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    Frederick Swann, Master of the Pipe Organ, Is Dead at 91

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    He drew the best from complex instruments at Riverside Church in Manhattan, at countless recitals and on the “Hour of Power” TV show.Frederick Swann, who in churches on the East Coast and the West played some of the world’s grandest organs, performing classical and religious works on the complex instruments with sensitivity and technical skill, died on Nov. 13 at his home in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 91.The cause was cancer, said Karen McFarlane Holtkamp, who was Mr. Swann’s secretary in the 1960s and ’70s and then his concert manager.Mr. Swann was well known in New York as organist and music director at Riverside Church in Manhattan, where he began playing in the 1950s.In 1982 he reached a much wider audience when he moved to the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., home base of the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the television evangelist. There he appeared each week on “Hour of Power,” one of the most widely watched religious programs in the country, with a viewership in the millions.Before retiring in 2001, he also served for three years as organist at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, which has one of the largest pipe organs in the world. He also played thousands of recitals all over the United States and beyond.That was no easy feat. Large pipe organs require much more than just keyboard dexterity, and each one is different. The acoustics in each church or hall also vary.“Fred was a genius at controlling and maximizing the potential of very large pipe organs,” the organist John Walker, who succeeded Mr. Swann as music director at Riverside, said in a phone interview. “Every organ is absolutely unique. They are custom-made works of art, and Fred was so uniquely skilled at uncovering the timbres in each instrument that he was regularly invited to give inaugural recitals” — that is, the first public performance on a new or rebuilt organ.Mr. Swann at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., home base of the television evangelist Robert H. Schuller, where he moved in 1982.Al Schaben/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesHe filled that role in 2004 for the formidable organ at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, a 6,134-pipe instrument designed by Frank Gehry. His program that night included pieces by Bach, Mendelssohn and Josef Rheinberger.“In all three,” Mark Swed wrote in a review in The Los Angeles Times, “the stirring deep pedal tones produced a sonic weight that seemed to anchor the entire building, while the upper diapason notes were clear and warm. The delicate echo effects in the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s sonata spoke magically, as if coming from the garden outdoors.”Ms. Holtkamp noted that, at Riverside and other stops, Mr. Swann was choral director as well as organist; it was not uncommon to see him playing and conducting at the same time. His energy, she said, was boundless. She recalled one Sunday on which he played and directed the morning service at Riverside, played and conducted a portion of the Messiah at the church in the late afternoon, then headed to Lincoln Center to accompany the “Messiah Sing-In.”“How Fred did so much so well in one day still amazes me,” she said by email. “I was totally worn out and I was only the page-turner!”Mr. Walker said that Mr. Swann held four centuries’ worth of music in his head and generally played from memory. He played recitals of all kinds, sometimes as the featured attraction and sometimes accompanying a vocalist, and released numerous albums. Mr. Walker said his playing for religious services was particularly poignant.“In playing a hymn,” he said, “he would be able to express the meaning of an individual word in such a poignant way that I would just immediately tear up.”Frederick Lewis Swann was born on July 30, 1931, in Lewisburg, W.Va. His father, Theodore, was a Methodist minister, and his mother, Mary (Davis) Swann, was a homemaker.Mr. Swann said he pounded on the family piano so much as a toddler that his parents locked it.“Of course,” he told The Diapason, a publication about organs, in 2014, “any 3-year-old can figure out how to get into a piano if he really wants to, and I did.”When he was 5 his parents arranged for him to take piano lessons from the organist at a nearby church. One day he arrived for his lesson and the teacher wasn’t waiting at the piano; he found her at the organ console, practicing.“I was hypnotized watching things popping in and out,” he said. “Lights were flashing, her hands and feet were flying, and I thought, ‘Oh my, that looks like fun.’”His legs weren’t yet long enough to reach the pedals, but eventually she began teaching him the organ — which was lucky, because when he was 10 the organist at his father’s church died, and there was no one else to step in but young Fred.