A Felgemaker Christmas

James Kibbie maintains a full schedule of concert, recording, and festival engagements throughout North America and Europe, including appearances at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Royal Festival Hall in London, Dvořak Hall in Prague, and Lincoln Center in New York. During his month-long concert tour of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newspaper Pravda hailed him as “a marvelous organist, a brilliant interpreter.” A frequent jury member of international organ competitions, he has himself been awarded the Grand Prix d'Interprétation at the prestigious International Organ Competition of Chartres, France, and is also the only American to have won the International Organ Competition of the Prague Spring Festival in the former Czechoslovakia. 

James Kibbie's performances have been broadcast on radio and television in the USA, Canada, and Europe. His extensive discography includes “Merrily on Hill,” performed on the famed Skinner organ in Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, works of Dieterich Buxtehude recorded on the historic 1687 Schnitger organ of Norden, Germany, and discs of music by Bach, Franck, Alain, Tournemire, Sowande, Buck, Morrison, and contemporary Czech composers. Dr. Kibbie's “audio holiday cards,” recorded on the Létourneau organ in his residence and issued as free internet downloads, are a popular annual tradition.

James Kibbie is internationally renowned as an authority on the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He has performed the complete cycle of Bach organ works in a series of eighteen recitals and is in constant demand as a Bach recitalist and clinician.  His recordings of the complete Bach works on historic baroque organs in Germany have been welcomed with enthusiastic critical and audience acclaim. Thanks to generous support from Dr. Barbara Furin Sloat in honor of J. Barry Sloat, the University of Michigan is offering Dr. Kibbie's recordings of all 274 Bach works as free internet downloads at www.blockmrecords.org/bach.

James Kibbie is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, where his 42-year tenure included service as University Organist and Chair of the Organ Department. His former students hold key positions in college teaching and church music nationally. Among the honors he has received, he is particularly proud of the James Kibbie Scholarship, endowed in perpetuity by the University of Michigan to support students majoring in organ performance and sacred music.

Joyce Johnson Robinson is a past editor of The Diapason.

Greg Zelek, named one of The Diapason’s 20 under 30 Class of 2016 (see The Diapason, May 2016, page 31), was the first organist to be awarded Juilliard’s Kovner Fellowship (a merit-based scholarship award that covers the full estimated cost of study at The Juilliard School). Zelek received bachelor’s and master’s degrees and an Artist Diploma from Juilliard, studying with Paul Jacobs. Since September 2017, Zelek has been in Madison, Wisconsin, serving as the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s principal organist and the Elaine and Nicholas Mischler Curator of the Overture Concert Organ, a three-manual, seventy-two-rank Klais instrument that is entirely movable in one large chamber. Prior to holding this position, Zelek has served as organist and music director at several churches in Florida and New York, and spent summers in Spain. He has logged numerous performances with symphonies in Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Wisconsin, and has presented recitals throughout the United States.

Zelek is certainly reaching the career aspirations mentioned in his 20 under 30 essay: “to broaden the audience for the organ, popularizing an instrument that is often misunderstood even by other classical musicians” and to present it “in atypical performances and collaborating with other artists.” He has made significant strides toward these goals, notwithstanding the challenges posed by a virus pandemic in 2020 and 2021. We talked with Greg Zelek to find out the details.

Describe in brief what your position with the Madison Symphony Orchestra entails.

I am the principal organist of the Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and hold the endowed position of the Elaine and Nicholas Mischler Curator of the Overture Concert Organ. I perform with the symphony whenever there is an organ part in a symphonic work and have also been the soloist for organ concertos. As the curator of the Overture Concert Organ, I perform in and plan our organ series (as well as a summer concert series) by selecting and hiring guest artists, organize events for the Friends of the Overture Concert Organ (FOCO), who help support all organ programming, and handle scheduling of organ maintenance. I succeeded Sam Hutchison, who retired in 2017, and am forever grateful to him for the organ program in Madison that he helped shape.

What special things have you done in your position that were new?

As I always do at my live performances, I try to make the event an all-around experience that not only showcases the instrument and repertoire, but also entertains the audience with personal interaction throughout the concert. I began forming relationships with many music aficionados in Madison, and this has allowed for growth of the program and greater enthusiasm for the organ and our performances.

