Frederick Swann


Frederick L. Swann is an American church and concert organist, choral conductor, composer, recording artist, and former president of the American Guild of Organists. He is the former Director of Music and Organist at New York City's Riverside Church and Organist Emeritus of the Crystal Cathedral and the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. Playing the Crystal Cathedral organ on the weekly Hour of Power television program, he was reportedly seen by an audience of 20 million viewers in 165 countries. Critics such as Tim Smith have called Swann "one of the country's most distinguished organists". Other critics have praised his playing as "brilliant" and "masterly", having a "commanding sense of pace and color". The New York Times said his performance at a Riverside Church recital in 2006, "demonstrated that organists are complete athletes, needing both lightning-fast fingers and the fleet footwork of a dancer".
Swann lives in Palm Desert, California, where he has been Artist-in-residence at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church since 2001. He was also formerly University Organist and Organ Professor at the University of Redlands prior to his retirement in 2018.

Early years and education

Frederick Swann was born in Lewisburg, West Virginia, in 1931, shortly before his family moved to Virginia. The son of Methodist pastor Theodore M. Swann and Mary Davis Swann, he began taking piano lessons as a from the organist at Market Street Methodist Church in Winchester, Virginia. One day he arrived early for a lesson and saw his teacher playing the organ. He told an interviewer in later years that he was "mesmerized when I saw the organ console for the first time" and soon began taking organ lessons. When he was ten years old, the organist at Braddock Street Methodist Church, where his father was pastor, died suddenly. Young "Freddie", was called upon to play the organ for the Sunday services. Madeline W. Riley, the church's Minister of Music, was of significant influence in helping him develop the service playing skills for which he has become so well known.
Swann's oldest brother, Edgar, an organist and ordained clergyman, was killed in action early in World War II. Another brother and three sisters are also deceased.
The Swann family moved to Staunton, Virginia, in 1943 and the youthful organist continued organ study with Dr. Carl Broman, professor of music at Mary Baldwin College and organist at Trinity Episcopal Church. After graduating from Robert E. Lee High School, where he played the piano for the school's chorus, Swann attended Northwestern University. He earned degrees in music from Northwestern University and the old School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, where he studied with Hugh Porter and Charles M. Courboin. Both degrees were granted "with distinction". After a 15-month stint as interim organist at New York's Brick Presbyterian Church during the illness of the renowned Clarence Dickinson, while concurrently serving as Harold Friedell's assistant at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, Swann entered the U.S. Army for a two-year stint.

Career as an organist

Swann was associated with the music ministry of the famed Riverside Church in New York City from 1952 through 1982, first as a substitute organist for Virgil Fox and then appointed Organist in 1957, when Fox's appearances at Riverside became infrequent until his departure in 1965 to pursue a full-time career as a concert performer. Upon the retirement of Richard Weagly as Choir Director in 1966, Swann became Director of Music and Organist through 1982. Under the direction of Swann, Riverside's music program continued to flourish in the 1960s-1980s.
Beginning in June, 1982, Swann was appointed Director of Music and Organist at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, where he conducted the choir and presided over the 5-manual, 265-rank Hazel Wright organ of 16,000 pipes, appearing weekly on the internationally-televised Hour of Power worship services. He also performed at weekly noonday recitals and major concerts. His performances were characterized by music critic Daniel Cariaga as "splendid, probing, brilliant and entertaining". Swann told the Los Angeles Times years later that he was initially criticized in some professional organist quarters for leaving the prestigious, Gothic cathedral-like Riverside Church in New York for the Crystal Cathedral, saying he was "practically blackballed", but that he felt quite comfortable with his decision and found the Christian theology at both churches differing only in emphasis.
Swann then began serving as organist of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles in September, 1998, playing the largest church organ in the world. The instrument has more than 20,000 individual pipes. He left this position on July 30, 2001 — his 70th birthday.
As a concert organist, he has performed at recitals throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Past appearances include Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in London, and Cologne and Passau Cathedrals in Germany. Swann has performed over 3,000 recitals in his long career — in all 50 states of the U.S. and 12 other countries.
Swann is known for dedicating new organs in churches, concert halls, and auditoriums during his career, such as Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Illinois, with the Chicago Symphony in 1981 and at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California, with the San Francisco Symphony in 1984. On September 9, 2003, he dedicated the largest church organ in Asia, located in YounDong Presbyterian Church, in Seoul, Korea, having 104 stops, 119 ranks, and 6,820 pipes, The following year, on September 30, 2004, Swann was chosen to perform the inaugural concert of the 6,125-pipe organ of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. A month later, he performed at the largest pipe organ in the island nation of Bermuda, playing the 88-rank organ of St. Paul's Anglican Church there in a concert broadcast by Sacred Classics.
At age 85 in 2016, Swann announced his retirement as a concert organist with a series of programs beginning in August of that year at the Kotzschmar Organ in Portland, Maine. His performance was praised by music critic Allan Kozinn of the Portland Press Herald as possessing a "commanding sense of pace and color". Swann's playing of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G was called "masterly ... notable for both the vigor he brought to the Prelude and the textural transparency with which he illuminated the fugue". His final recital on the retirement tour took place at the First Presbyterian Church of Kilgore, Texas, fittingly on the 50th anniversary of his dedicatory recital on that very organ. He continues as Artist-in-residence at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, California, as of.

Teaching

Swann served on the adjunct faculties of New York City's Guilmant Organ School, the Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music, and Teacher's College of Columbia University. For ten years, he chaired the Organ Department of the Manhattan School of Music. In later years, he was University Organist and Artist Teacher of Organ at the University of Redlands in California.

AGO role and various awards

Swann joined the American Guild of Organists in 1946. After serving in various offices, he was elected in 2002 to the first of three consecutive two-year terms as president of the 25,000-member organization.
Also in 2002, he was named "International Performer of the Year" by the New York City Chapter of the AGO. On April 13, 2008, the AGO saluted him at an AGO Gala recital at First Congregational Church in Los Angeles as the "Crown Prince of the King of Instruments" for his "dedicated service ... for more than a half century". At the AGO's July, 2010, national convention in Washington, D.C., Swann was presented the Edward Hansen Award for Outstanding Leadership by the organization's vice president, John Walker. In 2015, the Royal Canadian College of Organists named Swann a Fellow, honoris causa and in 2018 the AGO honored him as the organization's first honoris causa recipient of its "Fellow" degree.
Following eleven years as organist and organ professor at the University of Redlands, Swann received the honorary Doctor of Music degree from the California university upon his retirement in April, 2018.

Published works

Swann's published compositions include more than three dozen anthems for choir, such as Let the Whole Creation Cry, as well as numerous organ works based on hymn tunes, such as Hymns of Praise and Power. His arrangements of familiar hymns include Amazing Grace, Great is Thy Faithfulness, How Great Thou Art, Fairest Lord Jesus and O God Our Help in Ages Past. His widely performed Trumpet Tune in D Major was composed in 1991. Swann's discography of organ and choral recordings includes:
;Riverside Church:
;Crystal Cathedral:
;First Congregational Church, Los Angeles:
;Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception:
;Hawaii: