Artist Series:

James D. Hicks, Organist Nordic Journey/Organ Music From Scandinavia

Sunday, March 1, 2015 at 8pm

Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Center

Pacific Lutheran University School of Arts and Communication / Department of Music present

Artist Series:

James D. Hicks, Organist

Nordic Journey/Organ Music From Scandinavia

Sunday, March 1, 2015 at 8pm Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Center

Welcome to Lagerquist Concert Hall.

Please disable the audible signal on all watches, pagers and cellular phones for the duration of the performance. Use of cameras, recording equipment and all digital devices is not permitted in the concert hall.

Program    Nordic Fanfare* (2015) ................................................................................................... Fredrik Sixten (b. 1962) Partita on the chorale Thy Kingdom Come (1974) .................................................. Roland Forsberg (b. 1939) Koral-Preludium-Loral-Kanon-Replik 1 Sursum Corda-Koral-Recitativ-Relik II Toccata Brevis Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day (2005) ...................................................... Nils Lindberg (b. 1933) Toccata and Fugue in C Minor (1953) ....................................................................... Jacob Nyvall (1894-1961) Intermezzo* (2014) ..................................................................................................... Pauli i’ Sandagði (b. 1953) Toccata & Fugue on BACH (2012) ................................................................................................ Fredrik Sixten Three Chorale Preludes: Now The Day Ends ....................................................................................................... Jón Leifs (1899-1961) The Holy Cross That Our Lord Carried (2014) .................................... Sven-Ingvart Mikkelsen (b. 1958) Thou Shall Walk Into The Valley ............................................................ Kaj-Erik Gustafsson (1942-2013) Organ Symphony No. 5, Op. 171 (2013) .............................................................. Kjell Mørk Karlsen (b. 1947) Antiphon Summer Fantasy (2014) ................................................................................................. Sven-Ingvart Mikkelsen Symphonic Organ Piece ................................................................................................... Eric Alvin (1902-1992) *World Premiere

About the Organist

James D. Hicks is a native of Fredericksburg, VA. He holds degrees in music from the Peabody Institute of Music of Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and the University of Cincinnati. Other studies include courses at the Royal School of Church Music in England. He is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists.

Hicks was Director of Music at The Presbyterian Church, Morristown, NJ from 1985-2011, where he conducted many of the church’s ensembles, administered the concert series, and served as organist.

Jim has appeared as a concert organist throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. Over the past decade, he made five recordings on the Pro Organo label. The first, American Classic Fantastic, was recorded at the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, NJ in 2003, and demonstrates the extensive rebuild of that instrument from the 1990s, a project that Hicks oversaw. This disc features several world premiere recordings of twentieth and twenty-first century American repertoire, including two original works. The National Public Media program Pipedreams, hosted by Michael Barone, has broadcast several of the tracks from American Classic Fantastic, and it has received considerable notice in the media.

Over the past several years, Jim has intensively researched a relatively unknown and unexplored corner of the organ repertoire: the music of Nordic countries. The series is called Nordic Journey and is now an ongoing endeavor. The series seeks to commission new works from some of the leading composers from northern Europe, discover unpublished and, hitherto, unknown works from previous eras, highlight compositions that have never been recorded as well as celebrating a few of the standard masterpieces of the Nordic school. All of the volumes of this series were recorded for Pro Organo.

The original Nordic Journey was a two-cd release, recorded in January 2010 on the historic Setterquist organ at Linköping Cathedral, Linköping, Sweden. The program features the series’ first commissioned work, Variations for Organ, by Swedish composer Fredrik Sixten. The program mixes more standard repertoire with many works that have never been recorded, including Sixten’s modern-day masterpiece, Messa Misteriosa. Pro Organo released Nordic Journey in June, 2010.

In the summer of 2013, Jim traveled to Sweden for the purpose of adding three more volumes to the Nordic Journey series. Volume II, entitled The Nordic Symphonic Tradition, was recorded on the magnificent Äkerman & Lund organ at St. Johannes’ Church, Malmö, Sweden. This disc is devoted to works of the late-romantic era and is notable for the world premiere recordings of unpublished works by Finnish composer Viljo Mikkola and the Swedish musician Erik Alvin.

Volume III is entitled Swedish Folkways and Classic Traditions and juxtaposes twentieth-century works written in neo-classic style with compositions informed by the folk music of that country. Uppsala-based composer, Mårten Jansson contributed the disc’s commissioned work, A Part of My Heritage, a composition that Jim premiered on Swedish National Radio in March, 2012. Other notable contributions to Volume III include the world premiere recording of Fredrik Sixten’s 2012 Toccata & Fugue on BACH. The colorful 1964 Poul-Gerhard Andersen organ of Skara Cathedral, Skara, Sweden served as the perfect vehicle for this repertoire.

This trilogy of recordings from 2013 concludes with Modern Masters, recorded on the Åkerman & Lund organ at Västerås Cathedral, Västerås, Sweden as Nordic Journey, Volume IV. World premiere recordings on this disc include Norwegian composer Kjell Mørk Karlsen’s Sinfonia Norvegica and three commissioned works by Fredrik Sixten: Passacaglia for Organ, Lamentation for Organ, and a work for two sopranos and organ with a text by St. Francis, Canticle of the Sun.

The Nordic Journey series has received considerable media coverage, including an entire program on the NPM show Pipedreams, hosted by Michael Barone and two interviews on Wisconsin Public Radio, all in 2014.

Nordic Journey, Volumes V and VI continues into 2015 and 2016. The new organ at Kalmar Cathedral, Kalmar, Sweden will be the setting for Volume V, a double cd scheduled to be recorded at the end of April, 2015. It will include premiere recordings of new works by composers throughout the Nordic scene, including compositions by Fredrik Sixten, Nils Lindberg, Thomas Åberg, Kjell Mørk Karlsen, Pauli i´Sandagerði, and Sven-Ingvart Mikkelsen. The set will, in addition, highlight twentieth-century Nordic masterworks by such notable composers as Páll Isólfsson, Carl Bengtsson, Åke Malmfors, Erland von Koch, and Oskar Lindberg. Volume VI will take Jim to Turku Cathedral, Turku, Finland, in 2016, and will be a program centered around Finnish music, including a commissioned work, Northern Lights, by the distinguished Finnish composer Veli Kujula.