Richard Webster Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . .

Organist / Conductor Richard Webster

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

Composer, church musician, conductor and organist -- Richard Webster is currently Lecturer in the Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) at Yale University. He retired in 2022 as Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston after 17 years. During 2023-24 he served as Interim Director of Music at St. Paul's Choir School, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As a composer and arranger, he completes several commissioned works a year. His hymn arrangements for brass, percussion, organ and congregation are heard across the world, including the CBC's Christmas and Easter broadcasts, BBC's "Songs of Praise,” at a hymn festival in Sweden’s Lund Cathedral, in an Australian celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and on a recording of hymns from Taiwan.

At Trinity, Boston, where he cofounded the Trinity Choristers, he led the choirs on five tours of England, with residencies at York Minster; Westminster Abbey; Durham, Ely, Lincoln, Chichester, Salisbury, Wells, Winchester and St. Paul’s Cathedrals. During his tenure, Trinity's 1926 Skinner nave organ was successfully renovated and a new 4-manual Skinner replica console added.

Richard is Music Director of Chicago's "Bach in the City," a new endeavor at St. Vincent DePaul Church, and the successor to Bach Week Festival that he had directed for 50 years, based in Evanston. Sought after as a choral clinician, he has led choir courses and workshops across the U.S., South Africa and New Zealand. He is an honorary Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music (FRSCM), and holds the Doctor of Music degree, honoris causa, from the University of the South at Sewanee.

Webster has performed and recorded as organist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in works from the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony to Ives' Fourth Symphony. He is the Organist and Choirmaster Emeritus of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Evanston, Illinois, where, from 1974 to 2003 he directed the Choir of Men and Boys, the Girls Choir, Schola and the St. Luke’s Singers in a program widely respected and emulated. The restoration of the celebrated 1922 Ernest M. Skinner organ, Opus 327 at St. Luke’s was accomplished under his leadership.

A native of Nashville, Mr. Webster studied organ with Peter Fyfe, Karel Paukert and Wolfgang Rübsam. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Great Britain, as Organ Scholar at Chichester Cathedral under John Birch.

Webster's works are published by Augsburg Fortress, Church Music Society, Church Publishing, Selah and Advent Press. His articles on church music have appeared in The American Organist, The Diapason, Chicago Tribune, The Living Church, Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians, the Choral Journal of the ACDA and the Windy City Times. He was a contributing author to Leading the Church’s Song, published by Augsburg.

A passionate runner, Richard has completed 47 marathons, including 21 Boston Marathons.

In April of 1999, organist and conductor Richard Webster came to the studios of WNIB, Classical 97 for a conversation. The first purpose of the chat was to promote Bach Week in Evanston, so we discuss this at the top. Then I took the opportunity to speak with him about his general life and his composing.

While setting up, he asked how this was going to be arranged for the radio, and I assured him of my intent . . . . .

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Bruce Duffie:   I just mentioned that my job is to make you look good. Is it your job to make the musicians look good, or to make the music look good?

Richard Webster:   It’s my job to make Bach and his contemporaries look good, which is the nature of our Bach Week Festival in Evanston.

BD:   How long has the Back Week Festival been going on?

Webster:   This [1999] is our twenty-sixth year. We had a big blow-out last year. We did the entire Christmas Oratorio, so this year we’re back to more business-as-usual-type programming.

BD:   Do you like the business-as-usual of Bach?

Webster:   Absolutely! In my opinion, there’s never been a greater, more prolific, or more imaginative composer in the history of music than Bach. His music will keep us busy for many years to come.

BD: Do you also play music by others, who might be thought of as lesser lights?

Webster:   We do. We began Bach Week in 1974, and by 1982 we had done virtually all of his orchestral music and a good deal of his chamber music. We hadn’t done all of the Cantatas, and we probably will never will get to all of them.

BD:   There are a couple of hundred?

Webster:   A couple of hundred that we know of, and maybe more that are lost. So, in 1982 we decided to branch out into the music of other composers of the Baroque era, and since that time we’ve even gone so far as to include Mendelssohn, because of his connection with the Bach revival in the mid-nineteenth century, and even Stravinsky! We did his Dumbarton Oaks concerto along with the Third Brandenburg Concerto, upon which it’s based. We did that a couple of years ago.

BD:   So, you’re expanding your horizons. Is this also expanding the ideas of what the listeners will hear each year?

