Sunday, February 9, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Aaron David Miller
(St. Paul, MN, USA)
Aaron David Miller
(St. Paul, MN, USA)
Program
Pietro Yon (1886-1943)
Toccata
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542
Aaron David Miller (b. 1972)
Fireflies (2009)
Gerald Near (b. 1942)
A Triptych of Fugues
i. Lively, with dash
ii. Slowly, expressively
iii. Broadly
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Overture from Die Zauberflöte, K. 620
(transcription by Aaron Miller)
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Andante with Variations
Aaron David Miller
Four Improvised Movements on Welsh Folk Songs
i. Ebenezer
ii. Lullaby (Suo Gan)
iii. Ash Grove
iv. St. Denio
Pietro Yon (1886-1943)
Toccata
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542
Aaron David Miller (b. 1972)
Fireflies (2009)
Gerald Near (b. 1942)
A Triptych of Fugues
i. Lively, with dash
ii. Slowly, expressively
iii. Broadly
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Overture from Die Zauberflöte, K. 620
(transcription by Aaron Miller)
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Andante with Variations
Aaron David Miller
Four Improvised Movements on Welsh Folk Songs
i. Ebenezer
ii. Lullaby (Suo Gan)
iii. Ash Grove
iv. St. Denio
Aaron David Miller is a renowned organ improviser and composer having won numerous international awards and given concerts across the country. Dr. Miller was recently a featured performer for Pipedreams 40th Anniversary Concert which was broadcast nationally. Recent awards have included the 2021 Ronald G. Pogorzelski and Lester D. Yankee Annual Composition Competition and the 2019 Weiger Lepke-Sims Family Sacred Music Award.
Dr. Miller’s orchestra works have been performed by such ensembles as the Seattle Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Zurich Symphony, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Recent composition commissions include works for Yale University, University of California Santa Barbara, The Taylor Organ Competition, and The Minnesota Choral Artists. His organ, choral and orchestra compositions are published by Augsburg Fortress, Paraclete Publishing and Oxford University Press. Dr. Miller was a featured artist at the National AGO convention held in Houston, TX of 2016. Aaron is currently Music Director at House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, MN. He is also a Forensic Musicologist for Donato Music, Scarsdale, NY.
Aaron earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music where he studied organ performance with David Craighead, Russell Saunders, David Higgs, Michael Farris, and composition with Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, and Christopher Rouse. His graduate studies were taken at the Manhattan School of Music where he completed his Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees studying composition and organ performance with McNeil Robinson.
Dr. Miller’s orchestra works have been performed by such ensembles as the Seattle Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Zurich Symphony, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Recent composition commissions include works for Yale University, University of California Santa Barbara, The Taylor Organ Competition, and The Minnesota Choral Artists. His organ, choral and orchestra compositions are published by Augsburg Fortress, Paraclete Publishing and Oxford University Press. Dr. Miller was a featured artist at the National AGO convention held in Houston, TX of 2016. Aaron is currently Music Director at House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, MN. He is also a Forensic Musicologist for Donato Music, Scarsdale, NY.
Aaron earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music where he studied organ performance with David Craighead, Russell Saunders, David Higgs, Michael Farris, and composition with Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, and Christopher Rouse. His graduate studies were taken at the Manhattan School of Music where he completed his Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees studying composition and organ performance with McNeil Robinson.
Program Notes
by Dr. Kenneth Udy, University of Utah
Chiefly remembered as the composer of the perennial Christmas song “Gesu Bambino,” Italian-American composer Pietro A. Yon was assistant organist at the Vatican before he immigrated to New York in 1907 serving as organist of St. Francis Xavier and then St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He also became a prolific composer. His organ compositions vary from naively simple to ingeniously virtuosic. Published in 1943, the short Toccata in A-flat Major was possibly Yon’s last organ composition. It is an exciting yet little-known work written in the style of a symphonic French toccata. Fiery and energetic alternating chords in the manuals are set against a jaunty theme in the pedal. Arpeggios then lead into a quiet Adagio section where the theme is transformed into a wistful treble melody accompanied by quiet strings. The opening toccata section returns, and the piece concludes with three enormous chords played on full organ.
