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David
Hogan
Obituary
from the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/twa800/hogaobit.htm
H.
David Hogan, 47, an internationally known American music educator,
composer,
concert tenor and choir director, died in the explosion that
destroyed
a TransWorld Airlines jet over Long Island, N.Y on July 17,
l996.
Based in Paris for the past four years, Mr. Hogan's international
career
included teaching and performing in Washington, D.C., Baltimore,
New
England and the San Francisco Bay area as well as major cities in
Europe.
His award-winning compositions are sung by choirs around the
world,
and hundreds of professional composers, musicians and teachers
were
inspired by his innovative teaching methods during his 25 years as
an
educator and choral director. All who knew Mr. Hogan would recognize
colleague
Pamela Quist's description, "Hoagie hummed or whistled his way
through
life. Music seeped out of every pore."
The
oldest of seven children, David Hogan was born July 1, 1949, and
spent
his childhood in the small town of Nokesville in northern
Virginia.
He received his musical training in America and France, taking
undergraduate
and graduate degrees at the Peabody Conservatory of Music
(Johns
Hopkins University) in Baltimore, and advanced training at the
Ecole
D'Arts Americaines in France with the celebrated Nadia Boulanger.
Among
his other teachers were composers Hugo Weisgall and Richard Rodney
Bennett
and the French-Swiss soprano and voice teacher Flore Wend. His
approach
to music education was shaped by a rewarding apprenticeship
with
the music theorist Grace Newsom Cushman.
In
1971, Mr Hogan, with two Peabody colleagues, Pamela Layman Quist and
Lynn
Taylor Hebden, founded The Walden School, a summer institute in
rural
New Hampshire, to provide specialized training for talented young
musicians
and composers. The school was designed to continue the
pioneering
educational work of Ms. Cushman, who, in the late 1940s,
founded
the Junior Conservatory Camp, one of the first summer programs
for
creative education in music at the precollege level. After Ms.
Cushman’s
passing, her students Mr Hogan and his. Quist further
developed
the principles of the Junior Conservatory’s musicianship
program
at The Walden School. Now in its 25th year, The Walden School
summer
program is attended by young musicians from all over America.
Walden
students annually win numerous international awards and prizes
for
their compositions. Mr. Hogan was closely associated with the
school's
development and taught at Walden nearly every summer despite
his
expanding international responsibilities.
A
gifted and dedicated teacher, Mr. Hogan held the conviction that the
primary
purpose of education is to foster creativity and that musical
training
is most successful when students can discover new materials and
concepts
for themselves and learn to think independently. His approach
to
teaching conveyed both great respect for the subject matter of music
and
delight in the shared process of learning. "David had the amazing
ability
to make each student feel valued through his quiet and loving
manner,"
explained Stephen Coxe, current President and Executive
Director
of The Walden School, who himself studied with Mr. Hogan.
"Today
there are hundreds of his former students around the world who
honor
him." Many of his students have become professional composers,
musicians,
and teachers.
In
addition to his work in music education, David Hogan was an acclaimed
composer,
singer, pianist, organist and vocal coach. He had been living
in
Paris for the past four years. A primary focus of his work in France
was
a series of theater and film projects with the actress and
playwright
Coline Serreau (best-known in America as writer-director of
the
film Three Men And a Cradle, adapted by Hollywood as Three Men and a
Baby),
and her husband, the noted stage director Benno Besson (a former
associate
of Bertolt Brecht). As composer and musical director of Mme.
Serreau’s
play Quisaitout et Grobeta, he received the French equivalent
of
a Tony Award for his music in 1994. This comedy-with-music was so
popular
it was translated into five languages and presented throughout
Europe.
Mr. Hogan composed new music to fit each translation (he was
multilingual)
and coached new productions in Italy, Switzerland, Germany
and
Scandinavia. He also wrote music for Mme. Serreau’s play ‘lapin,
lapin,’
and recently finished the score for her newest film, La Belle
Verte.
In 1993 he served as music director for Mr. Besson's new
production
of Mozart’s Magic Flute for the Geneva Opera in Switzerland.
Other
stage projects included incidental music for a production of
Hamlet
in Italy in 1994 and the score for Moliere's Tartuffe at the
Theatre
de l'Odeon in Paris last year.
Mr.