At the annual Free Community Carol Sing, a December holiday event for which you played, the attendance reached a new level in 2019. It had never previously been necessary to open the top levels of the theater to accommodate the crowd. What’s the secret to your success?

The Carol Sing is an incredible tradition that attracts around 1,500 people from all ages to sing Christmas carols accompanied by the organ. I really appreciate everyone in our audience, and I think this mutual admiration from both those in attendance and the performer makes concerts and events much more memorable and entertaining for everyone.

I always open and close the Carol Sing with solo organ works that demonstrate the full scope of our instrument, and I think it’s a great opportunity to share repertoire with children and their parents who otherwise might have never heard the organ before. When everyone in the family can leave with a smile on their face after a concert, you know they’ll be returning (and bringing some family friends).

When the Covid pandemic struck in March of 2020, how did things change for you?

It was difficult to see what exactly we would be doing at the start of the 2020–2021 season, since so much was up in the air immediately following the start of the pandemic. One advantage of playing the pipe organ is that you can perform an entire program without anyone else on stage (which was essential with the social-distancing guidelines in place). I planned two virtual concerts in the fall with the hope that this might give our audience members something to look forward to since there was nothing going on at the start of the new season.

As soon as we began advertising our two virtual streams (I performed the first, and my former organ teacher at Juilliard, Paul Jacobs, performed the second), we had over 1,600 households register and watch the events. While these virtual events are not an equal substitute for our live concerts, they provided the advantage of being able to share music from Overture Hall with a wider community beyond just Madison.

I planned one final virtual event in the spring to close the season with my friend and trumpet player, Ansel Norris, who I had the opportunity to perform with in Naples, Florida, back in March 2020. That Naples performance turned out to be my last live concert before the pandemic, and it seemed appropriate to close our virtual season alongside Ansel, who coincidentally is originally from Madison. It was wonderful to see the majority of the households that registered for these three concerts return to their seats for live concerts at Overture Hall for the 2021–2022 organ season.

What else did you do during the 2020–2021 Covid year?

Apart from the Madison Symphony Virtual Organ Series events, I performed alongside the Madison Symphony’s Maestro, John DeMain, in a virtual Christmas concert that showcased the Klais’s versatility for both solo and accompanied works that was viewed by over 6,000 households. I also had the opportunity to perform at some other venues throughout the pandemic.

I performed my first live concert in over a year with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra in a concert for organ and brass ensemble in January 2021. This was my fourth year performing in the event, and it was surreal to play in front of a socially distanced but live audience after so many months away. I also recorded a virtual concert from Longwood Gardens with my friend and fellow Juilliard alum, cellist Thomas Mesa. I then returned to perform Rheinberger’s Second Organ Concerto with the Jacksonville Symphony before another live audience at the end of March 2021.

Things have now opened up. What items are added to your calendar?

We have a very exciting upcoming 2022–2023 organ season at Overture Hall, with performances by guest artists, as well as myself. The Jacksonville Symphony has also invited me back to again be the artist-in-residence for their organ program that is in its second year that showcases their Bryan Concert Organ (a Casavant instrument in Jacoby Hall). Many of the canceled events from the start of the pandemic for which I was booked were rescheduled for both this past 2021–2022 season and this upcoming Fall.

Let’s return to your student years. You grew up in Miami and began piano lessons at age seven. How were you attracted to the organ?

I attended Epiphany Catholic School in Miami, Florida, where they built an entirely new church structure around a magnificent Ruffatti instrument during my time as a student there. Tom Schuster was hired to be the organist, and I began taking piano lessons with him. I then went on to attend New World School of the Arts High School as a pianist, studying with Ciro Fodere. As I moved into high school, I wanted some cash to be able to take my girlfriend out to dinner and the movies, and Tom had said that I could get a church job that paid if I started studying the organ. When you’re a kid, $5,000 a year seems like a million dollars, so I began taking organ lessons with Tom, and here I am, however many years later, doing it professionally!

And you even had a summer job in Spain.

Each summer, we would visit family for a month in a tiny town called Ramales de la Victoria, which is nestled in the mountains of the north of Spain. I would play the Sunday Mass there, which not only helped me grow in appreciation of the music, but also of a very different culture. It also helped me keep up my Spanish that I grew up speaking as a kid, and that I’m still fluent in today.

