Summer 2011

Spoleto was great! I ate much beef, Hoppin' John, and cheese grits. I heard fine performances, and I added what I hope was another fine performance to the festival. I dined with gracious friends and hosts, and I enjoyed a spectacular but brief tour of churches and organs, courtesy of JeeYoon Choi.

Now I'm at the Region IV convention of the American Guild of Organists. And as usual, our N.C. locals are serving up fine performers on fine instruments, plus terrific food and plenty of time for visiting with each other. I've preached this before, but the fellowship at a convention is worth the price of admission. It is so very good to visit with old friends, strengthen acquaintances, and shake new hands. I highly recommend it.

Then after two weeks of intense, panic-driven practice for upcoming events this fall, I'll head to Houston for my annual visit to play at the old stompin' grounds, visit friends and mentor, and attend the annual Richard Forrest Woods birthday party and reunion. Throw in a nice visit with my sister in Dothan, AL, and summer fun and games will be over. Then it's back to intense, panic-driven practicing.

No more teacher's dirty looks

School's out. This was one of those rare semesters when I looked forward more to the destination than the journey. But along the way, I still found myself on a few highs with a musical production, new friendships, gigs coming out my ears, my students' encounter with their first E.M. Skinner organ, and our ever-colorful Commencement ceremonies. It was all fun, but I'm glad for the break.

The Boone area has two new pipe organs. The Church of the Holy Cross in Valle Crucis installed last year a 35-year-old van Daalen, transplanted from Minnesota. John Farmer moved it and made the necessary architectural alterations to it. It looks like it should have always been there, and it sounds like it, too. My dedicatory recital on it is Sunday, May 15, at 4:00 pm.

The First Presbyterian Church of Boone is about to receive Gawthrop Organworks' Opus 1 instrument. I'm going over there today with my hard hat to inspect the space and take some measurements. Mr. Gawthrop is already making plans for a very Romantic inaugural program. Gee, I wonder whom he might find to play that sort of stuff.

It is encouraging to see congregations large and small exhibit such great enthusiasm for pipe organs. Long may they live!

This summer: Washington, Spoleto, AGO Greensboro, and Houston. I hope the air conditioners are working.

It’s a grand night for singing. And playing. And blogging.

It has been a frenetic semester: I have tackled countless projects and programs and have made many new friends on the road. I have seen a drum set in the chancel of a church where I thought a drum set would NEVER be found. I have heard hair-raising playing in the Charlotte chapter AGO/Quimby Regional Competition for Young Organists. I have worked furiously to keep up. It is Spring in Boone, and I can see the end of the semester in sight. I predict that no parent or grandparent will be smiling as wide as I at Commencement.

I am getting into the mind of Dupré, and that is a fascinating place to be. “Bell and Brass” played his Poème Héroïque on March 27. Students are playing the g minor Prelude & Fugue and the Symphonie-Passion. And now I’m in the middle of the Stations of the Cross, to be played at First Christian Church, Wilson, NC, on Good Friday. The greatness of Dupré as an improviseur is one thing, but his greatness in being able to commit all that to paper after the fact is another. I have studied Dupré many times, but this time around has been particularly fruitful and poignant. I suppose one finally “gets it” after a while!

I’m about to launch several “sermon series” in the blog. Subjects such as recruiting, weddings, and console care/abuse will be picked clean in horrific detail. And of course, I still have plenty to say about the silly things that go on in church and behind the scenes at churches.

Meanwhile, Happy Spring, Happy Easter, and happy exams and summer!

Finding buried treasure, and the pleasures of aitch ee double ell.

This is not my news, but it ought to be shared: Recently, a friend of mine was poking around in the crawl space under an organ. The only things down there are two tremulants and the conduits for the cables between console and relay. Or so he thought. He crawled further into the space, all the way to the darkest corners, where he discovered a bunch of “brown paper packages tied up with string.” As it turns out, those were “a few of our favorite things,” namely, the pouchboards and primaries for the original action of the organ. So I helped him take it all out and take inventory (only two pouchboards are missing!), and we marveled at the good shape everything is in. He is now planning a ‘retro’-re-build. Too exciting!

This truly is the semester from the Hot Place: seven organ majors, one secondary student, Sacred Music Literature and Materials, Organ Literature and Pedagogy, Service Playing, Chorale accompanying, an organ performance of the orchestra part of the Tchaikovsky first piano Concerto, four recitals of three programs, a program of “Bell and Brass,” and directing the music for a musical being produced by the ASU Department of Theatre & Dance. My students are in similar situations, with upper-level courses, lots of projects, and lots of real-world stimulation. But we have all agreed to slog through it together, keeping careful track of our time, and we will all meet at the exam in one piece. And when it's all over, I am quite sure I will have the widest smile of all at Commencement. Then I will eat a leisurely lunch, take a nap, and move on to two summer recitals, a choral tour, a convention, and three fall recitals.

Honestly? I thrive under a constant flow of deadlines. So come on up and enjoy the show! There's no telling where you'll find me or what I'll be doing this semester.

“I’m dreaming of a Franck series…”

This fall was a light one for performances. That’s good, because a quick look at my Upcoming Appearances sidebar will reveal that I really should walk away from this computer and go practice now!

It is December 20, and I am now on the other side of exams, grades, and my regular Fall appearances at home. I always play a fall recital, the Halloween Monster Concert, and the annual Messiah Singalong. Those three events complete my life every fall, and without them I would be much less fun to be around:

I love to play for the “home folks” each semester, and they don’t seem to mind being guinea pigs for pieces I have never played in public before.

The Halloween concert contains all the usual fare we have come to expect from the spooky side of the organ, and the crowd is really the best part of it. My, how this campus like to have fun!

Then there is the annual Messiah Singalong, which I started here based on a perfect template I 'stole' from First Presbyterian, Houston. It’s simple: auditioned soloists sing the solos, the audience sings the choruses from borrowed scores, I play it all, and a guest conductor keeps the choruses together. I never grow weary of Messiah, and I actually miss the days in Houston when I played it three times each year. This year we had an extra twist, that of a near-cancellation due to weather. But the show went on, and we had about 30 hardy souls who were delighted that we didn’t cancel. Next year, maybe we’ll get our sunshine back and welcome the usual 200+ who join us. The best part of Messiah is the family participation – I’ve seen very young children carrying their scores in with them and following every note, whether or not they can sing those notes. That alone is worth putting the show on in the worst of blizzards.

This fall, I delivered fun-loving lectures on two of my favorite topics of recital programming (Knoxville chapter AGO meeting) and console care (Milligan College). I heard many wonderful stories of people’s first attraction to the organ and to the caring mentors who made it possible. The future of the organ lies with young people, and granting them access to this fascinating machine and fulfilling musical instrument is the ONLY way to keep it alive. Go and do thou likewise.

New topic: audiences don’t know it, but I am in the middle of a complete Franck series. I’m not going to play it all in one sitting. Or even two. Nor three. No, I think I’m going to play it in twelve. One Franck piece per recital season until they’re all played, which is roughly two to three per year. Franck “fits” very well my sense of organ music and organ playing, and I decided to include one of his pieces on every recital for the next few years, going slowly through his works so that audiences get him in small doses, rather than in one marathon overdose. Completed so far: Final; Prelude, Fugue & Variation; Cantabile. Next up: Pièce Héroïque and Choral in E. The others remain to be placed. This poses a new twist to my usual “formula” for planning a recital. In addition to including something by The Man (Bach), I now am including something by The Other Man (Franck). The programs coming out are very interesting and only add to my joy in playing them. Verily, verily I say unto you: this business doesn’t have to hurt.

Merry Christmas to all!