Kenneth Duane Logan

 

1957 -

 

Kenneth Logan, organist and composer, is known for his creativity as a musician, composer, and teacher and his integrity as a scholar, especially his thoroughness and attention to detail. He has taught at an academy and three universities in the Seventh-day Adventist school system.

 

Kenneth was born in Maryland, one of three children and the only son of J. Byron and Margaret Edna Logan. His mother was a singer and in her younger years had sung in an evangelistic meeting with Daniel and Melvin Venden. Although his father had a degree in chemistry and taught science classes in three academies, in the 1940s and 1950s, he also directed choral groups in two of those schools. Beginning in 1954, he was a photographer for the Review and Herald Publishing Association, later working in photo offset at the Review.

 

Music was an important part of life in the Logan home, and Kenneth also had a fulfilling experience in a multi-faceted music program under Elna Quade and Ruth Millard at John Nevins Andrews School. He started piano lessons at age seven with Charles Pierce, chair of the music program at Columbia Union College, now Washington Adventist University, and then studied with Francisco de Araujo, Willis Bennett, Stewart Gordon, and Alexander Lipsky.

 

Following graduation from Takoma Park Academy in Maryland in 1975, he enrolled at Andrews University, where he completed a B.Mus. with honors in piano performance in 1980, studying primarily with Morris Taylor. Two years later he resumed study at AU and completed an M.Mus. in organ performance under C. Warren Becker in 1984. While at AU he was granted a Charles E. Weniger Fellowship award and also assisted with music theory and history classes.

 

In early 1984 Logan began teaching music full-time at Highland View Academy in Maryland, where he taught lessons and directed its choirs and band and brass and handbell ensembles. He started graduate study at the University of Michigan in 1986. In the next four years he worked as a graduate assistant teaching remedial theory for graduate students and assisting in organ instruction, gave a workshop for UM teachers and graduate students in the use of the recently developed Finale music notation system, and served as an assistant and associate in research. He received a Rackham Dissertation Fellowship award while at UM.

 

During his assistantships at UM, Logan helped develop curricula associated with graduate courses in the organ music of Franz Liszt and Olivier Messiaen. In 1987 he was invited by organ department chair, Marilyn Mason, to present a lecture, "Modelling and Motivic Considerations in Two Neumeister Collection Chorales," at the UM Church Music Institute.  In the following year, he began an extensive study of poetic texts used in American sacred music to 1810, working for eminent American musicologist Richard Crawford.

 

In 1991 he accepted an interim appointment as Assistant Professor in Music at Walla Walla College, now University, teaching organ, music history, and music notation by computer. He served as Minister of Music for the College Church and also was harpsichordist and organist for the Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra. While at WWC he completed all requirements for a D.M.A. in organ performance under Marilyn Mason at UM, graduating with honors in 1992.

 

In 1993, at the end of his time at WWC, Logan accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Music at Canadian Union College, now Canadian University College, teaching keyboard, music history, and theory.  He served there for the next three years, advancing to the rank of Associate Professor.  While at CUC, he raised funds for and prepared for the installation of a 45-rank Casavant organ in the College Heights Seventh-day Adventist Church, located on the campus of CUC. In 1996 he was invited to teach at Andrews University.

 

Logan now holds the rank of Professor of Music and has taught at AU for seventeen years. He has taught in a number of areas, including theory and composition classes, music technology, organ and topics in organ studies, and church music classes in the seminary and music department. He also is organist and Minister of Music at AU's Pioneer Memorial Church.

 

In addition to his playing for church services at PMC and in other Adventist churches and his frequent accompanying, he has played occasional organ recitals in Adventist and other denominational churches. For a total of about seventeen years he has served as paid staff organist and assisted in other ways in Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Lutheran, and United Methodist church services.

 

He has also played at special SDA church gatherings, including serving as official organist for the final three days of the 2005 General Conference Session in St. Louis, Missouri, and as one of the organists in the 2010 GC Session in Atlanta, Georgia. He was organist at the Voice of Prophecy 75th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee at PMC in 2004.

  

Known for his creative hymn playing and arrangements, Logan won first place in the Staley Organ and Hymn-playing Competition during the 1997 annual Organ Conference at the University of Michigan. For the competition the six finalists played Flourish and Chorale by McCabe and were judged on how well their playing led a singing audience of 200 in the competition hymn, "At Pentecost They Gathered." Considerations included the organists' creativity and musical illustration of the hymn's text.

 

Logan has had a special interest in the chorale-based literature of the German Baroque and organ music of late 19th and 20th century Paris. He has an ongoing interest in free and hymn-based organ improvisation and its power to unify and invigorate congregational singing.

 

Since 2002 Logan has pursued research in several music-related areas. He researched and prepared a compilation titled Exploring Organ Repertoire that included about 500 pages of organ music.  In doing research for this project he traveled to Eastman School of Music; Harvard, Indiana, and Chicago universities; and the Library of Congress. Shortly after his first major trip, he made a presentation, "Treasures Times Three: Research Adventures in Three Fabulous Music Libraries," at an AU Music Assembly.

 

At LC he did a groundbreaking survey of a newly-identified annex of 75 boxes of a collection there and assisted in establishing its provenance and uncovering related information.

 

Other creative projects have included serving as music editor, computer music typographer, and contributor of six original numbers and 29 arrangements for Little Voices Praise Him, a Review and Herald Publishing Association publication. He was invited to contribute a chapter in a Festschrift for Marilyn Mason titled Reflections: The University of Michigan Organ Department 1947-1997, a UM School of Music publication.

