Orgelradio.eu

Princeton, New Jersey, April 23-27, 2003

Stephen Leist holds degrees in history from Furman University, where he studied organ with W. Lindsay Smith, Jr., and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has served on the faculties of Furman University and Georgetown College, and is currently on the library staff of Transylvania University.

The second symposium to be held at the American Organ
Archives attracted organists, organ builders and organ historians from across
the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and Australia. Organized
by Stephen L. Pinel, Director of the American Organ Archives, and James L.
Wallmann, the five-day gathering of lectures, papers and panel discussions with
generous time to explore the archives was sponsored jointly by Westminster
Choir College of Rider University and the Organ Historical Society.

Thursday

Those who arrived early to the symposium were rewarded with
extra time to browse the American Organ Archives, the world's largest
repository of organ research materials, or to conduct research on individual
projects. The real opening of the symposium began with a marvelous afternoon
reception in the archive reading room on Thursday, April 24. The reception was
a great opportunity to see old acquaintances and to make new contacts. After
the reception and dinner, participants were transported to Christ Church, New
Brunswick, to hear a recital by Lynn Edwards Butler on the 2001 Richards,
Fowkes & Co. organ of two manuals and 24 ranks. The all-Bach program,
perfectly suited for this organ, was entitled "Hymns for the Seasons"
and featured chorale preludes for the Easter season through Trinity. This
outstanding performance was framed by Bach's Fantasia in c
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Friday morning

Lectures and panel discussions for the symposium were held
at Christ Congregation Church located across the street from the Westminster
campus. The commodious meeting space was ideal, both for location and
acoustics, as no amplification was needed, and speakers did not need to
significantly raise their voices to be heard. Friday morning, April 25, began
with a brief welcome by Allison Alcorn-Oppedahl, Chair of the Governing Board
of the American Organ Archives. The Keynote Address, delivered by Uwe Pape of
Berlin, followed with the topic, "Research on North German Organs and
Organbuilding--History and Current Perspectives." Prof. Dr. Pape, who
manages Pape Verlag and the Organ Databank, gave a detailed presentation on the
beginnings of organ history research in the 1920s and its progress to date,
making thorough mention of a variety of scholars and their work. He also
outlined his own work over the last forty years and his efforts to document
organs in northern Germany and make the information available through his
publications and those of others. The abstract provided in the symposium
handbook is a wealth of information regarding these themes, as well as the
mention of various archives in Germany that serve as necessary finding aids.
One of the continuing problems cited by Prof. Dr. Pape regarding organ research
was the shortage of funds for scholarly work. Much of this has to be done out
of one's own pocket during free time. An additional problem is that fewer
younger scholars in Germany are taking up an interest in the organ. Despite
these trends, the six states of eastern Germany are fertile ground for organ research.

Following the Keynote Address, Stephen L. Pinel presented a
brief report on "Current Developments at the Archives." This report
made mention of the three goals of the American Organ Archives and its
Governing Board, which are acquisitions, processing and maintenance, and
outreach, and what the archive is doing to meet these goals. The archive is
regularly in touch with scholars around the world to acquire publications, and
the use of Internet search engines and the production of a want list have greatly
added to the archive's holdings. Recent acquisitions include Hallens' 1779
treatise Die Kunst des Orgelbaues and
the archives of the Virgil Fox Society (summer 2003). Much of the processing
and maintenance is done by volunteers, but cataloging has been greatly
facilitated by outsourcing to Joni Cassidy of Cassidy Catologing, Inc. Outreach
has been improved with the website and online catalog, the use of Interlibrary
Loan, and frequent reports of activities and news. Stephen Pinel stressed the
importance of protection and stewardship of this collection for future
generations of scholars. 

The final presentation of the morning before breaking for
lunch was a panel discussion on "Current Trends in Organ
Scholarship." Chaired by James Wallmann, the panel featured Prof. Dr. Uwe
Pape, Paul Peeters of the Göteborg Organ Art Center in Göteborg,
Sweden, Rollin Smith, and Andrew Unsworth. This discussion focused on research
activities in the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, France and the United States.
Bibliographies of important monographs and other resources were provided in the
handbook, thereby making the handbook a valuable tool to take away from the
symposium. All agreed that the degree of quality was uneven, due in large part
to funding and the organization of societies for investigating and documenting
organs. The most consistent work is probably being done in the Netherlands,
where organists in general seem to be well-educated about the instrument beyond
the repertoire, and government support for restorations includes reports which
are often published. This has served to maintain an active interest in the
organ in society at large, despite very low church attendance. Andrew Unsworth
pointed out that organ scholarship in the United States is steady, but slow,
with the most significant work being done by Orpha Ochse and Barbara Owen. Paul
Peeters explained the interdisciplinary nature of the GOArt Academy by pointing
out their goal of not separating the organ building, research, and music.
Rollin Smith demonstrated that scholarship in France has been predominantly on
French classicism to offset German influence in Baroque music, but that French
scholars are beginning to show new interest in the 19th century. Societies have
been instrumental in producing local and regional inventories of historic
instruments. Much work on the French organ, however, continues to be done by
scholars from other countries.

