Final Round of the Arthur Poister Scholarship Competition in Organ Playing
Friday, March 27th at 7:00p.m.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
310 Montgomery Street, Syracuse
The Arthur Poister Scholarship Competition celebrates the rich legacy of Arthur Poister through recognition of outstanding young organists. Since 1975, organists at the collegiate and early professional level have competed in Syracuse, NY.
Three finalists – Yuhe Su, Henry Dangerfield, and Matthew Luca – were selected to compete in the final round based on their preliminary round recordings. Please join us in person at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church to hear their live performances and cast your vote for the Will O. Headlee audience prize.
The following prizes will be awarded at the conclusion of the finals:
- First Prize: $5000, funded by the Syracuse Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and a recital engagement in Syracuse in 2026-27.
- Second Prize: $3000, funded by the Arthur Poister Endowment Fund of Syracuse University.
- Third Prize: $1500, funded by the Syracuse Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
- Will O. Headlee Audience Prize: $500, funded by Eugene Tobey in memory of Donald Ingram and Will Headlee.
The judges for the final round will be Todd Wilson, Head of the Organ Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music; Christopher Houlihan, John Rose Distinguished College Organist and Director of Chapel Music and Artist in Residence at Trinity College; and Damin Spritzer, Area Chair and Associate Professor of Organ at the University of Oklahoma and Artist-in-Residence for Cathedral Arts in Dallas.
Please consider using the donate button below add your contribution to the competition to ensure that it continues.
Meet the Finalists
Yuhe Su is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Organ Performance and Literature at the Eastman School of Music, under the tutelage of David Higgs and is also serving as his teaching assistant. Yuhe has been to many cities all over the world such as Harlem, Groningen (NL), Paris, Versailles (FR), Berlin (DE), London, St. Albans (UK), Seoul (KOR) to participate in international organ competitions, organ festivals, and play concerts, also performed in masterclasses held by world-renowned organists such as Isabelle Demers, Janette Fishell, Alan Morrison, Thomas Ospital, Jean-Baptiste Robin, Martin Schmeding, Dong-ill Shin, Leo van Doeselaar, Daniel Zaretsky, etc.
Her competition credits include earning third prize in the Haarlem International Organ Festival Scholarship Competition (2017), being a finalist in the XII Mikael Tariverdiev International Organ Competition (2021), a quarter-finalist in the “33rd St. Albans International Organ Competition” (2025), earning the third place in the 5th Sursa American Organ Competition (2025), and being a semi-finalist (2026) in the AGO National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance.
Henry Dangerfield, 18, lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He currently studies with Dr. Catherine Rodland, Artist in Residence at St. Olaf College.
In 2023, Henry attended the Curtis Summer Organ Intensive, where he had lessons with Alan Morrison and Peter Conte, and performed on the Wanamaker Organ. Last summer, he attended the Eastman Summer Organ Academy and the Oregon Bach Festival Organ Institute, where he was mentored by David Higgs and Nathan Laube, and Paul Jacobs, respectively. He has played in master classes taught by Chelsea Chen, Alcée Chriss III, Isabelle Demers, Bálint Karosi, Nicole Keller, Jonathan William Moyer, and Jean-Baptiste Robin.
Henry has received prizes in numerous competitions. As one of five finalists in the 2025 Taylor Organ Competition, he was awarded Second Prize and the Audience Prize. In the 2025 Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival Hartford High School Competition, he received First Prize and the David C. Spicer Hymn Playing Award. Additional honors include first prize in the L. Cameron Johnson Memorial Organ Competition, the David Dubois Organ Competition, and the Greater Columbia AGO Young Organist Competition, where he also received the Hymn Playing Award. Last summer he was named an AGO Rising Star in the 2025 RCYO competition.
Henry has performed recitals at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral (MN), the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe (WI), Shandon United Methodist Church (SC), and St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church (MN). He plays regularly for his congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
At the age of thirteen, Matt Luca began his journey with the organ, otherwise known as the King of Instruments. Within the year, he applied for his first local chapter AGO scholarship with a program that included Franck’s Pastorale, Op. 19, and in the second year auditioned with Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in G, BWV 541, and Hindemith’s Sonata No. 2. At 16, he was accepted into the pre-college division at Juilliard, where he spent two years as a pupil of Dr. Matthew Lewis. In 2018, he was named Holy Cross Organ Scholar, Class of 2022, studying under Dr. Ezequiel Menéndez. During his time at Holy Cross, Matt had the opportunity to work with various performers through the school’s Chapel Artist Series, including organists such as: Arvid Gast, Craig Crammer, Nathan Laube and Olivier Latry. Matt was in charge of music selection for morning Mass at the college, and directed a quartet of singers as well.