Hogan was active in the musical life of Paris. He taught and coached
composers,
singers and many well-known French actors. He was a tenor
soloist
at the American Cathedral in Pans, and also composed an evensong
anthem
for its choir. Choir director Edward J. Tipton observed, "He was
a
superior musician, a gifted and sensitive composer, and a devoted
Christian."
In 1995 Mr. Hogan accepted an invitation to become the
musical
director of the Gay Men’s Choir of Paris and prepared special
choral
music for their Christmas concert. As an expert choral composer
and
director, he was interested in the rapid growth of gay choruses
around
the world. He was deeply moved by the challenges and rewards
shared
by participants in these choirs: faced with a daily reality of
suffering
and death from the AIDS epidemic, they join together with
tremendous
energy to sing songs of harmony, joy and life. Mr. Hogan
endorsed
this spirit of affirmation and had begun to use his gifts as a
composer
to help create an expanded repertoire of choral works for the
group.
A
frequently commissioned composer, Mr. Hogan is perhaps best known for
his
liturgical choral music. He enjoyed a long association with the
National
Cathedral in Washington, D.C. as both soloist and composer. He
has
the distinction of being one of two composers chosen to create a new
work
(Magnificat and nunc dimittis) to celebrate the consecration and
completion
of the Cathedral in 1989. The Magnificat, recorded by the
combined
choirs of National Cathedral and San Francisco's Grace
Cathedral,
was released in 1992 on the CD 'Light is Glittering.' Mr.
Hogan's
work was singled out by CD Review as the "highlight of the
disc."
A new choral work was in process for Grace Cathedral of San
Francisco
for an Easter concert.
Mr.
Hogan was also an accomplished composer of songs for solo voice.
Just
a month ago he completed musical settings of four Psalm texts
commissioned
by the countertenor Ryland Angel, who will perform them in
London
in the next few months. He had also completed two songs in a
planned
cycle of poems by Victor Segalen entitled ‘Steles.’ His Three
Love
Songs won the 1993 Delius Composers Competition. His works
including
choral and liturgical works, song cycles and chamber music,
are
published by E. C. Schirmer, Boston and recorded on Angel/EMI. His
liturgical
music is sung regularly by choirs across America.
David
Hogan was also a professional concert tenor His instructor Lynn
Hebden
recalls, "He had an exquisite voice and a fabulous ears."
Unaware
of
his vocal gifts, he did not begin to study singing until he was in
college,
when Ms. Hebden and others heard him sing, they immediately
encouraged
him to become a voice major. He specialized in baroque,
German
lied, French art songs and 20th century repertoire, but also sang
in
many operas and oratorios. He performed in France, England and
throughout
Amenca beginning in his early 20s. In 1975 he sang the title
role
in the American premiere of Lili Boulanger's Faust et Helene. He
has
also been a featured soloist at Baltimore's Cathedral of Mary Our
Queen,
the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, the National
Cathedral
in Washington, D C. and the American Cathedral of Pans. Mr.
Hogan
was also a talented pianist and organist who seemed to be able to
read
almost anything at sight, and frequently accompanied his colleagues
and
students in recitals.
In
1979 Mr. Hogan moved to California to become director of music for
the
Consortium of the Arts, a school of continuing education which
offers
programs for children and adults in the San Francisco Bay area
and
Washington, D.C. He also served as music director for the Meher
School,
an innovative private primary school in Lafayette, California.
His
teaching in California was based largely on the Walden School
curriculum
and many of his students there became regular participants in
Walden
summer programs in New Hampshire. He also had opportunities to
develop
new ideas and methods in California that he could apply at
Walden.
His Consortium work introduced him to keyboard synthesizers and
Macintosh
computer programs for music notation and perfomance.
During
this period, Mr. Hogan also kept active in liturgical music,
serving
as organist and choirmaster for St. Francis Lutheran Church in
San
Francisco. Church member Iris Vaughan said that he literally
transformed
their tiny choir, working patiently and tirelessly with
people
of every level of ability. "He put everything he had to say in
music
rather than words," she said. As this church was adopting a new
modem
English liturgy, Mr. Hogan was given an opportunity to compose
many
new hymns, chorales, prayers and anthems to the new words.
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Copyright
1996-
2003 The Washington Post Company
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