Friday afternoon

The afternoon session began with a paper presentation by
John Buschman, Acting Dean of University Libraries, Rider University, on
"The Changing Roles of Libraries and Archives in the New Millennium, Or,
Why Is It So Hard to Get Money These Days?" Likening libraries and
archives to museums and symphony orchestras, Buschman pointed out that these institutions
share a commonality in that they can trace their beginnings and support for
acting in the common good by educating society in individual and democratic
values. In recent years, this has changed as these institutions have become
more market driven to educate individuals for a workforce in an increasingly
technological age. Combined with the new emphasis on technology is a desire for
lower taxes and public spending. The impact on libraries and archives is that
they have had to move away from public funding to other sources of support.
Collection development has been cut with funds being redirected toward
technology. Even proposals for federal funding must emphasize technological
projects. Technological resources have redefined the library as a place of
study. Buschman believes that libraries and archives have inappropriately
followed the marketing model by viewing patrons as customers, with web traffic
becoming justification for more support. Buschman stated that it is essential
for librarians to emphasize public services and service to scholarship, as a
library's effects cannot be quantified, in order to recapture the original
purpose of libraries and reduce suspicion of public motives.

The second session of the afternoon was taken up with the
topic, "Organ Libraries Around the World," featuring Paul Peeters of
GOArt, David Baker of the Royal College of Organists/British Institute of Organ
Studies, and Barbara Owen of the AGO Organ Library at Boston University. Each
panelist explained the particular structure of their institutions and along
with recent activities and needs. Paul Peeters presented a diagram of GOArt's
interdisciplinary approach to research as exemplified by their recent North
German Organ Research Project. He further explained that their current library
needs are primarily books on materials and tools. David Baker's presentation
focused on the RCO/BIOS move to a new home in Birmingham, England, in
partnership with the University of Central England. The new library is tied to
inner-city regeneration by refitting an early 19th-century railroad station and
the "out-of-London" initiative. We were treated to a comprehensive
presentation on collection development policies, accessibility to services and
outreach programs. Barbara Owen explained the origins of the AGO Organ Library
as starting with the gift of a personal library. The collection has since been
expanded by more donations, although its collection has more to do with
organists than organ building. Much of the work is done by volunteers and
work-study students, and the library is currently unable to handle Interlibrary
Loan due to lack of staff. Boston University provides space and Internet
access, which has enabled the library to provide worldwide service. The library
is now occupied with developing an online catalog.

Friday evening

Following the mid-afternoon break, the final panel
discussion of the day was held on the subject of "What Organbuilders Learn
(and Don't Learn) in the Library." Moderated by Jonathan Ambrosino, the
panel featured Jack Bethards (Schoenstein), Bruce Fowkes (Richards, Fowkes
& Co.), Paul Fritts (Paul Fritts & Co.), and Scot L. Huntington (S. L.
Huntington & Co.). The panelists largely agreed that a library does not
teach one how to build an organ, that much still depends on experience.
Documentation helps answer questions about approach and resolve problems with
informed decisions. Printed materials and recordings are a start, but
ultimately, one has to visit the instrument. Printed information can also provide
important technical details. 