 

From 1993 to 2006 he contributed four articles for the International Adventist Musicians Association's magazine, Notes, on early American psalmody, Isaac Watts, his experience in fundraising for a new organ, and a review of the premiere by the National Symphony Orchestra of Beyond Rivers of Vision, a work written by Adventist composer James Lee III.

 

The review included photographs taken by Logan, photography being a pastime and small business he pursued with great interest in several recent years, reflecting the influence  of his father. Other photographs of his were printed in IAMA's Notes, including two in its full-page Photo Gallery. Many of his images have been published in AU campus and other publications, used for posters and brochures, and displayed at special events.

 

Beginning in his student years at AU, Logan enjoyed composing and arranging music, one of his earliest writings being a fanfare prelude to a processional by Martin Shaw at the General Conference Session in 1980 at Dallas, Texas. More recent writings have included partitas for organ on "Christ is Alive" and "Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart.

 

The Voice of Prophecy commissioned him to complete his composition We Have This Hope: A Suite for Sabbath Services, in honor of Wayne Hooper's 80th birthday and he performed his work for Hooper in 2000. In 2001, he premiered Regalia: A Grand Processional on DIADEMATA, a work completed in response to a 1999 commission by Andrews University President Niels-Erik Andreasen for music to be used at university commencements. Some sections of it have been published in The Organist's Companion, Wayne Leupold Editions. He is currently composing a four-movement organ concerto.

 

Logan is married to Cheryl J. Hunter and they have five children, Clara Joy, Andrew John, David William, Julie Margaret, and Jonathan Clark. 

 

ds/2013

 

Sources: Interview with Kenneth Logan, 31 January 2013 and additional information provided by him in February 2013; Curriculum Vita (2012), Andrews University music department website biography, 2005, 2012; Herbert Douglass, "The Day in Dallas," Adventist Review, 1 May 1980, 6; “Founder’s Day Weekend Features Compositions,” Lake Union Herald, 8 May 1984, 6; personal knowledge.

 

 

Music by Kenneth D. Logan

 

A Selective Listing

Organ

 

"Heraldings on The Morning Trumpet"   Performed in "Choral Evensong Featuring Michigan Composers," winner in competition for acceptance on program, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1999. Two additional versions arranged for organ and brass by David Workman released as part of Net '98 videos and on CD by Brass Mosaic and friends CD, March 1997.

 

We Have This Hope: A Suite for Sabbath Services   Commissioned by the Voice of Prophecy in honor of Wayne Hooper's 80th birthday, performed for the honoree, 2000.

 

"Regalia: A Grand Processional on DIADEMATA" Composed in response to a 1999 commission by Andrews University President Niels-Erik Andreasen for use at AU commencements.  Premiered in 2001 and some portions published in The Organist's Companion, Wayne Leupold Editions, 2012 and forthcoming 2013.

 

"Introduction and Passacaglia on ENGELBERG" Organ Composition Competition, Southwest Michigan Chapter, AGO, Honorable mention, 2003.

 

"Partita on 'Christ is Alive!'" Organ, accepted for publication in the Organists Companion, Wayne Leupold Editions, 2009.

 

"Partita on MARIONI[:] 'Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart'" Organ, accepted for publication in the Organists Companion, Wayne Leupold Editions, 2009.

 

Seven compositions accepted for publication in Discover the Organ: Repertoire with More Pedal series, Wayne Leupold editions, 2009.

 

"Ground Zero Calvary: A Passacaglia on 'When I Survey the Wondrous Cross'" Performed by the composer on Pipedreams, American Public Media, 2011.

 

"Mysterium and Tremendum on 'Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah'" Premiered by composer, March 2006 at First Congregational Church, St. Joseph, Michigan. Performed in recital by Faythe Freese at the American Guild of Organists Region IV Convention, Greensboro, North Carolina, June 2011, the performance in a professional setting as a result of the composition being a competition winner.

 

Vocal/Choir

 

"I Will Bless the Lord" Unaccompanied SSA, Trio Celest CD recording, 2000.

"Go" Performed by the Andrews University Singers and timpanist, Stephen Zork, conductor, with the composer accompanying on organ, broadcast on Sing for Joy, St Olaf College, 2011.

 

"We Shall Behold Him" Soprano, organ, trumpets, arranged from song by Dottie Rambo, released as part of Net '98 videos.

 

"This I Know" Arrangement for soprano, oboe, and organ, performed in Net ’98 with Shellie Schrattenholzer, soprano and Alex Klein, oboe.

 

 “Gloria in excelsis Deo!” Choir and organ, performed by choir of Trinity Episcopal Church, Niles, Michigan, 2011.

 

“For God So Loved the World” Choir and organ, performed by Andrews University     Singers, Stephen Zork, conductor, 2012.

 

“O Worship the Lord” Baritone and organ, performed by Jaeho Lee and the composer, 2012.

 

“He Is Risen: Alleluia!” Choir and organ, performed by the choir of Trinity Episcopal Church, Niles, Michigan, 2012.

 

“Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled” Choir and organ, performed by Andrews University Chorale, Stephen Zork, conductor, 2012.

 

Other

 

"Prelude on an Early American Hymn, 'Lovest Thou Me?'" Piano, recorded by Morris Taylor on Chapel Records, 1983.

 

"Go to Dark Gethsemane" Clarinet Quartet, winning composition in Founders Day Weekend contest, 1984.

 

"White Knuckles," "Congo Night," "Viewing," "Lava Fire," "Fire Water," "All Ye Minerals" All were compositions for digital media, a recording of which was presented with reading and interpretive calligraphy at Atlantic Union College in 1996 and with live improvisation at the AU Creative Arts Festival, 1997.