Your college and graduate work has all been done at Juilliard. What led you to decide to remain at Juilliard for all of your training?

My former organ teacher, Paul Jacobs, is the reason that I chose Juilliard, and there was no reason to go anywhere else once I was there! Paul’s unique vision of the profession made me believe that I might be able to venture outside of the traditional path for organists and do things a little differently. Through his extensive experience with orchestras around the world and his vigorous dedication to making the organ an integral part of the classical music scene, I was motivated to work intensely, set high standards for musical excellence, and develop my own individual style of concertizing. Paul’s passion and work ethic is a constant inspiration to me, and I feel a responsibility to pass on my own passion with anyone and everyone who attends an organ performance.

Was it difficult to adjust to New York City?

I recall Paul Jacobs not allowing me to talk as much as I wanted to in my first couple of lessons, and so I was forced to play (and thus reveal that I was probably less prepared than I should have been). It quickly became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to talk my way out of lessons, and so I really started working and honing my craft. As soon as I realized what it took to learn and internalize music and started memorizing my music for our weekly organ class performances throughout the semester, New York was a dream environment for an aspiring musician. The level of talent in NYC is so high, and it really inspired me to look beyond my life as a student and try to imagine what might be possible in this challenging but very rewarding profession. I then went on to get my master’s and Artist Diploma from Juilliard as well.

Attendance at Madison’s organ programs has increased greatly during your tenure—tripling. How do you account for that?

There is nothing more contagious than enthusiasm, and I hope that I exude enthusiasm whenever I perform. I hear so many organists talk about how they go about selecting music for their concerts (“always include something your audience wants to hear, but make sure you play something that they need to hear”), and I have a very different take on this idea. I generally perform the music that I want to share and feel the responsibility of convincing the audience that they should want to hear it too.

The more I have gotten to know the audience in Madison, the more I feel that they trust me to play the best music and to bring in the top guest artists. There is constant pressure to perform at the highest level, and this is inspiring to me. I also hope that I’m a fairly relatable person. I tend to talk about how my parents don’t know anything about classical music, how my mom thought that giving me a sip of her Manhattan would help calm me before an organ competition, and how my dad may be asleep halfway through my concert. And these types of stories (all true, by the way) tend to make audiences feel comfortable and more attentive to the beautiful music that I have the privilege of performing.

When I first arrived in 2017, we had 224 FOCO households (Friends of the Overture Concert Organ), and this past pandemic year we had over 550. My last organ concert at Overture Hall this past May 2022 had over 1,400 audience members, and I’m proud that we’ve been able to create excitement around our instrument and program in Madison. The Madison community at large is most appreciative and supportive of the arts, and they have welcomed me with open arms. I have made some extremely close relationships in a short period of time, and this is a testament to how gracious and loving the people of Madison really are.

How’s the Klais?

There is something unique about playing a concert hall instrument, and the immediacy of sound is both electrifying and thrilling. Everyone in Madison is so proud to have a world-class organ in our César Pelli-designed concert hall, especially considering that there are many cities larger in size than Madison, such as New York City, that don’t. The instrument was built by Klais in 2004 and gifted to the MSO by Pleasant T. Rowland (a Madison native and the founder of the American Girl books and brand). With over 4,000 pipes and 63 stops, there are countless sounds to choose from, and it really brings all different styles of music to life.

The MSO website (madisonsymphony.org) mentions “Pop-up Events.” Can you tell us about these?

When I first arrived, the Madison Symphony Orchestra League asked if I would play for a Party of Note, where they sell a certain number of tickets to an event that supports the MSO’s Education and Community Engagement Programs. This event was the first to sell out, and we now do two of them a year. It has been a great opportunity to play for some new organ enthusiasts, and it also gives me the chance to meet and perform for audience members who attend the symphony but have never gone to an organ event.

What sorts of programs have you done with children?

We have had a number of elementary and middle school classes take a field trip to Overture Hall for me to explain the organ and have them sit down and play the instrument themselves. It is wonderful to see the unique personalities of each student shine through the instrument, with some choosing the loudest sounds on the instrument, and others wanting to play on the softer and more delicate stops.

