John L. Edwards Organ Scholar...
Created in September 2005, the John L. Edwards Scholarship is an opportunity for a student who is studying organ to learn a traditional Anglican musical repertoire under the tutelage of the Director of Music at St. John’s,
Dr. Huw R. Lewis, FRCO. The scholarship is named after John Leigh Edwards, who served as organist at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Detroit from 1905 until 1947. Financial support for the scholarship has been provided as a gift from the estate of the children of Mr. Edwards, Eleanor and William Edwards. Eleanor passed away in 1999, and William in 2003. Both grew up with St. John’s as their church, and, although William moved to North Carolina after college, working as a chemist at DuPont, Eleanor continued to attend St. John’s through her adult life, moving in with her brother after her retirement from the
J. L. Hudson Company.
The
current scholar is Aaron Tan, a passionate engineer, pianist, violinist, and organist, who began his scholarship in April of 2010 at the age of twenty-four.
In 2004, Aaron began his organ studies with
John Tuttle. He is a winner of the Barwell Piano Student Scholarship [awarded by the
Royal Canadian College of Organists to students of Grade 8 (
RCM) or higher who have a serious interest in the study of the organ], the Toronto
RCCO Young Organists Competition, and the Osborne Organ Competition of the
Summer Institute of Church Music (Ontario). He has recently won the RCCO’s National Organ Playing Competition, the Charlotte Hoyt Bagnall Scholarship for Church Musicians, and the Lilian Forsyth Scholarship. He has also been a prize winner in the
Arthur Poister,
West Chester University, and
Wells organ competitions.
Aaron’s musical studies began on the piano when he was five years old. Receiving his
ARCT diploma in Piano Performance from the
Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada at the age of twelve, he went on to earn his Licentiate (
LTCL) and Fellowship (
FTCL) diplomas in Piano Performance from
Trinity College of Music (London, England) at 13 and 15 years, respectively. When he was 18, Aaron completed his ARCT diploma in Violin Performance. More recently, he has completed both his Associate (
ARCCO) and Fellowship (
FRCCO) diplomas in organ, and obtained a
BASc in Engineering Science (Nanoengineering)
from the University of Toronto in 2007. Aaron is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Materials Science and Engineering (focusing on molecular electronics and nanoscale heat transfer) at the University of Michigan, and serves as Co-Sub-Dean of the
Ann Arbor Chapter of the
American Guild of Organists.
We welcome Aaron, who made his debut at St. John’s playing Marcel Depré’s
Résurrection (from
Symphonie-Passion, op. 23) for the Postlude on the First Sunday after Easter 2010. As part of his apprenticeship with Dr. Lewis, Aaron appears regularly at services as organist and/or conductor.
