PROFILE
Pamela Decker
Dr. Pamela Decker, organist and composer, is professor of organ, music theory, and composition at the University of Arizona. She earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stanford University and was awarded a Fulbright grant in 1980 to study organ and composition in Luebeck, Germany. She has won prizes in national and international competitions for organ and composition. Dr. Decker has performed extensively as a concert organist throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. She has ten commercial compact discs (as performer or composer) in distribution.Twice she has appeared as a recitalist at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists (AGO); she has been a spotlighted solo recitalist at five AGO regional conventions. She has performed as part of many other conferences and festivals at national and international levels, including the Annual Conference on Organ Music at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), the Twice Festival, The SCI (Society of Composers, Inc.) Conference, the Redlands Organ Festival, the Tallinn International Organ Festival, and the Festival International d'Orgue de Monaco.
Dr. Decker's compositions have been performed in at least 19 countries by musicians from all over the world. Her compositions are published by The Leupold Foundation, C. F. Peters, Oxford University Press, Augsburg Fortress, Hinshaw Music, Inc., and World Library Publications. Pamela Decker is represented by The Concert Artists Cooperative; she has toured extensively in the United States, Europe, the Baltic Region, and Canada. At the 2018 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), Pamela Decker received the 2018 AGO Distinguished Composer Award; this is a biennial award that is the highest honor to be conferred on a living composer or organ literature. Other recipients include the Pulitzer-prize winning composer William Bolcom, Ned Rorem, Dominick Argento, Samuel Adler, William Albright, Libby Larsen, and others with both national and international recognition. Artists of many nationalities have performed her works in venues across the world and have recorded her compositions on such labels as Loft Recordings, Gothic Records, ReZound (Loft), Albany/Troy, Raven, Pro Organo, MSR Classics, Bainbridge, Arkay, and Arktos. As a performer, Pamela Decker has a series of commercial recordings of her compositions (Loft/Gothic) titled Decker Plays Decker, of which there are currently five volumes (compact discs). Leading performers such as Douglas Cleveland, Jeremy Filsell, Faythe Freese, Christa Rakich, Renee Anne Louprette, Edward Landin Senn, Jonathan Rudy, Margaret Martin Kvamme, Robert Horton, and Andrew Peters have recorded major works by Pamela Decker on recordings that have received excellent reviews in many journals. Of the Loft Recordings disc titled Decker Plays Decker: Desert Wildflowers (LRCD 1076), a Gramophone review referred to Decker as "an organist noble in the Bach line...as a composer-performer she falls clearly into the lineage from which Bach and Durufle are but two points on a long and distinguished timeline."
Pamela Decker's list of works includes organ, harpsichord, choral, vocal, orchestral, and chamber music. Elegy and Dances, her concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra (also in a version for alto saxophone and organ; both versions published by C. F. Peters) was premiered in the Great Hall of the Moscow-Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Russia by saxophonist Frederick Hemke and organist Douglas Cleveland, both of whom have enjoyed long and illustrious careers at both national and international levels. El Tigre, her concerto for organ and orchestra, was premiered at the Eastern Music Festival under the baton of Gerard Schwarz, long-time conductor of the Seattle Symphony and Director of the Eastern Music Festival; concert organist Edie Johnson was the soloist. In July of 2018, Douglas Cleveland premiered Pamela Decker's 40-minute work titled The Seven Last Words and Triumph of Christ, a nine-piece cycle of solo organ works commissioned by the American Guild of Organists in recognition of her selection as AGO Distinguished Composer. The premiere was part of a featured evening program at the 2018 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists, held in Kansas City. On the occasion of the premiere, the performance included interpretive dance by the Sperling Dance Troupe, with Dallas choreographer and dancer Kaley Jensen.
In 2004 she was awarded the Henry and Phyllis Koffler Prize for Research/Creative Activity at the University of Arizona.
In 2000 Dr. Decker was the recipient of the College of Fine Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching.
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