Prior to the pandemic, I had the students select the different organ sounds for a Bach fugue, and then I performed it using the stops they had selected. The children were excited by both the colors that could be drawn from the organ and the physical aspect of playing this instrument. I was also recently featured in the MSO’s LinkUp Program, which is a music education offering created by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. It was virtual this year, and they showcased the pipe organ in our hall, which I think is a wonderful way to introduce this incredible instrument to our youth.

You are bilingual. Have you been able to utilize that in your work?

It was my Cuban grandfather on my mother’s side that imparted to me the musical gene. He is the reason that I am a musician today, and he also inspired me to arrange works like Malagueña, by the Cuban composer, Ernesto Lecuona. It’s been wonderful to speak Spanish with supporters at receptions, and my Cuban heritage has given me an insight into a different culture. This has allowed me to relate to a wider variety of people, which has been helpful in making friends for our organ program.

Donors generously contributed $30,740.54 to name the Solo division of the Overture Concert Organ in honor of you for your twenty-eighth birthday. That’s quite an honor!

This was a complete surprise to me, and I was shocked in gratitude when they presented me with this honor at a donor event on the day of my birthday. It was done to commemorate my “golden birthday,” which was something that I had never heard of prior to this moment. (Editor’s note: A golden birthday occurs in the year you turn the same age as your birthday—so, turning twenty-eight on October 28, 2019.)

You’ve done some of your own arrangements. (I particularly enjoyed your Clair de Lune.) Do you arrange with the Klais in mind, or were these written prior to Madison?

That particular arrangement was completed prior to my arrival in Madison. I’m grateful to hear that you enjoyed it, because I think some of these reimagined pieces work really well on our Klais. I have, however, recently commissioned an organ and cello sonata from Daniel Ficarri, a classmate from Juilliard, written for our Klais and to be performed with cellist Thomas Mesa in the 2022–2023 season.

Are there any recordings on the horizon?

I will soon be recording my first organ CD as the MSO’s organist and plan on releasing it at my concert in September 2022. I will be performing the works on the CD at the opening of the 2022–2023 season concert and will have a sort of “CD Release” party for the event.

Do you have any special goals or plans for the future?

I think it is imperative that I constantly think of new ways to keep our program fresh and exciting, and presenting a variety of performers and repertoire is fundamental to keeping an audience engaged. It’s a challenge to retain audience members year after year and continue to attract new ones if the program itself doesn’t evolve over time, and so I am always learning new repertoire to perform and thinking of creative ways to program the organ alongside other musicians. It also helps to always have a new joke or two to share with those who attend . . . .

Thank you very much, Greg!

Greg Zelek’s website: gregzelek.com

MSO website: madisonsymphony.org

Keep your distance.

In both the May and June issues of The Diapason, I wrote about watching the world react to the spread of the novel coronavirus. I have told you how my family and I left New York City for our place in Maine, leaving behind the horror of the spread of vicious contagion in a densely populated city. Individual boroughs of the city have higher death tolls than many countries, and our friends there tell of fear and loss. As I write in mid-May, there have been over 160,000 cases confirmed and over 13,500 deaths in New York City. There have been thirteen cases and no deaths confirmed in Lincoln County, Maine, where we live.

We left New York two days after Broadway, Lincoln Center, and all the museums of the city were closed, that great engine of culture, those vibrant theaters, those stately crowded buildings all going dark at once. By that time, virtually every college and university had closed or was closing. Social media pages became clamors of teachers comparing notes about how to teach from a distance and students facing unprecedented interruptions in their education. I am particularly well connected on Facebook where my community includes some three thousand organ professionals, and I have been impressed by the thoughtful interchange.

I wrote a post asking colleagues if they would be interested in talking about distance learning and, with a half dozen responses, spent more than ten hours last week on FaceTime, Zoom, and video chat (and on the phone when the internet got slow), conversing with friends and colleagues about how they were developing methods to cope with this untenable situation, keeping the wheels of learning turning.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

The common opener was that it is nobody’s first choice to close a campus and send students home, there is no precedent, and we had better figure this out. The biggest variable is whether students have access to organs, pianos, or even cheap keyboards during the closures. When away from campus, students live in a wide variety of circumstances. While some students go home to luxury, others return to poverty where shortage of food is an issue, never mind whether there is a piano, let alone an organ. Before being able to establish connections to continue teaching, some teachers have petitioned their schools to provide instruments, WiFi connections, and, in some cases, food.

