Page 4 - MLD Book

too high church!) was quite taken aback as it wasn’t his idea and many clergy operate under those premises, but he finally agreed to hold an audition for me and appointed an audition
committee.
Melvin played a recital at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1964 (an ambitions one as always, including Sweelinck, de Grigny, Messiaen, Walcha, Bach, and Reubke). After that recital came my audition. Years later, when Melvin became somewhat computer literate, he
this obsolete program ASK SAM that nobody can retrieve! It’s still retrievable in that very old computer IBM Model 30 in the bedroom Clara now occupies! – don’t discard it!!!!). Melvin added these words: On this day, Margaret auditioned for the Calvary position. Those hearing her were Ken Renner, Iris Gray, and Harold Snyder. She won! On a comical note in what was probably the first of a lifetime of humorous happenings at Calvary during my ensuing after choir practice no lesstenure there, I was told during my audition that Hazel Ferguson that morning had “screwed up” Hymn 96 (1940 Hymnal), the “Day of Resurrection,” tune All Hallows. I was also told that if I could play that hymn without any mistakes, that the job was mine! Well, I had never played that hymn, as the first tune Ellacombe was the familiar one to me, but I managed to sight read it without error. In Hazel’s defense, it has triplets in the feet and isn’t easy to play!
I was hired on the first day of July, 1964, to be the organist and choir director at Calvary at a salary of $2,100, a reduction, as I recall, of $300 from the salary that Hazel Ferguson was getting when the Reverend Waterhouse fired her in favor of me! After my successful rendition of Hymn 96, the vestry had recommended that Ms. Ferguson be dismissed on April 20, 1964 “due to problems.” It was also stipulated that there would be NO paid choir members, and there would be NO music budget whatsoever. So I inherited a newly fired choir of 15 rather disgruntled people who could mostly sing. (It would be 1966 before some scant monies would be restored for the music budget.) As illustration of how very much out of hand the program had become, and to lend some credence to the temporary suspension of choir salaries and music budget, Harold Snyder filled me in on the intricate pay scale that had evolved. Erva Howes was to receive $3 for a taxi from New Albany. John Bickel was to receive $5 each week as he was a tenor (albeit with a wobble that sometimes reached a
entered the selections in a program called ASK SAM. (This is a goldmine of information on every organ and Bach Society program we have done since 1960, buried in
organ