Bach’s monumental Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542 originated as two independent pieces. Arriving in Cöthen after a business trip with Prince Leopold, Bach learned that in his absence his first wife, Maria Barbara, had died July 7, 1720, leaving four young children. In his grief he composed the darkly dramatic fantasy to play at a job audition in November at St. Catherine’s church in Hamburg. It is a superb example of the North German stylus fantasticus with free toccata sections of daring chromatic progressions going as far afield as E-flat minor, alternating with stricter quiet sections of imitative counterpoint in ABABA form. The dazzling fugue was composed much earlier and enjoyed widespread popularity in Bach’s time as “the very best pedal piece by [Bach].” The subject of the fugue is based on a Dutch folk tune, Ik ben gegroet van, and appears 18 times with not one, but two, countersubjects as well as two revolutions through the entire circle of fifths. Bach also performed the fugue at his audition to contrast with the serious despair of the fantasy and to honor Hamburg’s 97-year-old Dutch organist, Johann Adam Reincken.
Dr. Miller composed Fireflies in 2009 as a “palette cleanser” for a CD entitled Clamor that he recorded with percussionists from the Minnesota Orchestra. Most of the tracks on the recording are pieces for organ and percussion, and this quiet little scherzo serves to offset the percussion pieces. The tonality is mostly impressionistic and modal with playful motives reminiscent of Duruflé. It opens with a fast and light high-pitched 4' flute depicting the lighted insects jumping and flying around. As the piece develops, a string céleste is added to create a backdrop of dark sky against which the fluty fireflies dance.
Gerald Near is a native of Saint Paul, Minnesota and studied composition with Leo Sowerby and Dominik Argento. Over his long career, he has been an organist at churches in Minnesota, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico and established himself as an important composer of American church music. He is now retired and lives in Green Valley, Arizona. His favorite composer is Bach, so it follows that one of his earliest successes was A Triptych of Fugues composed in 1966. Near wrote the fugues to demonstrate that he was qualified to enroll in the Advanced Counterpoint class at the University of Michigan, where he was an organ student of Robert Glasgow. He premiered the work and, of course, was allowed to enroll in the class! The three fugues showcase Near’s ability to write counterpoint (literally “notes against notes).” A single melody (the subject) is played alone and then taken up by the other voices in succession, interweaving (or dialoguing) with each other throughout the course of the work to make harmony.
Mozart was a musical prodigy and one of the most influential composers of the Classical Period. Unfortunately, he left no authentic organ compositions to speak of; however, his achievements in opera remain unsurpassed. He died tragically young, just three months after conducting the premiere of his last opera, Die Zauberflöte [The Magic Flute]. The opera’s scintillating Overture is a captivating introduction to the magical world that unfolds within the opera. Brimming with energy and anticipation, it is at once filled with jolly and mischievous humor but also complex fugal counterpoint. The three solemn chords that begin the overture (and reappear at the end of the exposition) symbolize the threefold knock of Masons entering a lodge. (Mozart was a devout Mason and Masonic imagery pervades the opera.) The overture progresses by introducing melodic fragments that will later appear as themes in the opera. From moments of serene beauty to passages of dramatic intensity, the overture showcases Mozart's mastery of musical expression and his ability to create emotional depth. It culminates in a rousing and triumphant finale peaking with a spirited and virtuosic passage to showcase Mozart's flair for dramatic flourishes and his ability to create a sense of grandeur.
In 1846 Mendelssohn fulfilled a commission by an English publisher by creating a set of six organ sonatas comprising 19 movements he had previously composed individually from July 1844 to April 1845. One of the movements, the Andante with Variations in D Minor, was a set of four variations based on an original melody in song form (ABA) with no real breaks between the variations. It was originally intended for use in the Fifth Organ Sonata; however, Mendelssohn ultimately removed it to shorten the piece.
by Dr. Kenneth Udy, University of Utah
Chiefly remembered as the composer of the perennial Christmas song “Gesu Bambino,” Italian-American composer Pietro A. Yon was assistant organist at the Vatican before he immigrated to New York in 1907 serving as organist of St. Francis Xavier and then St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He also became a prolific composer. His organ compositions vary from naively simple to ingeniously virtuosic. Published in 1943, the short Toccata in A-flat Major was possibly Yon’s last organ composition. It is an exciting yet little-known work written in the style of a symphonic French toccata. Fiery and energetic alternating chords in the manuals are set against a jaunty theme in the pedal. Arpeggios then lead into a quiet Adagio section where the theme is transformed into a wistful treble melody accompanied by quiet strings. The opening toccata section returns, and the piece concludes with three enormous chords played on full organ.