Christa Rakich teaches organ performance at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where students were informed a week before spring break that the school was closing and they needed to vacate their dorm rooms. There was a flurry of activity as clothes, books, and personal items were packed and parents came to help ferry stuff home. There must have been a shortage of cardboard boxes in town.

Because Zoom and other video conferencing platforms can be shaky and imprecise, Christa is using video recordings as a primary tool for private lessons. Students send recordings to her that she watches with scores and sends emails with comments referring to measure numbers. “It’s tedious progress, but it’s progress, and helpful for them to have my return email in hand for the next practice session.” 

Christa is also sending weekly “Improv Challenges” to her students by email. In an email before our conversation she wrote, “I submit this with an audio file. I record myself improvising, for example, a two-voice chorale prelude or a pedal cadenza or a fugal exposition in three voices with a cadence, something contained and short. The email includes instructions on how I did it or perhaps a written sample. Students are challenged to send me back an audio file using the same technique with a different tune.”

Early on, Christa experimented with live playing over Zoom for studio class, but found that the platform was unstable, so she and her students have spent productive time together planning future projects, working hard to keep a productive learning environment in place as much as possible. According to Christa, the administration of the school is encouraging students’ ideas for study projects and reading, supporting their creativity by giving credit—“everything you do counts as work.” 

Andrew Scanlon is assistant professor of sacred music and organ performance at East Carolina University and organist at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Greenville, North Carolina, where Andrew’s students are accustomed to having their lessons on the spectacular forty-five-stop C. B. Fisk, Inc., organ (Opus 126, 2005). The university has supplied the faculty with tutorial videos on distance learning helping Andrew to develop techniques for video teaching, and he has been able to find access to organs for all his students. He reports that the organ literature course he teaches has been easiest to transfer, mostly by giving lectures online. He is guiding students toward the AAGO exam and continuing their improvisation training.

Nicole Keller has been teaching organ and harpsichord students at Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music, Berea, Ohio, for twenty years. During our conversation, she spoke of how the school’s administration has been sharing information openly with bi-weekly video town hall meetings for the faculty, and the school’s IT department is helping with information about available resources and helping to get students online. Nicole is facing this disruption, wondering how she can use the experience to become a better teacher. She is finding the exchange of recordings to be effective, and to a lesser extent, playing through Zoom. She added that external microphones for laptops make a big difference in the sound quality, especially when using Zoom, and mentioned that the conservatory has provided microphones for the students.

George Emblom teaches at the University of California at Berkeley and is director of music at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley. He started our conversation with the simple comment that this is unprecedented. No one expected this, and no one had planned for it. With the campus and church building closed, he has been able to secure access to instruments for his students, even in some cases through loans from members of the choir at Saint Mark’s where his students have their lessons on the Flentrop organ. 

We are all learning and developing the art of distance teaching simultaneously, and George believes that some of the new techniques will continue to be useful when we are able to return to teaching private students face-to-face. He particularly mentioned shared video recordings, commenting that he is spending a lot of time watching the pinwheel on his screen as videos are downloading. Students send videos to him through Google Drive, and he shares his screen with them, allowing student and teacher to watch together in real time. He has found that students benefit greatly from watching their performances, seeing their posture, hands and feet, and the motions of their bodies, both useful and unnecessary. “At measure 43, do you think you looked comfortable?” He intends to continue using this tool in the future.

George’s performance degrees are in piano. Remembering that there were always two pianos in a teacher’s studio so the teacher could demonstrate, he has been using the piano more extensively as a teaching tool and considers this another technique to be developed and used more in the future. He also reminded me that the concept of distance teaching for serious musicians is in its infancy. He is in conversation with colleagues around the country comparing and assessing techniques and imagines that new and more powerful platforms will be developed quickly.

Jonathan Moyer is assistant professor of organ and chair of the organ department at Oberlin and organist at the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland, Ohio. He is teaching some private lessons with students sending him recordings followed by video conferences, usually on Zoom. But he is really focused on finding new ways for students to learn. Organ literature classes are productive as he can provide listening lists on YouTube. Students “mute out” to listen, then return for discussion. He shares PowerPoint slides on Zoom and gives out reading assignments, some of which temporarily take the place of performance.