Webster:   Yes. We feel that it’s important to offer our audiences, not only the good old standbys, the Brandenburg Concertos and the Orchestral Suites, and the well-known cantatas, but also the other lesser-known music of Bach, the obscure Cantatas that no one ever does. We dust those off, but just as important, we would like to offer music of composers who are not well-known, such as Jan Dismas Zelenka, and Johann David Heinichen, and composers who are not household names. We have unearthed some terrific pieces by these lesser-known baroque composers, and offer them right alongside the Brandenburgs. They will always fill the house, but then you offer them something else that they never heard before, and they always come away delighted.

BD:   I was going to ask about the audience-reaction to the other pieces.

Webster:   Audiences are funny. They like what they like, and some people are more open-minded than others. We get some interesting fan mail, some of it highly supportive of our venturing out, and others wanting to hear just the music of Bach!

BD:   I would think you could hardly go wrong with music written before 1900.

Webster:   Exactly, yes. We like to keep stretching the limits of this festival, and so far it’s worked. After twenty-six years we’re going strong, so we must be doing something right.

BD:   Is there any thought of perhaps expanding forward to include a living composer like Jan Bach? It would still be the Bach Week Festival...

Webster:   [With a big smile] Now there’s a thought! We would have to give you credit in the program for thinking of the idea. [Both laugh] That’s something we had not considered. We certainly have included Bach’s sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhem Friedemann many times. We’ve done a lot of their works. The genesis each year for our programming comes from the musicians themselves.

BD:   When you’re going through music during the rest of the year, do you come upon something that you think would be great in the Bach Week?

Webster:   Absolutely! Often, we hear things on your radio station that we would like to include in Bach Week, and we’ll pull over to the side of the road and write it down if we’re listening in the car. But more often, after the festival is over, we throw a big party for all the musicians, and I ask them what they want to do next year. They will come forward with some wonderful suggestions, such as concertos that they’ve always wanted to do, and never had the chance to perform. This is the beginning of the following year’s festival.

BD:   Do you ever plan farther ahead than that?

Webster:   So far, we haven’t done that.

BD:   Is it a good feeling though to know during this year’s festival that there will be a next year’s festival?

Webster:   Oh, yes! We feel very confident about our future. Our management has been very prudent in keeping expenses modest, and not extravagant. One could never say that Bach Week is an extravagant affair. The quality of the performances is what this festival is about.

BD:   You draw on professional musicians from the whole area?

Webster:   From the Chicago area, and we get a lot of interested musicians from outside the area. There are a few people from New York, from the west coast, even people from Europe who want to come and perform, and we tell them politely that part of our mission statement is to highlight local musicians. There are so many in town that we don’t need to go any further. We do have alumni who have moved away, and we will bring them back, but they already have a connection to the festival. Once a Bach Week musician, always a Bach Week musician! We have some who have played in every festival since the very beginning. Louise Dixon, a flute player of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has performed in every Bach Week since 1974.

BD:   She should get some kind of a medal!

Webster:   We gave her, and Michael Henoch, her husband, who is an oboist with the CSO, and who has been with nearly every Bach Week since the beginning, a gift last year, and honored them.

BD:   Do you feel that the Bach Week Festival really is a gift to the citizens of Evanston and the Chicago area?

Webster:   We do feel that way, and one of the reasons we feel that Bach Week is a community thing, is that we keep the ticket prices very reasonable, and we’re committed to continuing to do that throughout our future years. We want to make it available to people who normally wouldn’t go hear other more expensive concerts downtown.

BD:   I assume you get some crossover, meaning people who go downtown also come to you.

Webster:   Oh, sure! Our audience now comes from all over Chicagoland, and from beyond, even Wisconsin and Indiana. We have a couple who fly in from Grand Rapids, Michigan for the week every year.

BD:   Have you ever thought of expanding the number of performances, and make it a Bach Fortnight?

Webster:   We’ve talked about that. We did it once in 1982. We extended it over two weeks, and we found it’s better to concentrate it over the course of two weekends. So technically it’s not a seven-day thing, but a nine-day thing. We begin on Friday, have a concert on Sunday, and a third concert on Friday. The last, the fourth and final concert is on Sunday, so it’s two weekends. But we found that in trying to go further than that dilutes the festival nature of it. So we like to keep it short and sweet.

BD:   I wish you lots of continued success. [The festival would continue through 2024.]

Webster:   Thank you. It’s a very intense week, because we finish one concert and the next morning we are rehearsing for the next one. There’s not much of a break.

BD:   Do you get enough rehearsal time for each piece?

Webster:   We always say that we don’t have enough rehearsal time, but in order to keep our budget in line, we have to keep some limits on the amount of rehearsal that we have with the musicians.