We were once again treated in the evening to a fine recital,
this time Joan Lippincott performing on the Joe R. Engle Organ, built by Paul
Fritts & Co. (Op. 20, 2001), in the Miller Chapel at Princeton Theological
Seminary. Another all-Bach program, this recital featured the catechism
chorales of the Clavierübung, Part
III framed by the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat. A stunning program from start to
finish, the Fritts organ was ideally suited to the music and space of the chapel.
Opening remarks were made by Martin Tel, the chapel organist, and Paul Fritts.
At Joan Lippincott's request, Martin Tel finished the evening accompanying a
setting of Vater unser im Himmelreich found in the Presbyterian
hymnal, which was rousingly sung by the assembled audience
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Saturday morning

The final day, Saturday, April 26, began with a paper
presented by Kelvin Hastie, Secretary of the Organ Historical Trust of
Australia, on "Organ Research, Documentation and Conservation in
Australia: An Overview of the Work of the Organ Historical Trust of Australia,
1977-2003." Dr. Hastie began his talk with a brief history of the organ
culture of Australia, explaining the influence of the 19th-century English
organ builders and their influence on the first Australian builders. Most of
the historic organs in Australia represent this period and style and are modest
instruments, with a few rare examples of large organs among the town halls,
most notably the 1890 William Hill organ in the Sydney Town Hall. Very few
organs came from continental Europe. Dr. Hastie further pointed out that the
first stylistic shift away from the English late Romantic organ came after 1945
when the influence of the organ reform movement appeared in Australia,
particularly represented by the work of Robert Sharp. More imports were coming
from Europe as well. The historic preservation movement came to Australia in
the 1960s, and the following decade saw the establishment of local societies
and a national trust. The OHTA was also established at this time and began a
Gazetteer project to raise awareness of historic organs. Today, about 50% of
19th-century organs survive in Australia, and the percentage is higher in rural
areas. The joining of congregations and church closures continue to threaten
the loss of instruments, but the rate has been low due to successful
relocation. Current documentation projects of the OHTA are the acquisition of
the shop records of Hill, Norman & Beard of Australia and Whitehouse
Brothers, in addition to notebooks and letter collections. A database is being
prepared with the goal of making it available on CD-ROM, though there is no
central holding library. The OHTA has established guidelines for conservation
standards and issues, and conservation and documentation projects now receive
government grants, as organs are classified as cultural monuments. Despite
this, Hastie pointed out, the saving of historic organs "still requires
constant energy and vigilance."

Scot Huntington, a member of the OHS publications committee,
made a brief report on "Current Publishing Activities of the OHS." He
announced that the committee was in the process of hiring a Director of
Publications and an oversight committee has been formed. In the meantime, book
proposals have been received. The goal of the publications committee is better
documentation of American organs through an opus series, a monograph series,
and American works on other organ traditions. Publications currently in
preparation are works on Hinners, Lawrence Phelps, Murray Harris, and Susan
Tattershall's work on Spanish organs. A special 50th Anniversary edition of The
Tracker is being planned along with a history of the OHS. An ongoing project is
the Möller opus list, and a reprint of Eugene Thayer's Organist's
Quarterly Review is almost at the printers.

Closing panel

The closing panel of the symposium was moderated by Laurence
Libin, Curator of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The panel was made up of all previous panelists and speakers. Libin began by
observing that there was general agreement that documentation of instruments is
a great concern, but there had not been much discussion about what kinds of
information should be preserved and how. One example he mentioned was the
importance of oral histories. Kelvin Hastie stated that the problem in the
United States in terms of documentation was the absence of a methodology. Jack
Bethards raised the issue of going beyond academic work and doing organ
research simply for the fun of it, that there is a joy by itself in reading
older documents. Barbara Owen asked the question, "What does the
instrument itself tell?" The approach of visiting the instrument and then
following the paper trail in her view is a mutually supportive research
process. Paul Peeters and David Baker stressed the interdisciplinary nature of
organ research and the importance of research networks. Peeters specifically
drew the example of the North German Research Project, in which archival
information was very important to understanding the issues of sandcasting pipe
metal and winding systems. Libin suggested the importance of economic and
social issues, such as the function of guilds in stifling or encouraging
development. Baker also added the need for continuous vigilance to protect
archival assets. Scot Huntington added to this theme his own experience in
working with the Möller records, which represented a great deal of
technological change and invention. Jonathan Ambrosino also agreed with the
need to share information, stating that "not to share is to die." The
discussion was then opened to the floor, with symposium participants given an
opportunity to ask questions and raise additional issues. Among the topics
covered were conservation/preservation issues, professionalizing organ
research, and more effective means of disseminating information.

Archive

After lunch, the American Organ Archive was open for
participants to browse the collection or conduct research. Interest in the
archive was such that it was difficult to find a seat, and Stephen Pinel was
cheerfully busy providing assistance. I had the opportunity to conduct a little
research of my own, locating some photos for a forthcoming article, and then do
some browsing to while away the afternoon. The archive was again open on Sunday
for those who remained. I came away from this conference excited and refreshed,
not to mention with a host of more questions than when I arrived, which is the
kind of activity a quality conference stimulates. We will all be eagerly
awaiting the next symposium offering.

