Joe Utterback (b.1944)
     From Three Spirituals
             Balm in Gilead
             Swing Low

Dieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish composer and organist at the Marienkirche in Lubeck. His fame was so widespread that during the winter of 1705-1706 a young J.S. Bach walked 300 kilometres from Arnstadt to Lubeck to hear him play. His organ works comprise a central part of the standard organ repertoire.

Joe Utterback , jazz pianist and composer, has performed in concert throughout the U.S. and Europe. His jazz-influenced compositions reflect the energy, colour and moods of his jazz piano improvisations and formal classical training. Utterback draws on jazz and blues traditions, Romantic and Impressionist colours in a style highly influenced by Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum and Erroll Garner. Utterback composes for solo piano, organ, chorus, vocal solo and instrumental ensembles and his works have been premiered in such venues as the Salzburg Mozarteum, London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Madrid’s Teatro Nacional, among others.

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was born in Liechtenstein. In 1851 he entered the Munich Conservatorium, eventually becoming professor of piano and later, professor of composition. When the Munich Conservatorium dissolved he was appointed répétiteur at the Court Theatre, from which he resigned in 1867. In 1877 he was promoted to the rank of royal court conductor, this position giving him direction of the music in the royal chapel. He occupied several important positions in the musical world, and became famous as a teacher of composition and organ. He numbered a great many Americans among his pupils, many of whom, such as Horatio Parker, George Chadwick and Henry Holden Huss, achieved a foremost place in the musical world of the United States. His twenty organ sonatas are declared by Grove's Dictionary to be "undoubtedly the most valuable addition to organ music since the time of Mendelssohn"