BD:   Of course, they are top-flight musicians, so I would assume you can have a little less rehearsal time than you might need with amateurs.

Webster:   Absolutely! They’re some of the best in Chicago, and they’re used to rehearsing efficiently. So we get things together fairly quickly.

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BD:   What’s your day job?

Webster:   [Laughs] My principal job is organist and choirmaster of St. Luke’s Church in Evanston, which is the home of Bach Week, where the festival takes place every year. I’ve been there since 1974, and one of the main responsibilities that I have in that position is to keep the choirs well maintained, busy, and involved. Our principal responsibility, of course, is to sing for the worship of the church. We have a choir of men and boys in the English tradition, and for the last twelve years, we’ve had a choir of girls and adults who parallel the other choir. These choirs come together to sing for the Bach concerts, and this year they will all sing the Cantata #198, and also the Magnificat. With all of these boys and girls together, it numbers about sixty voices. That keeps me very busy. I have a very active rehearsal schedule with them. I also do other things. Like most musicians, we’re always turning up at the next gig. I teach part-time at Northwestern University in the department of organ and church music. I teach a course in church music for graduate students, and a course in keyboard harmony, and then I do a lot of freelance work around town. I’m becoming more involved as a composer of church music, and getting a lot of commissions. So that’s increasingly demanding on my time.

BD:   Do you leave enough time for the composition, or is it just whenever you get a few minutes here and there?

Webster:   It’s catch-as-catch-can. When I find the time at the beginning or end of the day to write a few notes, I’ll do it. Once I have a commission and a deadline staring at me, then I’ll really get serious and apply the energy to that.

BD:   Do you find that when you’re preparing music for a service, or for rehearsals of the Bach Week, you might get an idea and quickly jot it down, or make sure you remember it until tomorrow morning when you can put it on paper?

Webster:   It’s interesting you should ask that question, because I get most of my ideas from running. I’m a very committed runner, and in fact, I’m running the Boston Marathon! When you’re training for such a grueling feat as a marathon, you have to put in some long runs of two- and sometimes three-hour lengths. So I find that gives me plenty of time to dream up musical ideas, and to shape them and refine them. That’s when I do my best musical thinking, when I’m pounding the path along the Lakefront. [Both laugh]

BD:   Then when you’re cooling down, you jot them down?

Webster:   Right! I come right home, and jot them down with my sweaty hand. I find that’s where I really do the genesis of most of my compositions, because there’s time. You can’t do anything else. You can’t practice while you’re running. You just have to let thoughts come to you. It’s a great time to meditate, and it’s also a great time to be creative musically.

BD:   Some people run with a headset on, so you have an internal headset going?

Webster:   Right. I never run with headphones on. I can’t imagine people who do. First of all, it’s not very safe on the path. But I would much rather have the wind in my ears, and then hear a few themes which just come to me.

BD:   Are some of your themes nature-inspired?

Webster:   I wouldn’t say they’re nature-inspired. They’re an outgrowth of the meditation, sort of freeform meditation that just naturally happens after you’ve been running for an hour or so. You’re just sort of transported into a different plain, and that’s when those ideas come to me.

BD:   When you really want to compose, you can just say, “I got to run!” [Both laugh]

Webster:   Yes, it’s a great excuse to get out of the indoors and go to the outdoors. Even in the coldest, bitterest weather, if you dress warmly, you can continue to do it, and I find it to be a very productive time. It’s certainly not wasted time for me.

BD:   That’s good. When you get some of these ideas down, and you shape them, and get them all ready to go, are you really creating these ideas, or are you discovering the ideas that are already there somewhere in the ether?

Webster:   Every composer would answer that question differently. A composer’s methods and styles are very personal, and I spend a lot of time refining my ideas on paper. I want every note that I put down in a composition, to have some significance. I don’t like to waste notes, so I spend a lot of time refining them once they’re on paper. People have encouraged me and prodded me to start using the computer to put things down on paper, but I just can’t bring myself to do that. I like the art of actually putting pen on manuscript paper with my hand, and then going back and revising it. I find that to be very satisfying. Even when making the final copy, I find that to be yet another way of putting a finishing touch on the composition. It’s like woodworking. You do the sanding, and then you do the sanding again, and then the varnishing, and then you sand it again. This is a process I really enjoy.

BD:   It makes you one with the sound?

Webster:   Right.

BD:   Are you still one with the sound when you give it to the public?

