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During the American Guild of Organists national convention in Seattle, Washington, in early July, AGO President Michael Bedford presented Roger W. Sherman the organization’s President’s Award. 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. Previous award winners include Christoph Wolff, Michael Barone, Fred Swann, and Edward A. Hansen.
“The governing idea of the work . . . was an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject.”1 So says Bach scholar Christoph Wolff of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080. Comprising fourteen fugues and four canons, we have inherited the work in an incomplete state; soon after Bach introduces his own musical signature as Contrapunctus XIV’s third subject and combines it with two previous themes, the music abruptly stops.