J.S. Bach Recital and Memories in Honor of Carol Dean
Utah Valley Chapter American Guild of Organists
J. S. Bach Recital in honor of Carol Dean
22 March 2019
Provo Central Stake Center
Participants photos
Photo by Heather Hansen 1
Photo by Heather Hansen 2
Program:
Click here to view the PDF of the program
- Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 545
Miranda Wilcox - Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, BWV 658
Jennifer Morgan - Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645
Lori Serr - Polonaise from Anna Magdalena Notebook
Braxton Ward - Adagio transcribed by Arthur Wildman from a Sonata for Violin and Cembalo
Heidi Rodeback - Prelude in G Minor, BWV 558
Spencer Hansen - Prelude in D minor, BWV 554
Becky Azera - Nun komm’ der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659
Holly Brinkle - Toccata in D Minor, “Dorian,” BWV 538
Renee Gastelum - Jesus Christ, My Sure Defense, Chorale: Praxis Pietatis Melica, 1653
Laura Pettersson - Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543
Zachary Ewell - Nun ruhen alle Wälder, BWV 756
Nancy Cluff - In dulci jubilo, BWV 729
Don Harvie - Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 553
Janice Comer - In dir ist Freude, BWV 615
Scott Mills
In Memory of Carol Dean
by Mike Carson
Carol Peine Dean (70) passed away from ovarian cancer on 5 June 2018. A native of Durango, Colorado, she grew up on a farm with five brothers and learned how to work hard. She married Dana D. Dean on 21 November 1970. Carol was an avid teacher and student of the organ for thirty-two years in Provo. She played her first solo organ recital at age 40 and received a Master of Music in Organ Performance and Pedagogy from Brigham Young University at age 51.
In 1986 she became a protégé and private student of Dr. Douglas Bush. Carol once stated that “Dr. Bush’s knowledge, respect, and love of Johann Sebastian Bach and his music changed my life forever.” Her other respected mentors and teachers were Dr. Dawin K. Wolford, Dr. Richard Elliott, Dr. Don Cook, and Dr. Parley Belnap.
Carol was a popular instructor at church, the UVAGO chapter, and BYU organ workshops. She also taught hundreds of young people in group organ classes at BYU, which, she stated, “was the most defining preparation I could have possibly had for ‘my life’s calling’—to teach the hymns, especially to beginners, and to help as many pianists as possible become proficient, service-playing organists.” She regularly traveled within a 25-mile radius of her home to give her students private organ lessons in their churches and homes.
Since 1988, Carol served the Utah Valley chapter of the American Guild of Organists as dean (1992-1994), secretary, newsletter editor (twice), officer over educational concerns, and board member at large until her death. Always ready and willing to help the guild in any way that she was needed, she organized many events, such as the annual Bach recitals, and prepared refreshments for many chapter gatherings. Carol is a certified Colleague in the AGO.
Carol was preceded in death by her husband just one year prior to her passing. They had eight children.
Click here to read memories about Carol written by those who attended the recital
My Memories of Carol Dean
by DeeAnn D. Stone
I’ve been fortunate to have known Carol Dean since our younger years—we were both in our late 30s when we first met. Words can’t express enough the gratitude and admiration I have for her for all that she did to enrich and enliven my life. In those early years, she was not only my organ teacher and friend, but became like a sister to me. Since we both came from families of boys, we confided in each other and shared the ups and downs in our lives, like sisters would. We found we had many things in common, besides the love of playing the organ. Our marriages were the same year and just days apart in November, and both of us were married in the Salt Lake Temple. We both had eight children who we helped with paper routes. My mother’s name was Carol and my father’s name was Dean, and to top it off, Carol Dean’s middle name was Deanne. Her husband and I shared the same birthday, which I also share with my son and grandson. After my grandson was born, my daughter told Carol, from whom she had taken organ lessons for a short time, that they had named their baby Sebastian. Carol was overjoyed since Johann Sebastian Bach was her favorite composer.
Carol took me under her wing when I was called to be ward organist in 1987, since I faced the daunting task of having to learn to play the newly installed Bigelow tracker organ in the Provo Central Stake Center where both Carol and I attended, but in different wards. I had never in my life had seen an organ like this, and my meager eight-week organ training course I took six years earlier did not prepare me enough to meet this particular challenge.
At that same time, Carol was taking organ lessons from Doug Bush, who was a member of our stake presidency and instrumental in having the Bigelow organ installed. (I had previously met Doug in 1973 when he was the organist for the Provo 5th Ward where my husband and I attended with our baby daughter.) With Doug’s encouragement and help, Carol started her master’s degree in organ performance and pedagogy at BYU after completing her undergraduate work, and told me she had dreams of teaching in the BYU Organ Department someday. I was her first organ student who she called her “guinea pig” so she could try out her teaching techniques on, and I was all too willing to accept her offer. It was a learning experience for both of us. She helped me immensely to grow and develop my organ skills and to appreciate and learn the works of the great organ masters, as well as to learn how to effectively communicate the spirit and message of the hymns as I played for church.
Carol not only played the organ for her ward, choir, and stake meetings, taught the Gospel Doctrine class (and was Relief Society President for a while), taught organ students, worked on her master’s degree, raised eight children, kept up with AGO duties, taught at workshops, etc., she was also caring for her ailing mother with Alzheimer’s Disease. I don’t know how she did it all, and I’m sure I’m leaving out a lot of what she did.
Carol Dean, 1994 outgoing UVAGO Chapter dean
Carol introduced me to AGO, where over the years, I have met so many wonderful people and learned so much from my involvement with the Utah Valley Chapter. We both served as newsletter editors at different times, and she served as dean. She was pretty much the backbone of the chapter for many years.
