On Friday, September 29 at 8 p.m., Dr. Edward A. Moore, the new minister of music at National City Christian Church, will present his DC debut organ recital, teaming up with the church’s new associate minister of music, Marvin Mills.
NOTES ON NATIONAL CITY FANFARE
National City Fanfare is a new work commissioned from composer Aaron David Miller. It was written for Dr. Edward A. Moore to commemorate his appointment as Minister of Music at National City Christian Church in Washington, DC. Aaron David Miller is presently Associate Organist and Assistant Director of Music at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, Illinois. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, Dr. Miller is in great demand as a performer, improviser and composer. In 1996, he won the top prize at the AGO National Improvisation Competition, and in 1998, he earned the Bach and Improvisation prizes at the Calgary International Organ Festival Competition. In 1999, his Concerto for Two Organists was premiered and recorded by the Zurich Symphony for Ethereal Records. Later this year, six of Aaron’s chorale preludes will be published by Augsburg/Fortress.
EDWARD MOORE
Edward Alan Moore, a native of Girard, OH, is currently serving as Minister of Music at National City Christian Church in Washington, DC. Previously he was Director of Music for Saint Andrew Presbyterian Church in Iowa City, Iowa, where he oversaw a music ministry of nine choral and instrumental ensembles. Before his position in Iowa, he served as Director of Music Ministries at Twelve Corners Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Organ Performance in October 1999 from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where he was a student of Michael Farris. Edward was the 1995-1996 Russell Saunders Organ Scholar at the Eastman School, the first recipient of this award. He has studied organ improvisation at Eastman with Gerre Hancock and Richard Erickson and was a research assistant for Professor Wm. A. Little. He worked closely with Dr. Little on his Doctoral project, in which he researched the organ works of German Composer Heinrich Reimann (1850-1906). Edward received his Master of Music degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993 as a student of Michael Farris. While in Illinois, he was organist and handbell choir director at the First Presbyterian Church in Urbana. He served as consultant for a new pipe organ built for the church by the Martin Ott Company of St. Louis, working with the builder to design the specifications for the instrument. Edward performed the dedication recital on the new instrument in 1998. For this recital, he premiered Preces for a New Instrument, a new organ composition written for and dedicated to him by then New York composer Aaron David Miller, now Associate Organist at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. The church produced a compact disc recording of the dedication recital.
He received his Bachelor of Music degree in music and religion from Grove City College in Western Pennsylvania in 1991, where he studied with the late Robert Cornelison. Edward’s choral conducting training has been with Fred Stoltzfus and Chester Alwes at the University of Illinois and Douglas Browne at Grove City College. During the fall semester 1998 Dr. Moore was a visiting faculty member at the University of Iowa School of Music while Professor Delbert Disselhorst was on sabbatical.
Concerts presented at academic institutions include recent recital performances at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Iowa. He has also performed at the State University of New York, Buffalo, the Eastman School of Music, the University of Illinois, Grove City College and Westminster College. Solo concerts presented for churches have included recitals in Iowa City, Iowa; Rochester, New York; Greenville, Pennsylvania; Scottsville, New York; Champaign, Illinois; Urbana, Illinois; Warren, Ohio; and Youngstown, Ohio.
Dr. Moore is a member of the American Guild of Organists, the American Choral Directors Association, the Association of Disciple Musicians and the Choristers Guild.
MARVIN MILLS
Marvin Mills, a native of Philadelphia, PA, is Associate Minister of Music at National City Christian Church. Previously he was Director of Music/Organist at All Souls Church, Unitarian, Washington, DC. Early music studies were with violin and piano. Further studies were done at Westminster Choir College as a prizewinner in the Alexander McCurdy Organ Competition.
He is a member of the National Association of Negro Musicians, former board member of the Unitarian/ Universalist Musician’s Network, and past dean of the District of Columbia Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
He has performed throughout the eastern United States in such places as the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Barns of Wolf Trap Farm Park, and historic churches in Krakow, Poland, and appeared as guest artist with the Washington Male Choral, the Concert Artists of Baltimore, the Washington Bach Consort, the Cathedral Choral Society, and the Folger Consort.
Mr. Mills has performed for numerous chapters of the American Guild of Organists and was the featured recitalist in the Guild’s 1992 and 1996 Centennial national conventions. He opened the 1989 Wendell P. Whalum Concert Series at Morehouse College, performing for the entire student body. He was presented in recital by the Washington National Cathedral in observance of Black History Month 1989 and returned to appear on its 1995 Summer Festival Series.
Mr. Mills has recorded for PBS television the Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani by Francis Poulenc and a digital recording titled Organ Music from All Souls Church. A compact disk of music by Marcel Dupré is in production. Mr. Mills can be heard as arranger and accompanist on a disc of spirituals with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, Angels Watching Over Me.
Other accomplishments include a 1986 fellowship from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts, and selection as featured recitalist at the Organ Historical Society 1991 and 1992 Conventions, as well as the American Guild of Organists 1992 National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. In the spring of 1992 he performed the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach in a weekly series of fourteen programs on the 96 rank Rieger organ at All Souls Church.
Mr. Mills made his West coast debut in July 1992 at the Spreckles Organ Pavilion International Organ Summer Concert Series in Balboa Park, San Diego, his New York City recital debut in July 1993 at the Riverside Church and his orchestra debut with the Jacksonville Symphony in June 1995.