SpokaneFāVS
Janet Satre Ahrend, who serves on the music department at Gonzaga University, will perform “Fire, Tenderness, Laughter and Majesty: The Unexpected Voices of the Organ” Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.
During the recital she'll play pieces from Buxtehude and Bach, Elgar, Sir William Walton and Canadian organist, Denis Bédard on the church's Aeolian Skinner organ.
Ahrend began studying the organ Rockwood at Manito Presbyterian Church, received her Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Idaho and Masters' and Doctorate from the University of Washington and later trained at the Royal School of Church Music in England, where she served as guest instructor for the School of Church Music Summer School in Perth, Western Australia.
She currently serves as St. John's organist-choirmaster and director of the handbell choir.
Though the concert is free, $5 donations will be accepted at the door.
Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.
