Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #118!
http://www.organduo.lt/podcast
Today's guest is Angela Kraft Cross, San Francisco Bay Area organist, pianist and composer. She graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in 1980 with bachelor's degrees in Physics and Organ Performance. She then earned her Doctor of Medicine degree at Loma Linda University, where she subsequently completed her residency in ophthalmology.
In 1993, she completed her Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the College of Notre Dame with Thomas LaRatta, with whom she continues to study. Her organ teachers have included Louis Robilliard, Marie-Louise Langlais, Sandra Soderlund, S. Leslie Grow, William Porter and Garth Peacock. In 2001, she was awarded the Associateship credential of the American Guild of Organists (AAGO) after passing rigorous playing and written examinations. She has studied composition with Pamela Decker in recent years.
In addition to her musical career, Dr. Kraft Cross retired in 2011 having worked for 22 years as an ophthalmic surgeon at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Redwood City, and now practices ophthalmology with the Peninsula Ophthalmology Group.
Dr. Kraft Cross is committed to the musical education of young people, and since 1997 has been instrumental in organizing an annual Organ Camp for young pianists headquartered at her church. She is the founding director of the San Francisco Peninsula Organ Academy, a nonprofit organization formed in 2014 to support young concert organists with scholarships on short intensive overseas study trips.
Dr. Kraft Cross also served as faculty and or performed in Pipe Organ Encounters in San Francisco 2005, San Diego 2012, and Stanford 2013. She is the Regional Coordinator for Education for Region IX AGO and a member of the executive board for the Junior Bach Festival in Berkeley. She is also a member of the Concert Artist Cooperative.
In this conversation, Angela is joined by her husband Robert who records her performances. They shares insights about her practice procedures, her challenges, her organ recordings, her passion for Mendelssohn organ works and Germanic organ tradition and about her future project recording organ symphonies of Vierne.
We have recorded our conversation at Vilnius University St. John's church before Angela's concert with San Francisco Viva la Musica choir and orchestra.
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Listen to the conversation
Related Links:
https://www.angelakraftcross.com
http://www.sfpeninsulaorganacademy.org