Webster:   That’s a good question. The music that I write is generally for choir and accompanying instruments, such as the organ. So, after I finish a piece, if I’ve sent it off to someone who has commissioned it, they rehearse it and perform it. But there are many pieces I write for my own choirs, and then I have to turn around and rehearse them, and prepare them. That’s yet another layer of bringing the piece to life.

BD:   Is there ever a time when you, the conductor, look at a piece of music and wonder what the heck this idiot composer did?

Webster:   There are times when I think I should have done something differently in this spot, particularly when an accompanist might be struggling with a particularly difficult passage. I wonder why I put the guy through this when I could have written this in a more playable way.

BD:   Do you change it then?

Webster:   Absolutely! [Both laugh] Nothing is ever finished!

BD:   [Mildly shocked] Never??? Not even when it’s out there and has been performed?

Webster:   Once it’s been published, it’s hard to take it back until they ask you to do a revision. But before it’s published, I figure it’s still work in progress, and if something isn’t working, that’s the joy of being a composer. You can take it back and revise it, and send out a better version for people to digest.

* * * * *

BD: Let me ask the real easy question. What’s the purpose of music?

Webster: [With a big smile while he thinks a moment] It reminds me of the question, “What is the purpose of humankind?” The answer I’ve always loved is that the purpose of humankind is to enjoy God, and that is probably the purpose of music, too. Music exists for its own sake, and being a fairly spiritual person, I find that music is a way that I can enjoy God.

Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated his musical works, both sacred and secular, to the glory of God. He often inscribed the initials "S.D.G." at the end of his compositions, which stands for the Latin phrase "Soli Deo Gloria," meaning "Glory to God alone."

BD: There’s obvious spirituality in a piece that you write for the church, or for a service. Do you also write some secular works which have nothing to do with the church?
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Webster:   I never have. Being a seven-day-a-week church musician, I found that when it comes time for worship, there are certain musical needs, liturgical needs, and just as Bach would have done in his own day, he wrote these great cantatas for use in the divine service. So when I’m writing a new setting of the Mass, or a new setting of the Canticles, or a new anthem, I’m writing them for a specific purpose to be used in the context of worship. This is often referred to as Gebruachsmusik, meaning music that has a purpose and serves a function, and some of it is pretty pedestrian. I would hope that the music I come up with transcends just being pedestrian, and offers the listener and the performer a glimpse of God. That’s my goal, and I hope that I can achieve that in some small way.

BD:   Would you turn down an offer if one of your soloists asked for a secular concerto?

Webster:   No, I wouldn’t! Being a practical guy, if someone asked me to write a chamber piece, or a concerto for his instrument, I would give it some serious consideration. When I was going through music school, I never thought I was a composer. It never occurred to me that I could put two notes together that would sound decent.

BD:   You were always just a performing organist?

Webster:   I was interested, first of all, in the organ, then secondly, in music for the church. Then as an afterthought, I became a choir director. I never thought that would be something I would do because I was so wrapped up in the organ. But if you’re an organist, at some point invariably you have to direct a choir, and I’ve learned to love that with all my heart, particularly my work with the boys’ choir and the girls’ choir. I became a composer out of necessity. Back in 1979, I needed to write some brass arrangements for a hymn for a particular Advent service. So I put some notes down on paper, and they worked extremely well. Since then, I’ve just been writing more and more, and realized that I do have somewhat of a knack for this. People have received my music very well, and I’m grateful for that, so I’ll continue to do it. I’m doing it more and more, and I sometimes fantasize about being a full-time composer, and what that would be like. I think I would really enjoy it, although I would miss the musical interaction with people, particularly my choirs. I would still do that, but becoming a three-quarter-time composer is very appealing to me.

BD:   [At this point, one of the dogs that lived in the WNIB studios began to bark] Do you compose only for humans? Do you also compose for the animal world?

Webster:   [Laughs] I never thought of that...

BD:   I just wondered if you ever are conscious of the fact that when one of your pieces is being done, birds are also listening?

Webster:   It never occurred to me. I should expand my thinking on that. Thank for the stimulus!

BD:   Are you at the point in your career that you want to be at at this age?

Webster:   [Thinks a moment] What a question! [Thinks some more] Yes! Since I was fourteen, I have always wanted to be an organist, and be involved in the church, and that’s exactly what I’ve done all these years. I’ve been at St. Luke’s now for twenty-six years.

BD:   Where are you from originally?

Webster:   I’m from Nashville, Tennessee, ‘Music City’, but a different kind of music.

BD:   Have you any influence from Elvis?

Webster:   No, none whatsoever! I was oblivious to the Country Music scene when I was growing up there.