“It must have been simply awful,” he admitted, “but that’s how I got started at age 10, and I’ve just kept on.”He earned a bachelor’s degree in music at Northwestern University in Illinois in 1952 and two years later received a master’s degree in sacred music at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He first played the Riverside organ while still a student. He also played at other Manhattan churches — sometimes, he said, he would provide music at four different churches on the same Sunday.After two years in the Army, he began playing full time at Riverside in 1958. Eventually he became music director. A tribute on the Riverside website noted his role in helping to shape the sound of the church’s organ, a famed instrument.Mr. Swann in 2006 at Riverside Church for a 75th anniversary celebration. He began playing there in the 1950s and served as organist and music director.Nan Melville for The New York Times“Although the organ was originally commissioned under the direction of Virgil Fox, Fred Swann was also on staff at the time of the installation of the organ in the mid-1950s,” it said. “In the succeeding years as director of music he oversaw a complete redesign of the organ console and supervised the organ’s expansion and tonal development. As such, he and those he worked with are responsible for the renowned instrument we hear today.”Mr. Swann acknowledged that his departure from Riverside for the West Coast and the Schuller church in 1982 was viewed with disdain by some of his colleagues.“They thought I had lost my mind because I had this beautiful Gothic cathedral, with a magnificent organ and a professional choir and really a lot of recognition as a church that set the standards in music,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1998.The Schuller services, in contrast, were known for their showiness and their hodgepodge of musical styles — a service might include a choral number and a country song. Mr. Swann elevated the musical content considerably, but he also broadened his own views.“I feel like we’ve all benefited,” he told The Orange County Register of California in 1987. The challenge of adjusting to a new type of service appealed to him, he said. It also helped that the Crystal Cathedral had an impressive organ.“It goes from barely audible to oh-my-gosh thunderous,” he told The Register in 2013.(The Crystal Cathedral was sold after Mr. Schuller’s ministry went bankrupt and reopened as a Roman Catholic church, Christ Cathedral, in 2019.)Mr. Swann was married briefly to Mina Belle Packer in the 1950s. He is survived by his partner of 64 years, George Dickey.Mr. Swann was active in the American Guild of Organists, serving as its president for six years beginning in 2002, and was a mentor to many younger players, including Mr. Walker.“Most of what I know about how to play a church service I learned from standing next to Fred,” Mr. Walker said.He was also known for his sense of humor, which was often on display in his chats with recital audiences. One time, Mr. Walker said, while giving the inaugural performance on an organ in Dallas, he was vexed by a “cipher” — a pipe that, because of a malfunction, refused to stop playing.“New organs are just like new babies,” he explained to the audience. “They behave just fine until you take them out in public.” More

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      Review: ‘The Ordering of Moses’ Shines at Riverside Church

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      The Harlem Chamber Players presented R. Nathaniel Dett’s 1937 oratorio in honor of the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance, for the Juneteenth weekend.The Harlem Chamber Players offered a rare, heartfelt performance of R. Nathaniel Dett’s 1937 oratorio “The Ordering of Moses” at Riverside Church on Friday, as part of a centennial celebration of the Harlem Renaissance that had been delayed by the pandemic.Timed to coincide with the Juneteenth weekend, the event felt like a broad community gathering, as though a sampling of city dwellers stepped off a subway train and headed to the same place. New Yorkers across ages and races, including a crying baby or two, filled the pews. Some dressed in natty suits, others in picnic shorts. The only thing stuffy about the evening was the weather outside.With the concert running behind schedule, Terrance McKnight, a host for WQXR and artistic adviser for the ensemble, was on hand to M.C. Noting that the performance was being recorded for his radio station, he encouraged the audience to make some noise: “What’s a Juneteenth celebration in New York City sound like?” The reply: jubilant shouts and applause.That energy continued into a stirring rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” arranged for chorus and soprano soloist (a hard-to-hear Janinah Burnett) by the evening’s conductor, Damien Sneed. Known as the Black National Anthem, it brought the congregation to its feet. Sneed’s harmonization gave it a discordant underbelly reflective of struggle — a reminder that it has been only two years since protests for George Floyd swept the globe, and one year since Juneteenth, an annual observation of Emancipation dating to 1866, was consecrated as a federal holiday.Damien Sneed, conducting the pieces on Friday.