Oberlin is well known for its extraordinary collection of more thirty organs, and Jonathan feels that a big part of education there is being on campus with those instruments, sharing musical inspiration in person with students and teachers. He feels that most of his students have had enough of the “video thing.”

Katherine Johnson is a third-year student of Christa Rakich at Oberlin. She spoke of the shock of being told to vacate her dormitory just before spring break. She is working hard to make the most of it and is fortunate to have a Hauptwerk instrument in a relatively private space at home where she is working on the “self-taught” piece she has chosen for her jury, whenever that will be. In course work, she notes that her fellow students are in different time zones, which makes it difficult to schedule class meetings online, but she is generally impressed by how video platforms make distance learning possible.

§

I am grateful to the six people who spoke with me last week. Each spent an hour or more with me and shared not only how they are approaching the different acts of teaching and learning, but also about their concerns for each other. All five of the teachers echoed their concern for the well-being of their students, many of whom have been shuttled off campus into stressful situations of crowded houses full of distance learners and parents working from home. WiFi is everything, and housemates are having to negotiate for bandwidth. Students who are strongly self-motivated are finding rich new ways to learn, while others are struggling with the difficulties and uncertainties of their situations and the disruption of their education.

As of this writing, none of the schools involved has yet made announcements regarding the status of the fall semester. Jonathan Moyer mentioned that Oberlin would be deciding by mid-June whether to open the campus for the fall, perhaps without large ensembles and with limited class sizes. Different schools are considering having only single rooms in dormitories and somehow staggering the semesters, a scheme that falls apart in a hurry when you get to communal bathrooms.

All of the teachers spoke of the spirit of camaraderie and cooperation among students. Everyone I spoke with mentioned fatigue, especially screen fatigue. Even if you are used to spending hours in a practice room or teaching studio each day, you are still moving around between classrooms, offices, and dormitories. Likewise, there was a lot of talk about maintaining energy, keeping things lively and inspiring in online discussions. Teachers are spending lots of time just talking with their students, helping them redefine their dreams and ambitions while staying optimistic.

And what about church?

All but one of the teachers I spoke with also serve as church musicians, and each shared a little about how online worship is working. Very few church buildings are open, so most are either sorting and streaming recordings from years past, or recording preludes, postludes, and hymns on whatever instrument they have at home.

Last month we published a photo of John Cantrell, choirmaster and organist at Saint Michael’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan seated at the desk he has adapted for the production of the church’s video services. He described to me the challenge of creating an essence of worship for the congregation. He has always been interested in audio engineering, but “this video thing” is new, and he has been learning on the job. He and the clergy have been drawing on the example of Mr. Rogers and his legendary ability to communicate on television with children. How did Mr. Rogers draw children into the screen, suspending their disbelief, and can we emulate that in online worship?

At Saint Michael’s, the organ scholar records a prelude and postlude in the empty church with John as the videographer, allowing the congregants a rare glimpse of the organist who is normally hidden by the Rückpositiv of the great Beckerath organ. They also record at least two hymns, generally one verse for each, and show the text on the screen so “distance congregants” can sing along. John records a rehearsal track for an anthem that he sends to choir members who practice and record their part, and they send it back to John who stacks the tracks, tweaking the early or late notes as needed, and mixes the whole thing into a choir. This is far from perfect, and many people are unable to participate, especially elderly parishioners with no internet skills. We can suppose that powerful apps will be developed making all this possible without the need for each music director to reinvent the wheel.

A common concern is the future of choirs. On April 29, The Guardian reported that the German government had met with church leaders and agreed that when German churches open for worship in May, singing would be prohibited. The article noted that three quarters of the members of a church choir in Mount Vernon, Washington, fell ill and two died, and that fifty-nine of seventy-eight singers in the choir of Berlin’s Protestant cathedral contracted the virus. On March 8, the Amsterdam Gemengd Koor (mixed choir) gave a performance of J. S. Bach’s Saint John Passion in the Concertgebouw, the city’s famed concert hall. Of 130 singers, 102 contracted COVID-19 and four died. The American Choral Directors Association has issued an announcement to its membership stating that singers are “super spreaders” of the coronavirus because singers breathe more deeply than normal and expel breath at great velocity. A group of people singing may as well be sneezing on each other.

