Ann Labounsky, FAGO

Dr. Ann Labounsky has earned an enviable international reputation as a virtuoso performer and improvisor at the organ, and particularly, as a leading American disciple of Jean Langlais. From 1962 to 1964 Ann Labounsky lived and studied in Paris as a recipient of a Fulbright Grant. As an organ student of André Marchal and Jean Langlais, she immersed herself in the French organ tradition; she studied most of Langlais's compositions with the composer, and played them for him on the organ at Sainte-Clotilde. In 1964, while she was Langlais's student at the Schola Cantorum, she earned the Diplôme de Virtuosité with mention maximum in both performance and improvisation. Additional study was with Suzanne Chaisemartin and Marcel Dupré. She was awarded the diploma with the highest honors at the organ competition at the Soissons Cathedral.
Dr. Labounsky has performed world premieres of many of Langlais's compositions and works by American composers. In addition to extensive performances in the United States, she has made concert tours of Europe, performing at Sainte-Clotilde in Paris on each tour, as well as in Brittany , the Netherlands , Germany , and Scotland. Her performances have been broadcast over the French National Radio as well as public radio stations in the United States. Her recital credits include performances at the Cathedral of Notre Dame and the Basilica of Ste. Clotilde in Paris; the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC; the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York ; Grace Cathedral in San Francisco; the Cathedral of St. Paul in Pittsburgh; and the Cathedral of St. Paul in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Recital reviews: “Ann Labounsky… held the sizable audience spellbound with her performance…Members of the audience perhaps were most impressed with her improvised variations on a surprise theme, a single melodic line of ‘Earth and All Stars'” Charleston, West Virginia
“The feature of the evening, ‘An improvisation on the name of André Marchal'. Labounsky, not having previously seen the theme, took it from the simple musical phrase through development and variations, restatement and progressive development to t dramatic and exciting conclusion. There is a very good word for it – spectacular!” Fort Myers, Florida
Ann Labounsky's early training was under the direction of Paul J. Sifler and John LaMontaine in New York City . She was awarded a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music where she was a student of David Craighead, a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan where her teacher was Marilyn Mason, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Miss Labounsky is the author of a biography of Langlais, Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music, published in 2000 by Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon . In 2001 she developed a multi-media presention of the life of Jean Langlais based on this biography. Mist Media, Inc. has further developed this multi-media presention in the form of a DVD sponsored by the Los Angeles AGO Chapter.
An active member of the American Guild of Organists and the National Pastoral Musicians, she holds the Fellow certificate and has served as Councilor for Education and Director of the National Committee on Improvisation, and a member of the Certification Committee of the American Guild of Organists. Currently she also serves as national Director of Certification for the National Pastoral Musicians.
Dr. Labounsky has recorded the complete organ works of Jean Langlais for the Musical Heritage Society: a project encompassing 25 compact disks which will be released in one package as part of the Langlais centennial in 2007. To date eighteen cds have been released with critical acclaim in leading publications including the New York Times, the American Organist, and the Diapason.
As Chair of Organ and Sacred Music at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, she oversees undergraduate and graduate programs in sacred music.
She is the mother of three children, four grandchildren, and resides in the North Hills area of Pittsburgh with her husband, Lewis M. Steele, Jr., CPA.

Eric Lebrun

As one of Gaston Litaize's last pupils, Eric Lebrun studied at the Paris Conservatory where he received first prize in organ from the class of Michel Chapuis. His other teachers included Anne-Marie Barat, Daniel Roth, Bruno Rigutto, and musicologists Jean Maillard and Brigitte François-Sappey.
He won the Chartres competition in 1990 and was appointed the same year as titular organist of the Cavaillé-Coll organ at the church of Saint Antoine des Quinze-Vingts in Paris, where he recorded the complete works of Alain, Duruflé et Franck for the Naxos label.
He has played organ duos with his wife Marie-Ange Leurent, and has performed as soloist with a number of orchestras and choirs including the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Orchestre National de Budapest, Ensemble Instrumental Jean-Walter Audoli, Chœur de Radio-France, Chœur régional Vittoria d'Ile-de-France, Ensemble Vocal Michel Piquemall. A number of contemporary works by V.Aubertin, J.Castérède, Thierry Escaich, Kamilio Lendvay, Gaston Litaize have been dedicated to him. As a composer he has written a number of works from solo violin to oratorios.
Eric Lebrun is professor of organ at the Regional Conservatory of Saint-Maur des Fossés and also teaches pedagogy at the Paris Conservatory. He is also permanent visiting professor at the Conservatory of Zwolle in Holland. In 2006 he wrote a biography of Dietrich Buxtehude published by the Bleu-Nuit publisher and recorded six compact disques of Buxtehude's complete work s with his wife, Marie-Ange Leurent for Bayard-Musique.

