Jason Saugey - Member At Large

Jason Alexander Saugey serves as Director of Music and Worship Ministries at First United Methodist Church in Conway. He studied organ performance with D. Campbell Johnson at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and, as an Elizabeth Fulbright Scholar, Early and Baroque keyboard technique with Karl-Friedrich Wagner at the Päpstliche Kirchenmusikschule in Regensburg, Germany. He has served as organist for Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations both in the United States and in Germany and has appeared in concert collaboratively both at the organ and the piano with Arkansas Symphony Orchestra co-concert master Drew Irvin in performance of works by J. S. Bach, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Max Bruch, and W. A. Mozart and with co-concert master Kiril Laskarov at the Clinton Presidential Center in performance of Edward Elgar’s Sonata in e minor for violin and piano as part of the ASO River Rhapsodies Series. He has been a guest organist both with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas. Jason was a featured soloist and collaborative musician on the ASO online music broadcasts Bedtime with Bach and Midday Music, on the St. Luke’s Festival of the Senses concert series in North Little Rock, and for Trinity Presents chamber concert series at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock. Besides degrees in Organ Performance and Classical Studies (Summa cum laude), Jason holds the Master of Arts in German Language and Literature from the University of Arkansas and is instructor of German Language at the Community Language School of the University of Central Arkansas, Conway. He most recently contributed to an interdisciplinary research project with the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Department of German to map the Swiss immigrant experience in Arkansas with scholarship on the history and liturgical use of the seventeen Church Sonatas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for a documentary video and performance at St. Mary’s Church, Altus, Arkansas as a means to re-discover the celebratory nature of an 1892 St. Boniface Day festival in Altus. Jason is the Dean of the Central Arkansas Chapter American Guild of Organists and has earned the AGO Colleague certificate. He is also a member of the Association of Anglican Musicians, the Church Music Association of America, the honor society Phi Beta Kappa, and the Society of German - American Studies. Jason and his husband Alan are collectors of offbeat and unusual art, works by Arkansas and Louisiana artists, and antique books of mainstream and banned literature. Jason has read every crime-thriller by German author Sebastian Fitzek, is an unabashed fan of Volker Kutscher and the Babylon Berlin novels, enjoys the controversial writing of German feminist Alice Schwarzer, and the poignant social commentary of Elke Heidenreich. When he’s not reading, searching for choral anthems, teaching students, or playing the organ, Jason knits socks and enjoys weekends hearse-camping or spending time relaxing on the deck at Lake Norrell with a cup of freshly brewed Jacob’s Krönung. Jason is known for his humorous quips and observations. Members of the Chancel Choir maintain a running list of them. Last Christmas, Jason was presented with a T-shirt emblazoned with several of the best.