FREDERICK HOHMAN
599 words - updated to November 1, 2002

Organist Frederick Hohman is a unique American organ virtuoso, bringing the pipe organ and its 500 years of music to audiences worldwide through concert performances, radio, recordings and television.

He was born in St. Louis, Missouri to professional musicians specializing in jazz. He entered the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music in 1974 as an undergraduate scholarship student in the organ class of David Craighead. Remaining at Eastman, he holds Eastman's Performer's Certificate (organ), Mus.B., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees. In 1984, he was named First Prize Winner in both the Eighth National Organ-Playing Competition (Mader Foundation, Pasadena, California) and the Arthur Poister Memorial Organ-Playing Competition (American Guild of Organists, Syracuse, New York).

Since 1984, Frederick Hohman has appeared as a dedicatory recitalist for new organs by several American builders, as a recitalist for conventions of The Organ Historical Society, The American Guild of Organists and The American Institute of Organbuilders, and as a recitalist and lecture-recitalist for prominent U.S. organ festivals and summer organ festivals, including the San Anselmo Organ Festival and the Redlands Organ Festival, and most recently as an adjudicator for the National Organ-Playing Competition in Fort Wayne, Indiana and as a performer and competition adjudicator for The Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival & Competition/USA. He has also appeared as organ soloist with American symphony orchestras in the East and midwest.

Hohman's 1984 doctoral essay, The Art of the Symphonic Organist, and his 1985 recording, Lemare Affair (Pro Organo CD7007) ignited a revival in symphonic literature and organ performance practices. The success of these works led to his recording of more symphonic organ music and transcriptions and to the publication, by Wayne Leupold Editions, of a new organ transcription series bearing his name. In 1992, a critic with The Diapason acclaimed him as "one of the symphonic organ's strongest exponents." Although much of his work centers upon the symphonic organ and Edwin Lemare and the symphonic organ music traditions which began in the 1880s in England and concluded during the 1930s in America, Dr. Hohman's broad repertoire reveals considerable expertise in several areas of organ literature.

From 1973 to 1993, Dr. Hohman served as organist & choirmaster in a number of Protestant churches and taught at the collegiate level while concurrently conducting limited tours. From 1993 through 2001, he divided his professional activities between American touring, recording (both as artist and as producer/engineer) and hosting television programs about organ music. He appears as a featured organist on one or more new recordings or videos issued each year on the Pro Organo and Midnight Pipes labels, and he also travels the American continent producing audio CDs featuring many other organ soloists and choral ensembles. To date, he has produced and engineered over 150 CD recordings, and these CD releases have been widely broadcast in English-speaking countries, winning critics' favor with such journals as The Absolute Sound, Fanfare, The American Organist, The Diapason and Britain's Musical Opinion, The Gramophone and Organists' Review.

Frederick Hohman is seen on television as both host and organist in a weekly half-hour series about the organ and organists in America, entitled Midnight Pipes. This series, which is comprised of 13 new programs each television season, premiered over several PBS television affiliates in 1998, including those serving Los Angeles, New England and the great plains region. Performance segments from the Midnight Pipes series are seen on the nationally-distributed Classic Arts Showcase (ARTS) cable network. As a composer, Frederick Hohman has written for SATB choir and organ (both original organ music and organ transcriptions), and his works are published by Wayne Leupold Editions and Lawson & Gould (G Schirmer).

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