Andrew Scanlon said the reason the choir at Saint Paul’s in Greenville sings psalms so beautifully is that they do it all the time. It is in their blood. Will choirs have to wait years before being able to gather again? How much interest, proficiency, and experience will be lost?

Lemonade

We have no idea how long this will last. My family and I came to Maine thinking we would be here for a few weeks and have now been holding in place for over eight weeks. Given our usual lifestyle with two homes and a significant amount of business travel, this is the most consecutive nights I have spent in one place in nearly twenty years. The statistics of the epidemic as some states try opening selected businesses may indicate that we will be in this longer than we have yet imagined. From our seclusion, it is impossible to imagine when we might next enter a Broadway theater with twenty-inch wide seats and endless lines for the restrooms.

Most organists are employed by churches or universities. Although playing the organ seriously is a solitary venture, both types of institutions depend on people working in groups. Seminars, classrooms, staff meetings, faculty meetings, and especially choirs are important to the work of the organist. At the moment, the challenge of setting up distance learning and distance choral singing is taking more time for many people than the familiar weekday rehearsals and Sunday services. 

Once you have mastered and improved the techniques, will you have more time for personal projects? Is this your chance finally to learn those last eighteen pieces so you can say you have played all of Bach’s organ music? The Vierne symphonies? How about some of those pesky masterworks by Rachel Laurin or Jeanne Demessieux? Maybe it is time to finish and submit that article to The Diapason? Spend some more time with Beethoven’s piano music? Or admit it, you have always wanted to take the FAGO exam. Contact your chapter leadership and sign up. Maybe you were going to spend a week or two at conventions this summer. How often have you wished for a couple extra weeks to tackle something you have always wondered about? Guess what, kids, now’s the time.

When we meet on the other side, let me know how you did.

C. B. Fisk, Inc., Opus 116, Finney Chapel, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio (photo courtesy: C. B. Fisk, Inc.)

Embracing new, creative approaches, a groundbreaking initiative, “Playing and Preserving: Saving and Activating Philadelphia’s Historic Pipe Organs to Advance Music and Community,” aims to generate public support for the preservation and active use of the organ heritage of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The initiative, already underway, builds relationships among congregations, artists, music lovers, organbuilders, and the broader public. Partners for Sacred Places is spearheading the Playing and Preserving venture, supported through a collaborative effort with a team of interdisciplinary partners, including Astral Artists and the Curtis Institute of Music.

Philadelphia’s organs and the sacred places that contain them are some of the city’s greatest treasures—yet, with ever-changing religious landscapes, musical tastes, and technology over the last twenty to thirty years, these buildings and historic organs are at risk. One Philadelphia organist estimated that nearly half of the instruments featured during the Organ Historical Society’s 1996 national convention in Philadelphia are potentially partially destroyed, dormant, or unplayable.

“Our project will turn this problem into an advantage, by leveraging the organ and will amplify one of the most important but typically unappreciated characteristics of sacred places—their auditory and aural qualities—to provide a rich, multi-sensory context for individuals, families, and artists to experience historic places in a powerful way,” said Bob Jaeger, president of Partners for Sacred Places. “This experience will be supported by, among other strategies, place-based storytelling and interactive conversations around what place means to each of us and how it defines our sense of identity and community, as well as engaging history through art.” Playing and Preserving is actively identifying historic organs at risk, activating these instruments through technical assistance and support to the congregations who steward them, and working with project partners and artists in developing concerts that engage the community’s interest in historic preservation through the experience of music.

Assessing the vulnerability

Partners for Sacred Places is collaborating with organ performance students from the Curtis Institute of Music and conducting surveys of approximately fifty historic organs, including many that are at risk in historic sacred places outside of Philadelphia’s urban core. A large part of this process comes with the extensive data being collected on instrument construction, condition, and age.

Also, information is being collected about congregational health, collaborative readiness, openness to the arts, and other key factors. The data—along with audio recordings of the pipe organs and photos of the site—will eventually be available to the public through collaboration with the Organ Historical Society. With this information, artists, performers, and curators can use the database to find venues and instruments that are resources for their practices. Already, the program and its Curtis student partners have visited over forty sites, which have been documented in photographs by a separate team of photographers.

