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Ruth Pilger Andrews Organ Scholarship Fund |
The fund reached its goal in 2003 and was declared active. The
Ruth Pilger Andrews Fund Committee determines how the funds may be
used by applicants to further the study of organ.
An application form, including scholarship guidelines, is available
here.
Contributions to the fund are welcome at any time. Checks should be made payable to the Association of
Church Musicians, with RPA Fund in the memo line, and mailed to:
The Ruth Pilger Andrews Fund was
established by ACM in 1996 with a generous bequest from the estate
of Ruth Pilger Andrews*, one of the founding members of the Madison
Chapter AGO. Since that time, additional donations to the fund
have been accepted and annual concerts have been held to
augment the endowment.
Attn: John Krueger, Treasurer
PO Box 5321
Madison, WI 53705
*Ruth Pilger Andrews (December 8, 1905 - July 29, 1996), a distinguished Madison organist and teacher of organ, was born in Yorktown, Illinois. At age 3, her family moved to Ripon, Wisconsin, where she received her pre-graduate education. She completed a master’s degree in French from UW-Madison, where she also studied organ with Professor Irene Eastman. During the 1930s and 1940s, she traveled to Chicago to study with composer Leo Sowerby.
She was the principal organist at Luther Memorial Church for ten years and at the Unitarian Gathering House from 1950 to 1970. As a founding member of the Madison Chapter of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), she served as editor of the Chapter's newsletter, The Drawknob, in which she maintained a weekly column of her reviews of recently published music. In 1989, Mrs. Andrews began to self-publish and underwrite her own bi-monthly publication, New Organ Issues, which circulated around the country with her reviews of newly published organ music.
She continued to give private organ lessons at age 90 until a month before her death on July 29, 1996.
(Photo of Ruth Pilger Andrews as a young organist.)