Just in time for the Messiaen centennial: a bird song organ from Japan.
Labels: organs
[W]e have this handcrafted pipe organ that was played at the local hardware store in the early 1950s. It may sound strange to have organ music at a hardware store, but it was the thing to do. Someone would go buy nails and be serenaded by the store's owner."Buske, Jennifer. "A Future Filled With More of the Past." Washington Post 17 August 2008.
Labels: organs
The mammoth organ in the New Jersey's Ocean Grove Auditorium is turning 100.
"Ocean Grove's pipe organ, a Jersey Shore treasure, marks 100 years of sacred song" (Star Ledger)
The article references organbuilder Robert Hope-Jones's courteous suicide attempt (which I knew nothing about) and that one of his investors was Mark Twain (again, news to me).
See also: "Pulling Out All the Stops" (Asbury Park Press)
Labels: New Jersey, organs
The Oberlin Summer Organ Academy is underway this week.
With that in mind, I present
Don't worry, the pesky tremulant goes away
Need more from the organs at Oberlin? Don't miss "The Organ at Oberlin" on Pipedreams
In the Family Guy episode "Boys Do Cry", we once again see a mainstream animated depiction of an organ. And it's all out of wack.
Here, the instrument is on the liturgical south end of the chancel, has gold facade pipes, two piano-sized manuals, assorted stop knobs, and three piano-style pedals.
The most striking feature to me is those three piano pedals. Don't people know about organ pedals?
It reminds me very much of the instrument depicted in the Simpsons episode "Bart Sells His Soul". Unfortunately, I can't readily refer to footage of this depiction.
Unrelated: Yes, I think I will be getting a $199 iPhone
Labels: organs
A "Pizza and Pipes" restaurant in Tacoma that was destroyed by fire may be rebuilt.
Elsewhere: Don't miss this great review of such a restaurant.
I just realized that this does combine two of my favorite things: organs and food. Why is it that I've never been to one of these places?
Barack Obama -- diligently courting the church musician vote -- is again pictured with the organ at Brown Chapel (African Methodist Episcopal Church) in Selma, Alabama in today's New York Times.
Previously: New York Times - organ on the cover of the
Finally, coming from the Minnesota Star Tribune, some acknowledgment of the circumstances surrounding the "organist shortage".
There's a shortage of trained organists because ...Younger people are not pursuing it as a career because ...
They don't hear it played as much as their elders did because ...
There's a shortage of trained organists.
Return to Step 1 and repeat until the second coming.
Strickler, Jeff. Faith+Values: Modern bent squeezes classic pipe organs
So, we're really in a rut, huh? But maybe we can get ourselves out of it? I mean, we have built some really impressive organs in the past 20 years. Organ building is getting better and better. And as a consequence, there are better organs in more and more places.
As better organs make their way into churches, does it point to a change of course?
"The pendulum is starting to swing back the other way," said Beverly Claflin, Mount Olivet's music director. "Certainly a lot of churches have had a knee-jerk reaction to provide modern music. But I think that people are starting to look for that constant in their life that can come from music that has stood the test of time."
But some argue that the "praise band" is developing into an institution of its own right.
There are many different ways to spread the word of God," [Scott] Newman said. "It's the same message delivered with a different vehicle."
Fine. But I would add that the organ is a Rolls Royce, and the praise band is a VW Bus.
Some of us prefer to ride in style.
"Largest tracker organ in North America" tangent: Is the 114-rank Visser-Rowland built in 1990 organ at Wooddale Church the largest in North America as the article claims? It is substantially larger larger than the Visser-Rowland at the University of Texas.
Update: 22:35 23 January 2008: Via Osbert Parsley, per his comment below, "a somewhat different take on the article", "Imminent Demise of Organ-Playing!"
Labels: organs, shortage of organists
On the front page of the Arts section of today's New York Times is an article about the sudden departure of the director of music and organist at Trinity, Wall Street: "Director of Music at Trinity Steps Down".
Owen Burdick's departure is rather abrupt, leaving the Trinity choir and Rebel Baroque Orchestra leaderless for their upcoming Monteverdi Vespers performance at the end of the month.
In the Times article, Linda Hanick, vice president of communications at Trinity is quoted as saying "We’re going to be looking at how we’ll restructure the music program."
Churches of Trinity's caliber don't often use the word "restructure" in regard to the music program; usually, they just want to keep it going. But Hanick is blunt: she doesn't say the church will be looking at if or when they'll restructure the music program. Those two questions are implicitly answered in her statement. Yes to restructuring, and now! This led the staff of Sinden.org to speculate that some forces in the church are eager to depart from the professional chamber choir model.
So how will the Trinity program be "restructured"? Perhaps the Trinity Choristers, currently under the direction of Rob Ridgell, will have a more prominent role in the music of the church. Or perhaps their will be an increased focus on liturgical music rather than afternoon concerts.
There is also speculation about what this may mean for the organ in the church, which is a Marshall & Ogletree digital prototype dubbed a "virtual organ". Last summer Burdick wrote an "Open Letter to the Organ Community" in defense of the instrument.
Labels: church music, churches, organists, organs
The summer of 2008 is shaping up to be a varied one for this organist.
It looks like in the space of a week, I will play a seven or eight rank one manual tracker organ in New England and a 186 rank Aeolian Skinner in the world's sixth largest cathedral.
Elsewhere: I was just made by the Presbyterian Church (also "The Presbyterian Church like enjoys you not"!)
