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Abigail Wood, the 2023-2024 winner of the chapter's Robert and Nancy Powell Scholarship, performs a recital at Christ Church.
Abbie is a Junior organ performance major at Syracuse University studying with Dr. Anne Laver. She is also pursuing a minor in Jazz Studies. She enjoys singing with the university choirs and playing clarinet in the University Marching Band. She specializes in creating intricate and developed organ improvisations, and is currently conducting research on the Victorian British organ. Abbie plans to take the Royal College of Organists’ 2024 Summer Course and study with world-renowned professionals in London, making in-person recordings of these instruments for two weeks in July-August. This will be funded through Syracuse University’s SOURCE program. Also funded through this program, Abbie was recently able to assist Dr. Anne Laver in presenting data found on organ programs of the 1915 San Francisco Exposition at the July 2024 AGO National Convention.
Abbie is Organist at University United Methodist Church in Syracuse, NY, and substitutes for various churches during academic breaks. She was a multiple-year recipient of the Yocum and Shenk Organ scholarships, and also received a monetary award in the Quimby Harrisburg Chapter Organ Competition in 2021. In 2023, she won 2nd prize in the George Mathias Memorial Scholarship Competition in Brooklyn, NY, and received 1st place in the Quimby Potomac Chapter Organ Competition. She was a winner of Syracuse University’s 2024 Outstanding Artists Competition and has performed C. M. Widor’s Allegro from Symphony VI with the Syracuse University Orchestra.
A scholarship fund was established in 2022 to honor Robert Powell, FAGO, organist and composer of hundreds of choral and organ service pieces of published music, along with his wife, Nancy Powell, AAGO, also a consummate organist. They have served the Greenville community for decades as leaders and role models for the organists and church musicians of this community. For more information or to make a contribution to the scholarship fund, contact John Polo at john.polo@charter.net or contribute online.