Susan Ferré

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

A French-American organist, Carolyn Shuster Fournier was born in Columbia , Missouri . After studying the piano and the violin, she began taking organ lessons at the age of thirteen with Dr. Gary Zwicky and continued with Gladys Christensen, Wolfgang Rubsam, Yuko Hayashi and Mireille Lagacé. After obtaining her Bachelor of Music (Wheaton College, Illinois) and her Master's degree (New England Conservatory, Boston), she came to Paris in 1981 to study with Marie-Claire Alain, Michel Chapuis, and André Isoir. She was granted first prizes in organ at the Rueil-Malmaison and Boulogne Conservatories as well as a Master's degree at the Paris Sorbonne and a Ph.D. in musicology at the Tours University. Her thesis on Aristide Cavaillé-Coll's secular organs has been published by the review L'Orgue .
After playing at the American Cathedral in Paris, in 1989, she was appointed titular of the beautiful 1867 Aristide Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at La Trinité Church in Paris where she founded the weekly Thursday noontime concert series. An international concert artist with a vast repertory, she has performed and give master classes and lectures on both sides of the Atlantic . Her first record is consacrated to Alexis Chauvet's organ music ; her second one, entitled In Memoriam Marcel Dupré , was recorded with the German violincellist, Julius Berger (Schott). Her third, entitled “An American in Paris ”, was recorded at La Madeleine in Paris and is distributed by Harmonia Mundi. Her performances of the Concertos by G. F. Haendel and Francis Poulenc have appeared on the French Television Channel TF1. Several composers have dedicated pieces to her : Jacques Chailley, Hervé Lacombe, Jean-Dominique Pasquet and Daniel Pinkham.

Andrew Scanlon, FAGO

A native of Methuen, Massachusetts, Andrew Scanlon is a member of the organ faculty at Duquesne University, Director of Music at the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, and conductor of the Pittsburgh Compline Choir.  He formerly held positions at St. Paul's Cathedral (Buffalo), Christ & St. Stephen's Church (New York City) and Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School. He earned the Bachelor of Music degree from Duquesne University and the Master of Music degree from Yale University, where his teachers were Ann Labounsky and Thomas Murray, respectively. Additional study has been under John Skelton, John Walker, and David Craighead. As a recitalist, Scanlon maintains a busy concert schedule, performing throughout the United States as well as in Canada and Europe, including appearances at National Conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society. Upcoming recital venues include National City Christian Church (Washington, DC), Cathedral of St. Philip (Atlanta), Church of the Advent (Boston), and St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (New York). In the autumn of 2007, Andrew Scanlon will perform a series of recitals in Europe with venues to include Notre-Dame Cathedral and Eglise St. Trinite, both in Paris, France.  Scanlon has been broadcast on NPR's nationally syndicated radio program Pipedreams as well as on WQED-FM in Pittsburgh, WBFO and WNED in Buffalo, and WCRB-FM in Boston, and he is featured on the recently released OHS recording: Historic Organs of Boston. In 2001, Andrew Scanlon was awarded Duquesne's André Marchal Prize for Excellence in Performance. Andrew has also won top prizes in several playing competitions, including first prizes in the 2002 West Chester Organ Competition, and the 1999 Boston Chapter AGO Competition. He is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists (FAGO).

Robert Sutherland Lord, AAGO

ROBERT SUTHERLAND LORD, Professor Emeritus of Music, has served the University of Pittsburgh for 44 years as teacher, scholar, and organist. His AB degree in music is from Dartmouth College where he was the first music major to be appointed a Senior Fellow. Later, Dartmouth honored him with a Reynolds Fellowship for International Study. In the meantime, he earned MA and Ph.D. degrees in music history under the supervision of Leo Schrade at Yale University . Prior to coming to Pittsburgh , he taught for three years at Davidson College in North Carolina.
His advanced studies in organ and improvisation were in Paris with Jean Langlais, organist at the prestigious Basilica of Saint Clotilde. They enjoyed a close friendship for over thirty years and he was in Paris at the time of Langlais' death in 1991. Among his other organ teachers are Maurice F. Longhurst (Dartmouth College), Clarence Watters (Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut), André Marchal, Heinz Wunderlich (Hamburg, Germany), and Rolande Falcinelli (Paris).
French organ music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries remains the center of Dr. Lord's research. He is a recognized authority on the music of Charles Tournemire, who was a student of César Franck and the teacher of Jean Langlais. All were titular organists at the Basilica of Sainte Clotilde in Paris , the site of several of Dr. Lord's organ concerts. He has played four concerts at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the reviewer of his concert at the Chartres Cathedral commended him for his interpretations of French music. He was invited to perform works of Tournemire in King's College Chapel, at Cambridge University (England). His most recent publication provides new documentation on the Sainte Clotilde organ.
Over the years Dr. Lord has brought musical distinction to the Heinz Memorial Chapel (University of Pittsburgh) combining his musicological studies with his organ performances. He has given over 160 concerts on campus and, in his spare time, has played for nearly 4,000 Heinz Chapel weddings.
Since his retirement in 1999, he has given concerts in France, England, and Scotland. This past June he received a standing ovation for his performance at the renowned Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC.