The Lutheran Ministry Center, 1546 Monsey Avenue, Scranton, will host the Fall Gathering of the Pennsylvania Northeast Chapter, American Guild of Organists on Friday, November 17 at 6:00 p.m. The program will begin with Vespers followed by a buffet-style dinner and a lecture on “The Organ as a Sign of Confession in the First and Second Reformations, 1524-1624” presented by Dr. Sarah Davies, organist and musicologist.

Dr. Davies earned her Ph.D. at New York University with a dissertation on the geistliche repertoire in Renaissance Swiss and German tablatures for lute and organ (2010); her Masters thesis at Rutgers University was on William Byrd’s “My Ladye Nevells Booke” of 1591 (1973). Since returning to academe after more than twenty years in the New York music business, Dr. Davies has given more than twenty papers at musicology, interdisciplinary, German studies and keyboard conferences in America and Europe. Her recent presentation on the organ as a confessional sign in Germany and Switzerland will be published in 2017 by the University of Leuven. Her paper on the organ as the “Devil’s Bagpipe” was published in Budapest, and she is a contributor to New Grove. She is currently involved in an ongoing project on British, American and German organ sermons (Orgelpredigten) of the 17th and 18th centuries, and on the place of the organ in German Lutheran service orders (Kirchenordnungen).

The program is open to the public; AGO membership is not required. There is no cost to attend Vespers. Suggested donation for the dinner is $15 per person. Please register by Friday, November 3 by calling Raphael Micca, Dean, at 570-301-9253 or email dean@agopane.org.