Bach’s monumental Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542 originated as two independent pieces. Arriving in Cöthen after a business trip with Prince Leopold, Bach learned that in his absence his first wife, Maria Barbara, had died July 7, 1720, leaving four young children. In his grief he composed the darkly dramatic fantasy to play at a job audition in November at St. Catherine’s church in Hamburg. It is a superb example of the North German stylus fantasticus with free toccata sections of daring chromatic progressions going as far afield as E-flat minor, alternating with stricter quiet sections of imitative counterpoint in ABABA form. The dazzling fugue was composed much earlier and enjoyed widespread popularity in Bach’s time as “the very best pedal piece by [Bach].” The subject of the fugue is based on a Dutch folk tune, Ik ben gegroet van, and appears 18 times with not one, but two, countersubjects as well as two revolutions through the entire circle of fifths. Bach also performed the fugue at his audition to contrast with the serious despair of the fantasy and to honor Hamburg’s 97-year-old Dutch organist, Johann Adam Reincken.
Dr. Miller composed Fireflies in 2009 as a “palette cleanser” for a CD entitled Clamor that he recorded with percussionists from the Minnesota Orchestra. Most of the tracks on the recording are pieces for organ and percussion, and this quiet little scherzo serves to offset the percussion pieces. The tonality is mostly impressionistic and modal with playful motives reminiscent of Duruflé. It opens with a fast and light high-pitched 4' flute depicting the lighted insects jumping and flying around. As the piece develops, a string céleste is added to create a backdrop of dark sky against which the fluty fireflies dance.
Gerald Near is a native of Saint Paul, Minnesota and studied composition with Leo Sowerby and Dominik Argento. Over his long career, he has been an organist at churches in Minnesota, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico and established himself as an important composer of American church music. He is now retired and lives in Green Valley, Arizona. His favorite composer is Bach, so it follows that one of his earliest successes was A Triptych of Fugues composed in 1966. Near wrote the fugues to demonstrate that he was qualified to enroll in the Advanced Counterpoint class at the University of Michigan, where he was an organ student of Robert Glasgow. He premiered the work and, of course, was allowed to enroll in the class! The three fugues showcase Near’s ability to write counterpoint (literally “notes against notes).” A single melody (the subject) is played alone and then taken up by the other voices in succession, interweaving (or dialoguing) with each other throughout the course of the work to make harmony.
Mozart was a musical prodigy and one of the most influential composers of the Classical Period. Unfortunately, he left no authentic organ compositions to speak of; however, his achievements in opera remain unsurpassed. He died tragically young, just three months after conducting the premiere of his last opera, Die Zauberflöte [The Magic Flute]. The opera’s scintillating Overture is a captivating introduction to the magical world that unfolds within the opera. Brimming with energy and anticipation, it is at once filled with jolly and mischievous humor but also complex fugal counterpoint. The three solemn chords that begin the overture (and reappear at the end of the exposition) symbolize the threefold knock of Masons entering a lodge. (Mozart was a devout Mason and Masonic imagery pervades the opera.) The overture progresses by introducing melodic fragments that will later appear as themes in the opera. From moments of serene beauty to passages of dramatic intensity, the overture showcases Mozart's mastery of musical expression and his ability to create emotional depth. It culminates in a rousing and triumphant finale peaking with a spirited and virtuosic passage to showcase Mozart's flair for dramatic flourishes and his ability to create a sense of grandeur.
In 1846 Mendelssohn fulfilled a commission by an English publisher by creating a set of six organ sonatas comprising 19 movements he had previously composed individually from July 1844 to April 1845. One of the movements, the Andante with Variations in D Minor, was a set of four variations based on an original melody in song form (ABA) with no real breaks between the variations. It was originally intended for use in the Fifth Organ Sonata; however, Mendelssohn ultimately removed it to shorten the piece.