Labels: organs
Congregational UCC in Iowa City gets some press about their new Casavant organ: "City church pipes up"
Headline with organ pun? Check.
Article with numbers and sizes of pipes?
The new organ includes 1,609 pipes ranging in size from two inches to 16 feet long. It will be set up behind the church's altar.
A hackneyed description of the action?
In simple terms, the organist plays the keys and two cords connect from the instrument to the pipes. When a key is pressed, it signals a release of air that shoots up the appropriate pipe to create the sound.
A musical gaffe?
William Crouch, the church's organist, will play and be accompanied by a 30-person choir led by choir director Richard Bloesch.
Check, check and check.
I love it when those choirs show up to accompany me.
Elsewhere in Iowa: Three women have been church musicians for combined total of 170 years.
Labels: organs
When Dallas built the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, nothing would do but equipping it with the best pipe organ money could buy. Now we're lucky to hear the big C.B. Fisk organ in a solo recital once a year.
Cantrell, Scott. "Fussiness dampens organist John Scott's power". Dallas Morning News, 1 Nov 2007.
An interesting remark, but one that doesn't really surprise me. Texas tends to be all about the show and all about the money. One might say it's a "show me the money" kind of state. The Meyerson Fisk certainly displays a great deal of money donated by the Lay's potato chip family. And don't get me wrong -- it's a great organ, but one that is better seen than heard. Texans aren't really interested in "hearing the money" after all.
I'm picking on Texas here because it's fun. Really, this is the kind of thing I imagine happens everywhere. Having an organ in a concert hall is a great idea, one grounded in the past and the future, but not the present. Concert halls have historically had nice organs in them, so concert hall designers naturally want an organ in their hall. If they don't put an organ in, they reason, they'll wish they had later when the conductor wants to sell out a concert with the Saint-Saens "Organ" Symphony, but lacks an instrument.
And certainly those concert halls built with organs do use them from time to time; mostly in big, showy "organ & orchestra" pieces like the Saint-Saens and a handful of others.
But as far as the concert hall organ as a recital instrument? This is a harder sell. Dallas is living through the Meyerson organ's first decade, and Scott Cantrell, the reviewer, is among those who are unhappy with how often the instrument is heard in a solo capacity (or maybe even with orchestra?). I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons why the organ isn't heard all that often, chief among them being hall availability/expense and the organ's unpopularity as a solo instrument. These two factors in combination set the stage for the reality of "a solo recital once a year" if we're lucky.
As if on cue, hot-shot Julliard organ professor Paul Jacobs sounds off to the Morning Call: "I've always believed that if watching people hit a golf ball around can be embraced by the public and have such a large following, surely the organ, played in an exulting manner, should be able to attract an equal audience in terms of size".
As orchestras more carefully market their programming to their audiences, they also manipulate organ programming. The organ, rather than an instrument of artistic merit, is used as another avenue to bring people into the concert hall (where they can then be sold on the halls beauty, and the affordability of other concerts held there). One such ploy, as I see it, is the accompanying of silent movies around Halloween time. There's nothing wrong with this, per se, but (hypothetically) given that the organ in the concert hall is not a theater organ, and given that this is the only time the organ is heard by itself, then yes, this is gimmicky. An improvised film accompaniment, even when done well, lacks the variety and artistry of a varied program of organ repertoire.
But then there's John Scott, who Dallas brought in to play the back 9 on the Meyerson. So, how does John Scott fair in his Dallas recital? Is he as exciting as Tiger Woods?
Mr. Scott's virtuoso technique was everywhere in evidence, and there certainly wasn't a dull moment. . . He got a standing ovation.
Good -- but is that good enough?
Stylistically, though, this was baroque playing of a kind that came and went in the United States two decades ago.. . . [I]n the 1970s and early '80s some organists tried to outdo one another in breaking up lines with fussy articulations and clipped pedal notes.
Scholarly players have long since moved beyond this kind of point-making, but not, it seems, Mr. Scott.
More freely written passages . . . were turned into extravagant taffy pulls.
This was a burlesque of historically informed performance practices, artifice choking art.
Wow. And this choked art gets a standing ovation?
. . . yes, a Sinden.org treatment of Standing Ovation Syndrome (SOS) is long overdue . . .
Even if organists can't all play up to Paul Jacobs's standards (and who can?) somehow I think that concert hall committees will continue to build organs.
But they'll be fussy about it. It's always fussiness when it comes to the organ.
Labels: John Scott, organs, Paul Jacobs, review
The Hindu reports that the organ in St. Mark's Cathedral, Bangalore is playing again.
Fortunately the now electrified organ is "easier on the hands of the player".
Robert Burns King, organist at First Presbyterian Church in Burlington, North Carolina, is giving a recital on the church's refurbished Schantz organ.
King’s program will showcase the new colors of the organ, including the new celesta, chimes, tuba and clarinet stops, and the Trompette en Chamade, which is the French term for trumpet pipes played horizontally.
I guess that's accurate, but the construction "French term for trumpet pipes played horizontally" is extrememly awkward. Can an organist play the organ horizontally? I'm thinking in particular of Louis Vierne's death.
Labels: organs
An organ graces the cover of the New York Times today, which is probably a rare event.
When was the last time this happened? Anyone?
The Times's photo caption is a bit cryptic, but I believe the instrument in question is located in Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, Alabama.
I am currently researching the specifics of this instrument.
Brown Chapel and the Civil Rights Movement
Photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. and others singing in Brown Chapel. The organ appears to be in place in this 1965 photo.
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