at Congregation Emanu-El in the City of New York, the largest Jewish Reform congregation in the world.  Under the direction of Principal Organist Hunter Tillman, Warren plays the 135-rank 1929 Casavant (dedicated by Marcel Dupré)/2002 Glück Sanctuary Organ, and conducts the professional Temple Emanu-El Choir in the Friday evening and Saturday morning Sabbath services.  The Friday evening service is broadcast live on WQXR-FM.

In July, 2001, Warren joined the music staff of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola (Kent Tritle, Director of Music Ministries), in the capacity of Associate Musician.  He is the pianist for the Sunday evening Contemporary Mass, and serves as keyboardist in liturgies throughout the week.  In the Spring of 2002 he made his debut as organist/pianist in the critically acclaimed Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series.

Warren, a native of Dallas, studied organ with Dr. Jesse Eschbach at the University of North Texas,  and was Organist and Associate Director of Music at Highland Park United Methodist Church.

Christopher Berry graduated cum laude from UNT with a Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance in December 1997.  He was awarded a graduate teaching assistantship in organ at the University of Kansas, from which he received a Master of Music degree in 2002.  In the autumn of 2000, he received a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship to study in Paris, where he earned the Premier Prix as an organ student of François-Henri Houbart at the Conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, and studied improvisation with Sophie-Véronique Choplin, co-titular organist of Saint Sulpice in Paris.

Berry has been a laureate of numerous domestic and international organ competitions, and has been a two-time semi-finalist in the National Competition in Organ Improvisation sponsored by the American Guild of Organists.While at the University of Kansas he was accompanist for the KU Chamber Choir and appeared as piano soloist with the KU Symphony Orchestra in Arvo Pärt's Credo.He has been a guest organist at regional conventions of the National Pastoral Musicians association, and was an organist for World Youth Day 1994 in Denver, Colorado.

Berry is currently the Assistant Director of Music at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., the largest Roman Catholic church in the Western Hemisphere.  The organs at the Basilica have been made famous most notably by Olivier Messaien's premiere of his Méditations sur la Mystére de la Sainte Trinité, as well as a famous recording by Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé. Berry oversees the cantor program and Spanish Music program at the Basilica, and is the accompanist and assistant conductor of the resident professional chorus.  In addition to his other playing duties, he can be heard regularly on live international broadcasts of services from the Basilica.

Jan Bokszczanin, DMA 2006 started studying the organ with Magdalena Czajka at the Jozef Elsner State Secondary Music School in Warsaw. He continued his education with Professor Joachim Grubich at the Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw, gaining MM diploma in 2000. He was a doctoral student of Professor Jesse E. Eschbach on UNT (2002-2003). In 2006 he received the title of a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Music Academy in Lódź (Poland). He performs regularly in Poland and abroad (Belarus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Russia, USA). He gave more than 20 prestigious performances in philharmonic halls as well as prestigious concert in the Main Catholic Cathedral in Moscow. The discography of Jan Bokszczanin includes CD’s for several labels including Acte Prealable (AP0030, AP 0081, AP0093, AP0116), Hi-Fi and Musica, ARMS records, DUX and Musica Sacra (MSE 008, MSE 016). In 2001, Jan Bokszczanin has published a book The Origin and Traditions of Russian Organ Music. He is also the editor of several sheet music suplements to the periodical Liturgia Sacra, Marian Sawa’s Seven Works for Organ (Polihymnia, Lublin 2007) and other publications. Jan Bokszczanin is an Artistic Director of three Organ Festivals in Poland. He is also a member of the Board of Marian Sawa Society (www.mariansawa.org).

for contact:
jan@organy.net
www.organy.net/jan

For information on organ studies contact:
Dr. Jesse Eschbach, Chair, Keyboard Division
Phone: 940-565-4094
jeschbac@music.unt.edu