BD:   How did you wind up in Evanston?

Webster:   I went to Northwestern University as an undergraduate. Coincidentally, the year I graduated, my organ professor, Karel Paukert [brief biography in the box below], who was my predecessor at St. Luke’s, left that job, and they hired me. I was way too young for the job, but it was a sink-or-swim proposition, and twenty-six years later I hope that I’m still swimming, and keeping my head above water.

Karel Paukert was born in Skuteč, in what is today the center of the Czech Republic, on January 1, 1935. Karel was sent to gymnázium for two years in the nearby town of Chrudím, but was then sent back to the jednotná škola [vocational school] in Skuteč when this gymnázium closed, due to reform of the school system. He started playing oboe when he was 16 years old.

In 1951, Karel was accepted at the Prague Conservatory, where he studied organ with Jan Krajs for the next five years. During this time in Prague, he also played in the orchestra at the Jiří Wolker Theater (today’s Divadlo Komedie.) After one year at HAMU (the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague) composing music for students of the school’s puppetry section, Karel was conscripted to the Czechoslovak Army in 1957. Because of his oboe playing, he was sent to Písek to become part of the army’s musical division.

Karel said it was through his good references from the army that he was allowed to travel to Iceland in 1961, to become head oboist with the National Symphony Orchestra there. It was during a visit to Norway the following year that Karel decided not to return. He set out for Belgium, where he wanted to train with the organist Gabriel Verschraegen, but he was detained in Denmark for traveling without a visa, and had to spend months in Copenhagen waiting for an affidavit from the organist.

Karel spent two years in Ghent before arriving in America in 1964. He studied for a doctorate in St Louis, Missouri, before accepting a post as professor of organ music at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. In 1972, Karel became an American citizen, and moved to Cleveland in 1974, where he began to work for the city’s Museum of Art. He retired in 2004, but continued to work as choirmaster and organist at St Paul’s Church in Cleveland Heights. He died April 30, 2025, aged 90.

BD:   How long into that did you get the idea for the Bach Week?

Webster:   Actually, Bach Week was an idea that was simultaneous with my going there. Karel did it the first year. He got a few of his friends together, and Back Week was born. It was free admission, so we passed the plate the first year. It was such a hit that we did it a second year, and we’ve just continued.

BD:   You were the right man at the right time, and the right place.

Webster:   [Laughs] That is a true statement.

BD:   I’m glad that it’s all working out.

Webster:   Thank you.

* * * * *

BD:   St. Luke’s is an Episcopal church, right?

Webster:   It is.

BD:   Do you ever play at any other of their churches, or trade parishes for a few weeks?

Webster:   One of the advantages of the Episcopal church is that it is interconnected. The word ‘episcopal’ comes from the Greek work episcopus, which means ‘bishop’, so it’s a church of bishops, which means that every congregation is connected to every other congregation through the bishop within his jurisdiction, which is called the diocese. So ideally, churches all have this relationship with one another. I’ve been very active in our professional association, called The Association of Anglican Musicians. I’ve done a lot of work for them, and traveled around all over the United States in that capacity doing workshops in church music, and particularly workshops in training boys voices and girls voices. I’m doing that again this summer, where I’m directing a course for girl choristers in Hartford, Connecticut. It’s a wonderful life.

BD:   Are there some recordings of your work?

Webster:   The church has four CDs that we’ve done in the last decade or so. The first two have been sold out [and are shown below], and the ones we have left include Blow ye the Trumpet in Zion [shown below], which is a disc of hymns with brass arrangements that I did. It has been very popular, and very well received. You put it on in your living room and turn up the volume, and you feel like you’re in a great cathedral in the middle of the service. Then the most recent disc that we have produced is Lessons and Carols for Christmastide [also shown below], which was sung with our girls’ choir and Schola. It’s the actual service that we do of lessons and carols, along the model of King’s College Cambridge. But it’s our own version of that service. By the way, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation [CBC] opens their Easter Day broadcast every year with my arrangements of Easter hymns. They make a nice statement.

BD: I look forward to using some of the recordings on WNIB. Thank you for all of your work, and for coming in for this conversation.

Webster: Thank you.

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See my interviews with Felicity Lott, Gwynne Howell, and Sir Georg Solti

This conversation was recorded in the studios of WNIB, Classical 97, on April 10, 1999. Portions were broadcast two weeks later, and again in 2000. Quotes were included in my article in City Talk magazine dated May 4, 2001. This transcription was made in 2025, and posted on this website at that time. My thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here. To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he continued his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.