Matthew recently attended the Jacobs School of Music as the Organ Graduate Assistant while earning a M.M. in Organ Performance and Sacred Music, working with Professor Christopher Young. There he was also the Music Director and Organist at First Presbyterian Church in Martinsville, IN, where he led the choir and was in charge of music selection. This year, Matthew enters his second year at the Eastman School of Music in pursuit of a DMA in Performance and Literature, under the direction of Professor Nathan Laube.
Meet the Judges for the Recorded Round
An innovative concert recitalist and sacred music specialist, Janet Yieh has been lauded for her “expressivity and technical prowess” (The American Organist). Janet is Director of Music at Church of the Heavenly Rest on the Upper East Side in New York City, where she oversees a vibrant music program for all ages and plays the 138-rank Austin Organ. She previously served as Associate Organist at Trinity Church Wall Street.
Janet has performed throughout the United States and across the globe, highlights include: New York’s Alice Tully Hall and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington’s National Cathedral, San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, Yale University’s Woolsey Hall, Harvard University’s Busch Hall, Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, and Malaysia, national radio show Pipedreams and WQXR-FM. In 2020, Janet co-founded a new platform ‘Amplify Female Composers’ with Carolyn Craig and she has contributed research to ‘A Great Host of Women Composers’ database. A Taiwanese-American native of Alexandria, Virginia, Janet is a graduate of the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music, and The Juilliard School. Janet’s former teachers include Thomas Murray, Paul Jacobs, John Walker, Wayne Earnest and Victoria Shields. www.janetyieh.com
Hailed by Gramophone Magazine for her “superlative artistry” and “effortless virtuosity and musical intelligence,” Crista Miller is the Director of Music at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, Texas, USA. There she led the Committee responsible for Martin Pasi’s landmark Opus 19 organ. She conducts the professional Schola Cantorum, Cor Jesu, Coro Sagrado Corazón, the concert series and a growing staff post-pandemic.
She is founder and Artistic Director for the non-profit Amicis Cor Musica, seeking to connect choral and organ music to the broader community. Her civic artistic collaborations have found her designing and conducting sacred polyphony in an underground water tank, the Buffalo Bayou Cistern; and pairing period artwork with organ music in Projections, a series funded by the Houston Arts Alliance. An active solo organist and member of the cohort East-West Organists, Dr. Miller has performed in 11 countries and 27 states of the USA. Her double-CD Bonjour and Willkommen: A Franco-German Debut, features nearly 500 years of two national schools. Available from Acis Productions, this recording is noted by Choir and Organ and International Organists’ Review, as “ambitious, admirable and a very good advocate for the performer.”
Her research on Middle Eastern elements in Naji Hakim’s music is published in the book Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought, and Legacy of Charles Tournemire and in ORGAN: Journal für die Orgel. She is a sought-after conference presenter, organ consultant, executive board member and an advocate of contemporary composition. An active adjudicator, her organ students have won competition and scholarship prizes in Texas, North Carolina, Connecticut, and Oklahoma. Many of her Co-Cathedral Music alumni now serve in leadership in significant church posts and in higher education.
