David Hogan (11)

American tenor vocalist, composer, and music educator (1 July 1949, Nokesville, Virginia — 17 July 1996, Atlantic Ocean). David Hogan has lived and worked in France since 1992 and served as musical director of CIGAP (Le Chœur International Gai de Paris). He tragically died, aged 47, on the Trans World Airlines Flight 800 in the explosion off the Long Island coast, which killed all 230 people on board and became the third-deadliest aviation accident in US history. (Other notable artists who died in the same crash include French guitarist Marcel Dadi (1951—1996), German photographer Rico Puhlmann (1934—1996), and Wayne Shorter's second wife, Ana Marie Shorter.) David Hogan studied music with pianist Konrad Wolf, organist Edith Ho and mezzo-soprano Flore Wend. He graduated from Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University with his Bachelor's degree in 1971. David spent the next three years in France, tutored by Nadia Boulanger at Écoles d'Art Américaines, or the "American Conservatory," in Château de Fontainebleau in Seine-et-Marne, France. In 1972, Hogan co-founded The Walden School, a summer program in Dublin, New Hampshire, where he lectured annually for the next 24 years. Hogan also taught harmony at his alma mater and later at the Marin Conservatory of Dance in San Francisco, California. Following further studies under composers Jean Eichelberger Ivey and Hugo Weisgall at Peabody University, David received his Master's in 1975. As a tenor soloist, Hogan gave numerous recitals in the United States, England, and France, specializing in Baroque repertoire, French melodists, German Lieder, and XX-century works. David Hogan served as a titular cantor at several US cathedrals, including the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC and St. Francis Lutheran Church in San Francisco, California, as well as Cathédrale Américaine De Paris in France. A bulk of Hogan's works as a composer focused on religious and liturgic repertoire. He also wrote and conducted music for several critically-acclaimed theatrical plays, such as Le Tartuffe, directed by Benno Besson, which premiered at Théâtre de l'Odéon in 1995. David Hogan contributed music for several films, including Coline Serreau's '96 sci-fi comedy La Belle Verte ("The Green Planet"). In 1992, Hogan began teaching solfeggio and keyboard harmony at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau (where he studied with Nadia Boulanger in the early 1970s), settling permanently in France. In September 1995, Hogan became a second musical director of CIGAP (Le Chœur International Gai de Paris) — a French male choir with openly gay members founded a year prior (currently, it's active as Mélo'Men). On 17 July 1996, David boarded a Boeing 747-100 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, serving TWA's international Flight 800 to Rome, Italy, with a stopover in Paris. Just 12 minutes after takeoff, as the aircraft was off the coast of East Moriches, New York, it exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, instantly killing all passengers and crew members. (The devastating catastrophe was caused by an electric spark igniting fumes in one of the fuel tanks.)