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe evening’s centerpiece, “The Ordering of Moses,” tells the story of Exodus: Moses, inspired by God’s call, overcomes his hesitation and leads the Israelites out of Egypt with his sister Miriam.Dett ingeniously wove spirituals into the typical oratorio structure of soloists and chorus expounding a biblical story with orchestra. In a letter around the time of the premiere, he wrote of the synergy between folk lyrics and scripture, calling it “striking” and “natural.”The score elides musical styles, as well. The emotional restraint of the soloists’ parts suits the solemn subject, and when their voices intermingle, the lines move perhaps too neatly. But the orchestration admits richer, Romantic influences, and a call-and-response with the chorus gives the music the sway of a spiritual.Central to the structure is one spiritual in particular, “Go Down, Moses,” and Dett’s bracing fugue on its melody honors its august history. Harriet Tubman sang its promise of deliverance from oppression on the Underground Railroad, and Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson popularized it across a segregated country.At Riverside Church, the bass section of the Chorale Le Chateau strongly anchored the fugue, and the altos lent it clarity. The tenors and sopranos shied away from the swiftly moving harmonies, reflecting a general timidity among all the choristers when they didn’t have a clear melody to sing.The tenor Chauncey Parker (Moses) let his voice ring and popped out triumphant high notes. The soprano Brandie Sutton (Miriam) phrased her music with confident individuality, echoing the style of the evening’s dedicatee, the legendary Jessye Norman. The baritone Kenneth Overton (the Word and the Voice of God) sang authoritatively, and the mezzo-soprano Krysty Swann (the Voice of Israel) offered glimmers of radiance in the taxing contralto writing.The Harlem School of the arts alumni, teen and junior ensembles, in “The Ordering of Moses.”Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesIn her opening remarks, Liz Player, the Harlem Chamber Players’ executive and artistic director, noted that “The Ordering of Moses” was the ensemble’s largest-ever undertaking. It showed sometimes in the careful tempos and less-than-sure-footed ensemble.But moments shone. As the story opens up, moving from Moses’ self-doubt to an affirmation of his purpose, so does the music: A lonely cello (touchingly played by Wayne Smith) begins the piece, and an orchestra in full cry ends it, with Parker and Sutton declaiming their lines on high as the chorus cushioned them with long, held notes. The effect was resplendent.Juneteenth, asserted McKnight, is “a celebration of liberty for all Americans,” and in those final moments, as the music bathed the diverse assemblage in its glow, it seemed he was right. More

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      7 Events in New York Honoring 9/11

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      On Saturday, performances and memorials around the city and online will mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks. Here’s how to find them.Twenty years after four coordinated terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda killed 2,977 people — 2,753 of them at ground zero in New York City — the nation and the city remember. They remember through dance, music, museums, TV specials and light beamed into the sky.And especially now, after a war in Afghanistan, the ways we remember move beyond commemoration. They start to connect the dots between the attacks themselves and the larger historical era that followed, and continues to unfold.History echoes and reverberates in Lower Manhattan, where businesses have shuttered once more, this time because of the pandemic. There, from the rooftop of the Battery Parking Garage, two 48-foot squares of light will recreate the ghostly images of the twin towers this Saturday night.Here’s a selection of events — both in-person and virtual — for New Yorkers to remember and reflect this year. Check websites for Covid-19 protocols.Verdi’s Requiem in MemoriamThe Metropolitan Opera plays Verdi’s Requiem in commemoration often. The last time it was performed there, the piece was in honor of the beloved Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky.Before that, the music was presented as a memorial to Luciano Pavarotti (2008), President Kennedy (1964) and Verdi himself (1901). Now, in its first indoor performance for an audience since March 2020, the Met Opera will perform the Requiem on Sept. 11 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the attacks.Five hundred free tickets will be made available to the families of victims, and the remaining tickets will be $25. The event will also be broadcast live on PBS, hosted by the ballet star Misty Copeland from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan. From $25; metopera.org.