National Organists Competition Winner Comes to Town

Jerrick Cavagnaro. Provided courtesy of Cavagnaro.

Many church organists learn how to improvise. Without a printed score, they’ll play new harmony with the final verse of a hymn, or add music to fill gaps in the worship service.

Organist Jerrick Cavagnaro brings improvisation to a whole new level. Winner of the 2024 Biennial American Guild of Organists National Competition in Organ Improvisation, Cavagnaro will perform both improvised and composed organ works in a Milwaukee recital on Friday evening, May 8. The concert is hosted by the AGO-Milwaukee Chapter and All Saints’ Cathedral, the recital site.

The improvisation competition gave contestants about 30 minutes to create an eight-minute piece based on a hymn melody. Friday’s recital will present Cavagnaro with a similar challenge. During the concert, he’ll be given a tune he has never seen before. After a few minutes of contemplation, he will turn that melody into a four-movement organ symphony. Audience members will be given a copy of the melody so they can refer to it as Cavagnaro creates a new composition, a process he finds “energizing.”

Cavagnaro has spent many years developing improvisation skills. His first piano teacher sometimes assigned him just the melody of a piece, encouraging him to “tinker around” with it to develop his ability to hear and internalize pitch and harmony. He later studied improvisation as an undergraduate in organ studies at Westminster Choir College and in graduate school at Yale School of Music. He serves as the associate director of music at Trinity Church, Copley Square in Boston.

In addition to improvising an organ symphony, Cavagnaro will play a program that displays the full expressive range of the 47-rank Pepper-Graves Memorial Organ at All Saints’ Cathedral. Along with movements from organ sonatas written by Florence Price and Edward Elgar and a toccata and fugue composed by Cavagnaro, the program includes several pieces written for other instruments and transcribed (adapted) for organ. The full dynamic and tonal range of the All Saints’ organ will be on display during Cavagnaro’s performance of “Uranus, the Magician” from “The Planets,” written for orchestra by Gustav Holst. For that work, Cavagnaro said he will aim to create a sound that is both “parallel to the orchestra and idiomatic to the instrument.”

Cavagnaro expects to spend a half-day getting acquainted with the All Saints’ organ, playing each stop individually and in groups to get a grasp of the organ’s capabilities. Choosing the stops he’ll use for each piece, he said, “is almost improvisatory” because every pipe organ is one of a kind.

The recital, including Cavagnaro’s on-the-spot improvised organ symphony, takes place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 8, at All Saints’ Cathedral, 818 E. Juneau Ave. in downtown Milwaukee. The concert is free; donations at the door will support AGO-Milwaukee Chapter programs and the maintenance of the All Saints’ organ. Free parking is available nearby at Lincoln School Center for the Arts and Immanuel Presbyterian Church.

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