Wanting me to be challenged more, Carol suggested I enroll in the BYU Continuing Ed. organ program, and then helped me learn the music to successfully pass Level 3. She also encouraged (more like strongly persuaded) me to prepare and play my one and only organ recital.
There were so many times that on-the-go Carol would pick me and others up in her Subaru to go to AGO meetings, organ recitals, and other events. (When we wondered why she drove a stick shift instead of an automatic, she told us that you’re not really driving unless you drive a stick.) She would then give us a “white knuckle” ride to the events. Varoom!! I was a nervous wreck by the time we got there, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience of hearing great organists play, or instruct us. One night when she was driving a bunch of us home from a recital at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, she lost a contact lens. She pulled over to fix it, but she couldn’t find it in the dark. So off she went seeing out of only one eye, with all of us praying we’d make it home in one piece and that she wouldn’t lose the other contact lens!
Our heaven on earth every August would be for Carol and me to attend the Church Music Workshop together at BYU, where she eventually became an instructor. And in the late fall, we would start going to the practices for Doug Bush’s Christmas Choir for the stake. She made sure all the music was well taken care of and that everyone had their assigned folders at each practice. She also had me help her set up the chairs and do whatever else needed attention. This was my Christmas every year, and I loved it—that and the cheeseballs Carol would make and drop off at our home just before Christmas. My kids always looked forward to Carol’s cheeseballs.
During the winter time, Carol also had me help her make sure that the humidifier was filled with water so the organ wood wouldn’t dry out. She really babied that organ.
On President’s Day one February, I went over to the church to practice at my usual time and found that the chapel and organ had been vandalized by a couple of boys who were out of school that day. I was shocked to see Carol’s organ books and shoes strewn all over the floor, as well as hymnbooks thrown everywhere. Parts of the piano were pulled off, but worst of all, pipes from the organ were pulled out. I thought an earthquake had hit. Then I got scared that whoever did this might be still be in the building. However, anger soon overcame my fear. I could hear the vandals still out in the foyer, so I grabbed my organ music bag and chased them out of the church and into the parking lot, yelling at them to stop, which to my surprise, they did. They knew they were busted. One of them even had the chutzpah to say that he was just running home to call the police to catch whoever did this, knowing full-well he was in on it. One of Carol’s sons, who happened to hear the ruckus, helped me take the boys to the Dean’s home nearby, where we told Carol what had happened. She had her husband call the police, and they came over to the church to investigate. Later, when Doug Bush came in to give a lesson on the organ and when I told him what happened and showed him the damage, he was livid when he saw the damaged organ pipes. He eventually had a burglar alarm installed in the chapel because of this. If those kids learned anything at all from this experience, it’s to not mess with an angry organist wielding her organ bag.
On a different note–when I had learned how to notate music using a simple, user-friendly computer program I had, Carol asked me if I could notate her book of hymns marked for organ playing that she had been working on for some time. After I had finished some of the hymns for her, it turned out my little computer program wasn’t what the publisher could use to print Carol’s book. So she gave me the music program Finale to use, but I had a huge learning curve to overcome in order to notate and mark her book, plus my old computer wasn’t happy with it and kept crashing. I was disappointed I couldn’t help Carol with her book, but she ended up having her husband and others help her finish it.
Carol and Claire Rogers also helped and encouraged me in compiling my “Resource List for Organists: Arrangements and Free Accompaniments of Hymns in the LDS Hymnal.” I spent hours going through their many organ books to gain the information I needed.
I remember Carol telling me she was chastised by a member of the stake presidency for playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor while she was practicing it in the chapel. Apparently, a little boy heard it in the foyer and got scared, and told his dad that there were ghosts in the church. Then there was the time Carol played it for an AGO recital at the Alpine Tabernacle, and a custodian fell through the ceiling with his legs dangling down and kicking as she played. She didn’t skip a beat. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. Thankfully, though, the man wasn’t hurt. We kidded her later that she really brought the roof down.
The most memorable time for me involving Carol was when LeeAnn Brockbank and I came up with a plan to give Carol a surprise organ recital for her birthday. Claire Rogers offered to help us schedule it at the State Hospital Chapel. After a few months of planning the surprise recital, we had enlisted the help of many people to pull it off. One of those people was Mike Carson. Since his birthday was two days after Carol’s, LeeAnn and I thought we’d surprise him, too. He had no clue that his involvement in rehearsing the choir was part of our devious plan. After we had asked David Chamberlin to help, we found out his birthday was the day after Mike’s, so we also included him in our big birthday bash, even though he already knew about it. (David even composed an arrangement of Happy Birthday in his computer program, but didn’t play it on the organ until the night of the surprise recital. It was amazing!) When the evening of the “recital” came, the State Hospital chapel was filled. Everyone there was in the on secret, except Carol and Mike. I could hardly contain my excitement waiting for the moment after the choir sang and the organists were finished with their pieces when LeeAnn and I could finally let the birthday kids know about their surprise. It was worth all the effort we made to set this up to see the shock and amazement on Carol and Mike’s faces when we told them what this whole thing was about!
Such wonderful memories! Carol certainly had a big impact on me. I can still hear her church key turning in the lock of the chapel door when she came in to give me my organ lesson cheerfully saying, “Hi, DeeAnn.”
It’s hard to believe that Carol is gone and the organ she played for so many years will no longer resound with her music. Carol Dean enriched not only my life, but the lives of so many others. She is greatly missed. My biggest regret is that I didn’t follow a prompting I had to go visit her before she passed away. I guess I really didn’t think she would let death get the best of her. Love you, Carol.