Join us on Sunday, Jan. 23 from 5–7 p.m. for the first installment of a two-part interactive, online improvisation workshop beginning with simple counterpoint and progressing to ground bass forms and chorale preludes. Presented by organist, composer, and improviser Ethan Haman. Handouts below—have a keyboard handy to play along!
Part I: Sunday, Jan. 23 from 5–7 p.m.
Part II: Sunday, Feb. 20 from 5–7 6–8 p.m. New time!
Ethan Haman from Fremont, CA, is organist and assistant conductor at Noroton Presbyterian Church in Darien, CT. He received his M.Mus. in Organ Performance from the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music in 2021 studying with Jon Laukvik and Craig Cramer, and will graduate from Yale in May 2022 with an M.M.A. in Organ Performance, studying organ with Martin Jean and improvisation with Jeffrey Brillhart. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 2019 with a B.Mus. in Composition and Organ Performance, studying organ with Cherry Rhodes and composition with Morten Lauridsen, Andrew Norman, Donald Crockett, Sean Friar, and Daniel Temkin.
Ethan has gone on several trips to Lyon and Paris on scholarships from USC and the San Francisco Peninsula Organ Academy to study organ interpretation and improvisation on historic organs with such esteemed teachers as Frédéric Blanc, Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, Aude Heurtematte, Marie-Louise Langlais, Christophe Mantoux, Olivier Penin, and Louis Robilliard. He has performed in such notable venues as San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall, Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Notre Dame d’Auteuil in Paris.
The USC University Chorus commissioned and premiered his choral compositions for several performances in recent years. The AGO commissioned Ethan to compose and premiere his “Toccata on Hyfrydol” at Christ Cathedral Arboretum in Garden Grove, CA for their 2019 West Region Convention, and in 2020 he taught a series of workshops on organ improvisation for the Palo Alto/Peninsula Chapter of the AGO. His newest organ work, “Southern Harmony Suite” was commissioned by the AGO and premiered by Abraham Wallace as one of four winning proposals for the 2020-2021 Student Commissioning Project.
Ethan also enjoys recording organ videos for his YouTube channel as well as studying foreign languages; he currently speaks English, Spanish, French, European Portuguese, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, and is learning German and Korean. Scores for Ethan’s compositions can be found at SheetMusicPlus.com.