THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents
Faculty Recital
Iain Quinn, Organ Shannon Thomas, Violin
4:00 p.m. | Sunday, January 22, 2023
Trinity United Methodist Church Tallahassee, Florida
PROGRAM
Messe pour Les Couvents
François Couperin Plein jeu – Premier Couplet du Kyrie (1668–1733) Recit de Chromhorne Offertoire sur les grands jeux Elevation – Tierce en Taille Deo Gratias – Petit plein jeu
Fantasie Ernst von Dohnányi (1877–1960)
Suite De Pièces, Op. 3 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Pastorale (1875–1912) Cavatina Barcarolle Contemplation
Shannon Thomas, violin
Organoeida ad missam lectam * Zoltán Kodály Introitus (1882–1967)
Kyrie Gloria Credo Sanctus Benedictus Agnus Ite, missa est
* movement titles are retained from the original publication
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Born in Cardiff, Wales, Dr. Iain Quinn is an award-winning organist, musicologist, and composer with over ninety publications across multiple disciplines. He is Associate Professor of Organ and Coordinator of Sacred Music at Florida State University.
Dr. Quinn has been a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University and a Visiting Composer in Chapel at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. As a composer, he has received commissions from churches across the USA and UK and from the American Guild of Organists. He has been a Fulbright Scholar (2017), teaching at The Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory, the Rudolph Ganz Fellow (2018) at The Newberry Library, Chicago, and the recipient of a fellowship (2020) from the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin. Earlier in his career,
he received a fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for research on the historic organs of Brazil, and grants from Musica Britannica, Society for American Music, The Prince’s Trust, and the Music & Letters Trust.
He began his study of the organ with Robert Court and Nicolas Kynaston, having also studied the piano and trumpet. In 1994, he moved to the USA to pursue advanced study at The Juilliard School, The Hartt School, University of Hartford, (BM summa cum laude), and the Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University (MM). His principal teachers were John Weaver, Larry Allen, Thomas Murray, and William Porter (improvisation). In 2009, he returned to the UK as a Doctoral Fellow at the University of Durham where he was also Director of Music at the College of St Hild and St Bede. He completed the PhD (Historical Musicology) in 2012. He also holds the diplomas of Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and Fellow of the Royal Schools of Music.
Dr. Quinn has held college, church and cathedral positions in Durham (UK), New York, Connecticut, New Mexico and Georgia. He has taught at the Blackheath Conservatoire, London, Western Connecticut State University, the University of the South summer school, and Oundle for Organists (UK) and he gives regular masterclasses. He has presented lectures and conference papers in the UK, Europe, and North America, including papers for the Royal Musical Association-Society for Musicology in Ireland, College Music Society, American Musicological Society, and for universities throughout the USA.
He is the author of two books: The Genesis and Development of an English Sonata (Routledge – Royal Musical Association Monograph Series, 2017); The Organist in Victorian Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and the editor of Studies in English Organ Music (Routledge, 2018). Further scholarly writings have been published in Tempo, Notes (MLA), Journal of Victorian Culture, The American Organist, The Organ, and Interpreting Historical Keyboard Music (Ashgate). He has also edited critical editions of Samuel Barber (2 vv) (G. Schirmer), Carl Czerny (2 vv), John Goss (A-R Editions), Corelli-Czerny, Robert Papperitz (Ur Orpheus Edizioni), and volumes 1 and 7 of the Edward Elgar Complete Edition. His reconstruction and publication of the early choral work of Samuel Barber, Christmas Eve, was the subject of interviews for American Public Media’s Performance Today and Pipedreams that were heard on National Public Radio with performances by the Harvard University Choir. His most recent research will be published in his next monograph, Music and Religion in the writings of Ian McEwan (Boydell & Brewer, 2023).
Dr. Quinn has given performances in many of the world’s most important musical centers including London (St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral), Cambridge (King’s College, St. John’s College, Trinity College), Oxford (Queen’s College), Haarlem (St. Bavo), Berlin (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche), Lisbon (Sé), Melbourne (Melba Hall), Moscow (Gnessin Academy), Washington (National Cathedral and National Shrine), New York (St. Thomas Fifth Avenue and Alice Tully Hall) and Hong Kong (Cultural Centre). He has also performed at many international festivals, including Tender is the North (Barbican Centre, London), Cambridge Summer Music (UK), Basically Bach (New York), Festival Barocco (Rome), Closer to Bach (Gdansk), 31 Days of Organ Music (Krakow), Dark Days Music Festival (Reykjavik), Dundee Summer Festival (Scotland), Cardiff Festival (Wales), Welsh Arts Festival (San Francisco), Orgue et Couleurs (Montreal) and the Göteborg International Organ Academy, Sweden.
