Conductor
John
Ferguson is the Elliot and Klara Stockdal Johnson Professor
of Organ and Church Music and Minister of Music to the student
congregation at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota. His responsibilities include directing the church music-organ
program, teaching organ and conducting the St. Olaf Cantorei. Ferguson came to St. Olaf in 1983 from Minneapolis where
he served Central Lutheran Church as Music Director and
Organist, an appointment accepted in 1978 after a 15-year
tenure on the music faculty at Kent State University. While at Kent State he also served as Organist-Choirmaster
of the United Church of Christ, Kent, Ohio. A native
of Cleveland, Ferguson's degrees are from Oberlin College,
Kent State and the Eastman School of Music where his doctoral
study of organ was with Russell Saunders. While he
is respected as a fine teacher and performer, it is his
work as a church musician, especially as an improviser and
leader of congregational song that has received national
acclaim. Each year he prepares and leads many hymn
festivals across the country for both local congregations
and professional gatherings. In addition, he is in
constant demand as a speaker and clinician. He has
served as visiting professor at the University of Notre
Dame and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.
Dr. Ferguson is the author of Worship Blueprints: Guide to Planning for Worship Music and Walter Holtkamp: American Organ Builder and the co-author of A Musicians Guide to Church Music. He was music editor of the United Church of Christ Hymnal, published in 1975, and his choral and organ music is published by Augsburg, Concordia, G.I.A., Ludwig, and MorningStar publishing houses.
Since joining the St. Olaf faculty, Ferguson's skills as choral conductor and creative arranger have become more widely known. He brings a special combination of experience as choral singer (Oberlin College Choir under Robert Fountain), church musician and participant in the St. Olaf choral tradition and his workshops in conducting and repertoire for church choirs are consistently rated as highlights at conventions of professional organizations. He was invited to design and present a hymn festival held in the Washington National Cathedral as a major event for the recent national convention of the American Choral Directors Association, In July, 1996 he lead workshops and a hymn festival in Seoul, Korea. The summer of 1997, he has been invited to design and lead a hymn festival in the Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim, Norway as a part of the celebration of the millennium of the birth of St. Olaf.
