Roger Sherman receives organists guild award

||| FROM THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS |||

Roger Sherman, Director, Orcas Choral Society, 2010-2016

Created in 1988, the AGO President’s Award is presented biennially to recognize outstanding contributions to the art of the organ in the United States. The AGO is a national professional association serving the organ and choral music fields and is comprised of approximately 275 chapters and 12,000 members throughout the United States and abroad. Previous award winners include Bach scholar Christoph Wolff, Michael Barone (host of the Pipedreams radio program), Fred Swann (concert organist and director of music at The Riverside Church and the Crystal Cathedral) and Edward A. Hansen.

Here is AGO President Michael Bedford’s citation:

“A native of Seattle, Roger attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied with Arthur Poister, Fenner Douglass and William Porter. After graduation he enjoyed a successful tenure as a performing artist and teacher in Wisconsin before returning to the Pacific Northwest.

“Roger has been active in the music and artistic life of the City of Seattle for many years. He is the Associate Organist Emeritus of Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Artistic Director Emeritus of the Orcas Choral Society and served as Executive Director of the Westfield Center, an early music organization devoted to historic keyboard instruments. He’s the owner of The Gothic Catalog which offers thousands of organ and choral recordings of distinction. For more than 25 years Roger has been host and producer of the popular Organ Loft, broadcast on radio in Seattle and Eugene, OR. It’s the second longest running program on KING-FM.

“Roger travels around the world to record some of the great organs, organists and choirs of our time and brings those musical adventures into the homes of music lovers. Local musicians and instrument makers are prominently featured wherever in the world their work takes them. The Organ Loft has featured many first performances of new musical works as well as first recordings of new pipe organs.

“For numerous contributions to the enrichment of organ and choral music in Seattle and around the world, it is my very great honor to present the 2022 AGO President’s Award to Roger W. Sherman in gratitude for his distinguished career as a musician and educator, his lifelong commitment to the King of Instruments and his wide dissemination of organ music through acclaimed recordings and popular radio broadcasts.”