It's fitting that in the International Year of the Organ, the final concert in the Lincoln celebration includes a piece by Myron J. Roberts.

Husband-and-wife Quentin and Mary Murrell Faulkner will return to Lincoln to perform a recital Sunday at St. Mark's on the Campus Episcopal Church.

Their performance is sponsored by the Lincoln chapter of the American Guild of Organists. The International Year of Organ, which featured several concerts throughout the past year, concludes June 30.

The Faulkners' program will include the Nebraska premiere of Roberts' Church Sonata for Organ and Piano, which he wrote for a church anniversary celebration in California but did not publish, Quentin Faulkner said.

He succeeded Roberts in 1974 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where Roberts taught for 34 years.

Roberts passed away in 2004 in Camden, Maine. He is considered one of the country's foremost composers of organ music during the last half of the 20th century.

Quentin Faulkner will play the piano on the sonata. His wife will be at the organ. The work is among several organ/organ and organ/piano duets.

"This is a wonderful piece of music," he said of the sonata, which recently was discovered in a box among Roberts' possessions. "Many people have fond memories of Myron."

The work, along with several other unpublished pieces found in the box, are now archived in the music library at UNL.

The Faulkners will perform in Lincoln for the first time since leaving three years ago after Quentin Faulkner's retirement from UNL.

The couple spent a year teaching in Germany at a church music college. They've lived in Amherst, Mass., the past two years. The college town is 80 miles from their daughter, son-in-law and 15-month-old grandson.

"There's a great deal we miss about Lincoln," Quentin Faulkner said, noting the couple was here for 32 years. "You can't be in a place that long and not have some very happy years."

It's only natural that they will perform at St. Mark's, where they became members in 1990 and presided over the music their final six years in Lincoln.

The organ at St. Mark's is small, but "a wonderful instrument to play," Quentin Faulkner said.

"There are things it doesn't do well because of its size, so we had to be careful in choosing the program," he said.

They will perform music by Marilyn Witte, Volker Bräutigam, Bartolomeo Franzosini and the piece by Roberts.

"It fits the organ beautifully," he said. "We're excited about giving it its Nebraska premiere."

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.