
Back in the early 1990s I started to have a fascination with the genre of Organ Symphony. I discovered that there were many more works in this form that I had never heard of. I started to collect recordings and scores. Then, in 1999 I purchased John Henderson‘s "A Directory of Composers for the Organ". Just a few pages in, I realized there were even more organ symphonies that I had yet to discover. John kindly did a search for me through the electronic version of the document, and sent me a list of even more examples than what I had been able to find by simply looking through the book. And so, I continued my exploration and my collecting. It has now been nearly 30 years, and I have found over 400 examples of the organ symphony, in fact, probably closer to 450. During this time, I have also been researching and producing a book about the subject, and one thing has become crystal clear: There are many unjustly neglected composers, as well as neglected compositions. Often, I have been unable to find a recording, only a score. Sometimes even the scores are difficult to track down. And so, in addition to collecting commercial recordings, I also began to produce my own recordings when I could find none for a particular work. While I am unsure whether I will ever finish writing the book, I do feel as if this information needs to be shared. There is so much beautiful music that many of us have never heard of, much less performed - and so, I am making my recordings available on YouTube along with some of my research. It is my hope that this will help encourage performers to learn and program this beautiful and unfamiliar music.