I welcome you as you visit our new SIAGO website. The Southern Indiana Chapter is a vibrant group of organists, people who love the organ, friends of the organ, and musicians who play other instruments or sing and have become part of our chapter. We are a very active chapter as you will see in the events listed. At our recent Friday Noon Lenten recitals it has been exciting to see each other and to see our community members who enjoy attending our organ events. I invite you to explore our website and choose an upcoming event you would like to attend.
Gary D. Pope, Dean
May 2023 Newsletter ~ by Gary Pope, dean
Dear SIAGO Members and Friends,
We have reached the time of year when the academic year comes to a conclusion, choir season
comes to an end, and we have our May SIAGO events. In the last few weeks you have received
email messages from Janet Hamilton and Judith Miller about our May 8 and May 23 events.
Allow me to bring these to your attention.
On Monday, May 8, I hope we all will gather at 7:00 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church (178
Klerner Lane, New Albany). Janet will introduce our main speaker, Dr. Robin Smith. Her
presentation will feature vocal techniques and how ro help the voices of our choir members. Dr.
Smith is a grad of the Jacobs School of Music and has taught voice and diction. We welcome Dr.
Smith and look forward to her presentation.
On Monday, May 23, we will have our Festive Pre-Concert dinner for SIAGO members and
friends. The dinner begins at 5:30 pm at St. John Presbyterian Church, 1307 Elm Street, New
Albany. Reservations are due by Tuesday, May 9, and the cost of the dinner will be $12.00.per
person. Please send reservations by the 9th to garytheresapope@gmail.com. Make checks
payable to SIAGO.
At 7:00 pm following the dinner our Soaring Eagles Emerging Artist recital will be presented in
St. John Presbyterian Church. featuring Rhonda Edgington. Rhonda received a Masters Degree
from IU (studying with Larry Smith and Marilyn Keiser). She spent seven years working in
Bremen, Germany, studying with Harald Volgel, Hans-Ola Ericson, and Hans Davidson. You can
listen to some of Rhonda’s recordings at:
https://rhonda.edgington.info/index.php/multimedia/recordings.. T
The guest trumpeter will be Dr. Brian Reichenbach.
Dr. Charlie Mitchell will be the host at St. John Presbyterian Church. Dr. David Lamb is the coordinator of
the Soaring Eagles Emerging Artists recitals.
Thank you to all musicians who presented our Friday Noon Lenten Organ Recitals in March and
April. I estimate that we had an average attendance of 85 persons who attended the recitals. We
appreciate all of our members and friends who attended. We also appreciate The News and
Tribune for their feature article about the recital series.