Dr. Quinn’s choral and organ works are published by Church Music Publishing, Encore Publications, GIA Music, and Paraclete Press. He has recorded fifteen CDs as an organist or conductor that are available on the Chandos, Guild, Hyperion, Naxos, Raven, and Regent labels. His most recent recordings include the Complete Organ Sonatas of C.P.E. Bach recorded at Princeton Theological Seminary (Naxos); The Enlightenment Influence, works of Mozart, Beethoven, and Hummel recorded at Trinity College, Cambridge University (Regent); Twentieth-Century
Masterworks, Hindemith organ sonatas and works of Heiller, Pärt, and Shostakovich recorded at Pacific Lutheran University (Guild); Haydn Organ Concertos with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo (Chandos); Organ works of Vincent Persichetti (Naxos). The choir and organists of Selwyn College have recorded a CD of his organ and choral works, The Garment of Holiness (Regent), and the Harvard University Choir have recorded his anthem Save us, good Lord (Harvard). His compositions have frequently been featured on BBC broadcasts including a televised performance of his anthem Christus est stella with the Durham University Chamber Choir on Songs of Praise. This episode examined the life of the Venerable Bede and was specifically filmed on The Holy Island of Lindisfarne.
A Tennessee native, violinist Shannon Thomas has garnered a reputation for exciting, thoughtful performances as a chamber musician, soloist, and in recital throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Recent performing engagements have taken her to the Kennedy Center, Spoleto Festival USA, Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium, Bolivia’s Centro Sinfonico in La Paz, and the Banff Centre where she has collaborated with distinguished artists such as the St. Lawrence String Quartet, David Halen, Richard King, Wendy Chen, Anita Pontremoli, and Midori.
As a chamber musician, Shannon has performed at the Innsbrook Summer Music Festival, Garth Newel Music Center, Sarasota Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, ENCORE School for Strings, Aspen Music Festival, Stony Brook University, the International Clarinet Association National Conference (Belgium), Northwestern University, Brancaleoni International Music Festival (Italy), and with the Bryant Park Chamber Players in New York City. In addition to concerts with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra where she serves as principal second violin, Shannon performs regularly with the IRIS Orchestra under the direction of Michael Stern. Shannon has recorded for the Blue Griffin Records, and her CD celebrating the music of women composers Lera Auerbach, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Jennifer Higdon was released in 2018.
Interested in sharing her enthusiasm for the arts through teaching, Shannon is in demand as a pedagogue. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Violin at Florida State University and gives master classes throughout the United States and abroad. She also teaches at Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Luby Violin Symposium, and Hilton Head Chamber Music Institute. Previously on the faculties of University of Southern Mississippi, the Cleveland Institute of Music Preparatory Division, and Interlochen Arts Camp, her students have been prizewinners and finalists at national competitions, including MTNA and the Sphinx Competition. She has also taught at the Kinhaven Music School, Stony Brook University Chamber Music Camp, and the Innsbrook Institute Summer Music Academy and Festival, where she served as Education Director. Shannon has presented educational sessions at the National ASTA conferences, Florida Music Educators Association annual conference, and the Luby Violin Symposium. In addition, she has served as an adjudicator and clinician for the Seattle Young Artists Music Festival Association in addition to regional All-State orchestral auditions.
Shannon earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was Paul Kantor’s teaching assistant. She received a Master of Music at Yale University and a Bachelor of Music at Vanderbilt University, and also pursued graduate work at Arizona State University, where she was the first student to be accepted into the Artist Diploma program. She studied chamber music with Peter Salaff, Merry Peckham, George Sopkin, Christopher von Baeyer, Laurie Smukler and members of the Juilliard, Blair, Tokyo, and Cavani String Quartets. Her principal teachers have included Paul Kantor, Cornelia Heard, Jonathan Swartz, Robert Lipsett, and Ani Kavafian.