Professional engagements took Ilona Kubiaczyk-Adler through most of Europe, and South and North America: to the Goteborg International Organ Academy in Sweden, Oude and Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, Issue Project Room in New York, Westfield Conference at Cornell University, Organ Conference at University of Michigan, Luther College in Iowa, Princeton Theological Seminary, Eccles Organ Festival in Salt Lake City, University of Notre Dame in Indiana, and others. She received her training at Academy of Music in Lodz, Poland (MA), Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the Netherlands (MM), and Arizona State University (DMA). She worked as an Assistant Professor of Organ at Lodz’s AM, and as a Teaching Assistant at ASU. Her 2015 album Antique Sound Palette, and recordings she made on the Richards & Fowkes organ in Scottsdale, were featured on the American Public Radio. She has contributed articles about Eastern Europe and Polish organ music to the online “Organ Encyclopedia” project, and adjudicated an RCYI/Quimby Regional Competition and the Pogorzelski-Yankee Annual Competition. Ilona serves on the AGO National New Music Committee, and is a published reviewer of new organ albums for The American Organist magazine. She currently holds the position of the Director of Music at the Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in Scottsdale, AZ. www.ilonakadler.com
Meet the Judges for the Final Round
Regarded as one of the finest concert organists of our time, Todd Wilson serves as head of the Organ Department at The Cleveland Institute of Music, and Curator of the E.M. Skinner pipe organ at Severance Music Center (home of The Cleveland Orchestra). He has been heard in recital at major venues throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, and has appeared as a soloist with many orchestras around the world.
Mr. Wilson received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, where he studied organ with Wayne Fisher and piano with John Quincy Bass. Further coaching in organ repertoire was with Russell Saunders at The Eastman School of Music. He won numerous competitions, including the prestigious French Grand Prix de Chartres and the Fort Wayne Competition. Mr. Wilson also has many commercial recordings to his credit on the Raven, Naxos, JAV, Delos, Gothic, Disques du Solstice and other private labels.
A sought-after adjudicator, Mr. Wilson has been a jury member for many of the world’s most prestigious competitions, most recently at the 2023 St. Albans International Organ Competition.
Previous positions held include Visiting Professor of Organ at the University of Michigan, Director of Music at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (Cleveland Ohio), Director of Music and Organist at The Church of the Covenant (Cleveland Ohio), Head of the Organ Department at Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music (Berea Ohio), and Organist and Master of the Choristers at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, New York.
Mr. Wilson frequently presents repertoire master classes and workshops focused on specific aspects of service playing and accompanying. An active interest in improvisation has led to his popular improvised accompaniments to classic silent films.
Internationally acclaimed organist Damin Spritzer has been praised for performances that are “spellbinding” (Organists Review), “expressive and musical” (American Record Guide), and “enormously sensitive” (AAM Journal). Known for her championing of rare and rediscovered repertoire from the 1600s to present day, she has performed across the U.S., Europe, South America, and as far as Israel, appearing at major festivals, universities, and international conventions. A prolific recording artist for Raven Recordings, her eight acclaimed albums pair overlooked composers with historic instruments worldwide, earning consistent praise in review. Her pioneering scholarship on Alsatian-American composer René Louis Becker produced a multi-volume critical edition, monograph, and three world-premiere recordings.
Dr. Spritzer is Area Chair and Associate Professor of Organ at the University of Oklahoma and Artist-in-Residence for Cathedral Arts in Dallas. She holds degrees from the University of North Texas, the Eastman School of Music, and Oberlin Conservatory, and is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.
The organist Christopher Houlihan has established an international reputation as a “passionate and intelligently virtuoso musician” (Gramophone), hailed for “glowing, miraculously life-affirming performances” (Los Angeles Times). His playing has been praised as “eloquent” (The New York Times), “dazzling” (The Wall Street Journal), and “first-class” (The Diapason).
Houlihan has concertized at major venues throughout the United States, including the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, and Walt Disney Concert Hall, where he performed with the principal brass of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Recent solo performances include recitals presented by the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, and the Celebrity Recital Series at St. Paul’s Cathedral (London).
Houlihan’s “Vierne 2012” tour attracted critical acclaim for six marathon performances of Louis Vierne’s six organ symphonies. His latest recording on Azica Records, First and Last, builds on this excitement and features music of Vierne and César Franck. Of the recording, The American Organist remarked, “as for Houlihan himself, he just keeps getting better.”
Houlihan serves on the faculty of Trinity College, Hartford, as the John Rose Distinguished College Organist, Director of Chapel Music, and Artist-in-Residence. Since 2022, he has also served as Artistic Director of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival Hartford. In 2015, he was selected for the inaugural class of The Diapason’s “20 Under 30,” a distinguished list of young leaders in the organ world. For more information, visit ChristopherHoulihan.com.
For more information, send inquiries to:
poistercompetition@gmail.com