‘Remembering 9/11’ at New York’s Oldest MuseumImages from “Here is New York,” a photographic archive of ground zero, at the New-York Historical Society. Hiroko Masuike for The New York TimesIn the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the New-York Historical Society collected materials — pieces of debris, parts of memorials — as rescues and memorials unfolded. And so began the History Responds initiative, which has since continued to document major events like the Black Lives Matter protests and the Climate Strike.Now, 20 years later, two ongoing exhibits — “Remembering 9/11” and “Objects Tell Stories: 9/11” — at the museum on Central Park West are showcasing that history. On Saturday, images from the photographic archive “Here is New York,” which documented ground zero in the moment, will be projected on digital displays in the Smith Gallery. $22 for an adult ticket; nyhistory.org.A National TV SpecialIn 2001, the rubble of the World Trade Center South Tower buried Will Jimeno — a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officer — for 13 hours. He survived, as did his partner, John McLoughlin.Their experiences will comprise part of “Shine A Light,” a one-hour national television special airing on CNN at 7 p.m. on Saturday. The nonprofit 9/11 Day, co-founded by David Paine, announced that the special will be hosted by Jake Tapper and feature performances by H.E.R., Brad Paisley and Common.“We hope to demonstrate that even in the face of great tragedy, good things can arise,” Paine said in a statement. “That’s an essential and powerful reminder for all of us now, 20 years later, as we continue to deal with other tragic events.” 911day.org.‘Table of Silence’Daniel Bernard Roumain, center on violin, performing “Table of Silence” at Lincoln Center last year.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEvery Sept. 11 morning since the 10th anniversary of the attacks, Buglisi Dance Theatre has presented its “Table of Silence” — a free “public performance ritual for peace” — at Lincoln Center. The pandemic hasn’t changed that: Last year, 28 dancers draped in white fabric reached their outstretched arms toward the sky.Although that event marked the first large-scale performance at Lincoln Center since March 2020, it was closed to the public, available only as a livestream. This year, however, the 8 a.m. performance will feature both live and virtual elements. Limited standing capacity will be available on Josie Robertson Plaza, on a first-come, first-served basis. Free; tableofsilence.org.‘Memory Ground’Inside Green-Wood Cemetery, the top of Battle Hill — the highest point in Brooklyn and the setting of the largest Revolutionary battle — affords sweeping views of Lower Manhattan, including the World Trade Center. The musical performance “Memory Ground” will take place there on Saturday. The Mississippi-born and New York City-based composer Buck McDaniel will present original compositions. (Previously, his work “Detroit Cycles” premiered with the radio program The Moth.)Saxophonist Noa Even — whose solo commissioning project, “Atomic,” has toured across the country — will perform, as will the New York City-based string ensemble Desdemona. Each performance is 45 minutes, and will run at noon, 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. $10 recommended donation; green-wood.com.The Crossing’s ‘Returning’The Crossing, a new-music choir, will perform in Philadelphia on Saturday.  Jessica Kourkounis for The New York TimesLatvian composer Eriks Esenvalds’s song “Earth Teach Me Quiet” begins with the line “Earth teach me quiet — as the grasses are still with light.”The Crossing, a new-music choir, will perform pieces by Esenvalds, Ayanna Woods, Michael Gilbertson and James Primosch on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia.While the event, “Returning” may not explicitly address the terrorist attacks, its themes — isolation, grief, confusion, hope and returning — are more than fitting. This “coming home to song” marks the opening of the Crossing’s back-to-live-performance season, in the spirit of return and renewal. $35 for general admission; thecrossing.ticketleap.com.A ‘Tribute in Light’ Across the CityAt sunset on Saturday, 88 7,000-watt light bulbs will reach four miles into the sky from the roof of the Battery Parking Garage, mirroring the shapes of the twin towers.This Tribute in Light, organized by the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, was first presented six months after the attack. Each year after that, the ghostly echoes of the towers have lighted up Lower Manhattan from dusk until dawn on the evening of Sept. 11.Buildings throughout the city, including the Empire State Building, One World Trade Center, the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center Plaza and the New-York Historical Society will join in the memorial by lighting up their facades and rooftops in sky blue. More