Fanfare on Abbot's Leigh

Charles Callahan, born 1951, is a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Callahan is well-known as an award-winning composer, organist, choral conductor, pianist, and teacher.

He is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., and The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Additional study has been in England, France, Germany and Belgium.

He holds the Associate and Choirmaster certificates of the American Guild of Organists.

Callahan compositions are performed frequently in church and concert; his writing style has been described by The Washington Post as “gentle, confident lyricism.”

Among his notable compositions are two commissions from Harvard University and commissions from the Archdioceses of St. Louis and New York for Papal visits, scored for full orchestra, choir and congregation. His MOSAICS, a symphonic work in four movements for organ and orchestra, was
premiered in the St. Louis Cathedral-Basilica.

Dr. Callahan is frequently asked to advise on the design of new organs and the restoration and improvements to existing instruments. His two volumes on American organ building history, The American Classic Organ and Aeolian-Skinner Remembered, have become standard reference works.

This is a simple fanfare on Abbot's Leigh.
Very basic in ideas, composition and form, though rather effective.

I have not (yet) got an English organ with the big tubas, but the writing of the piece did not call for that, so I used the organ with the largest acoustics I have, yet stays clear to the end.

That is the Dom in Utrecht.

Enjoy!