Building capacity to Play and Preserve

Partners for Sacred Places is providing a training and capacity-building program for congregations to help them gain knowledge and skills to better care for their instruments, fundraise for maintenance and capital investments, and develop relationships with artists around mission and vision alignment. Through this program, each congregation is given a complete, professional assessment of their historic organ and technical assistance to promote repairs, conservation, and fundraising help for ongoing maintenance. Technical assistance is provided to help congregations make key, strategic repairs that have helped to make their instruments playable and even more useful for future performances and events.

The training draws on Partners for Sacred Places’ capacity-building programs, including “Making Homes for the Arts in Sacred Places,” which assists congregations in making the most of their properties as assets for ministry. The content is customized to focus on sound stewardship of these instruments, community-partnership building, and community-wide fundraising. In addition to training, this program provides grants to congregations to support the preservation and repair of their historic organs. Each church that receives a grant will match the award with funds they raise using new tools and resources gathered during training, which will help them reach out to a wide network for support.

Pilot performances at St. Mary’s Church, Hamilton Village

Partners for Sacred Places, with Astral Artists, has organized a series of performances and events that highlight historic organs in ways that juxtapose and combine genres and styles of music to engage the local community in preservation and involve musicians of all ages. All concerts welcome families and community members and encourage them to embrace their curiosity about the organ and classical music. These events create a space that allows the organ to return to the center of music making—but with a modern twist. Musicians of all ages perform together with the organ, building community through art and personal connection.

Each performance integrates the story of the historic sacred place, the community content, and the instrument, encouraging audiences to move beyond passive participation toward personal engagement and to reflect on what they hear, see, feel, and how music and storytelling affect their perception of the place. The concerts are all preceded by child-friendly “Experience Stations” that cover topics like organ education, performance practices, rehearsal techniques, and cross-genre program planning.

Further, Astral Artists have begun mentoring students at Play On Philly during four short residency visits, building musical skills as well as vibrant relationships between young musicians and world-class musicians. The first concert featured Astral Artists and Play On Philly musicians, drawing a diverse crowd that enjoyed the hands-on approach to learning about historic organs. Artists involved included Project Fusion, a saxophone quartet; Michael Lawrence, director of music/organist/choirmaster at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Hamilton Village; and the Play on Philly Wind Ensemble. Another program featured Thomas Mesa, cello; Greg Zelek, organ; and the Play On Philly Cello Ensemble. On December 21, a concert is planned featuring Mesa and Zelek again, joined by Chrystal E. Williams, mezzo-soprano, and the Play On Philly Symphony Orchestra.

All of these concerts occur at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Hamilton Village, a historic congregation that completed the present Gothic Revival structure in 1873. Following a fire in 1936, several alterations were made to the edifice, including installation of the present organ, Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company Opus 963, finished in the fall of 1937. The church, still an independent congregation, is now surrounded by the University of Pennsylvania campus.

“The initiative will allow Partners for Sacred Places and its collaborators to advance their work by bringing the performing arts into preservation as a new way to offer sensory experiences that increase the appreciation of historic architecture and create a model for other regions to follow,” said Bob Jaeger.

The Playing and Preserving project is led by a committee including Jonathan M. Bowen, organist, St. Luke & the Epiphany Episcopal Church; Michelle Cann, pianist and educator, Keys to Connect; Frederick Haas; Roy Harker, executive director, First Baptist Church of Philadelphia; Dustin Hurt, director, Bowerbird; Dr. Martha Johnson, organist, choirmaster, educator; Alan Morrison, professor, Curtis Institute of Music; Patrick J. Murphy, organbuilder, Patrick J. Murphy & Associates; James Straw, AIA, preservation architect; Dan Visconti, artistic director, Astral Artists; and Karen Whitney, organist and choir director, Salem Baptist Church.

Major support for Playing and Preserving has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the Wyncote Foundation and The 25th Century Foundation. Learn more about this initiative and upcoming events: sacredplaces.org/playing-and-preserving.

Photo: St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Hamilton Village, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company Opus 963 (photo credit: Joseph Elliott)