In closing, it should be mentioned that the American Organ
Archive is a wonderful resource for conducting research, not only on American
organs and builders, but traditions in other countries, due to the
comprehensive nature of the collection. It is significant also for music
history research not necessarily restricted to the organ, as many of the great
composers worked with other media besides the organ. Stephen Pinel and James
Wallmann are to be congratulated for brilliantly organizing a successful
symposium. Hearty thanks are also due to the members of the archive Governing
Board, the sponsors, and all those who assisted with the reception and break
time refreshments, especially Mary Jane Kress and James S. Palmer.
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The convention of conventions
Conventions are big business. Tens of thousands of like-minded people gather in huge hotels and exposition halls for orgies of sales, parties, seminars, and exhibitions. Poking around the Internet, I found that the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association expects about 130,000 attendees at their 2007 convention to be held ten days from now at the Las Vegas Convention Center. SEMA (serving the specialty automotive industry since 1963) deals with custom equipment for cars and light trucks. They are planning a seminar for the 2007 convention titled Mean and Green: Bio-fuel Hummers, Fords, and off-road machines, where they will be exhibiting a 700-horsepower Hummer powered by bio-fuel. They’re not telling what the fuel mileage will be—500 bushels-per-hour? It isn’t easy being green.
In early December, the Las Vegas Convention Center will host the NFR (National Finals Rodeo) Cowboy Christmas Gift Show. They expect 20,000 attendees. Last March the Nightclub and Bar Convention & Trade Show attracted 38,000 people, and in August 13,000 people attended the convention of the American Pool Players Association at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.
Given Las Vegas hotel prices, the cost of travel and food, and the propensity of conventioneers to consume various commodities with unusual gusto, the amount of money involved in these huge shows is incomprehensible. How do they manage the logistics? Imagine the swirl at the hotel check-in desk when 50,000 people are trying to check in on the same day.
Last week the American Institute of Organbuilders gathered at the Valley Forge Conference Center and Radisson Hotel in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The Specialty Equipment Marketing Association has about a ten-year head start in membership development. Founded in 1963, their convention is now among the largest in the country. The AIO was conceived in 1973 and chartered in 1974. I don’t know the exact count, but I believe that around 250 of us attended, and to be truthful, I doubt we’ll get into tens of thousands any time soon.
This seems like a small group, but friends who are not involved in the organ world are amazed when I tell them I’m going to a national convention involving several hundred organbuilders. These are the people who say, “I didn’t know there were any of you left.” I’m feeling pretty good, how about you?
Any convention has an exhibit hall in which vendors show their wares to members of the trade. There were almost 25 firms exhibiting at the AIO convention, including companies that provide leather, specialty tools and hardware, keyboard restoration, organ pipes, console parts, and of course, solid-state control systems. The exhibits hall is open for several hours each day, especially in the evening when it becomes the locus for the convention’s social life. After dinner people swirl through the exhibits, run into old friends, make new friends, and head off to the hotel bars in small groups.
One benefit of this tradition is the dispelling of myth—I’ve been doing business with suppliers to the organbuilding trade for 30 years, and it’s fun to meet those with whom you’ve spent countless telephone hours. You get to form a personal connection with the person who answers the phone at the order desk, and to discuss technical problems in detail with the engineers who design and build the equipment. Over the years I have found great value in knowing the people I talk with on the phone. These relationships are unspeakably valuable when I’m calling from a job site where wedding limos are showing up outside and the organ is acting up.
I got active in organbuilding in the late 1970s just as solid-state controls for pipe organs were entering the market. I had my start in workshops that specialized in tracker-action organs, and my immature understanding didn’t allow much space for digital equipment. I knew many people who resisted or ignored using it. I was fortunate to work for several years along side an old-timer who had worked personally next to Ernest Skinner (in fact, I assumed the care of two Skinner organs he had helped install in the 1920s and had maintained ever since!) who said, “that stuff is for you young guys.”
In the ensuing generation, many if not most organbuilders have had at least some experience with solid-state equipment, and many use it exclusively. Years ago, I remember being easily bewildered. I would stand trembling with my hand on the switch before turning on a system for the first time and would be looking for smoke, unfairly (to both the supplier and myself) assuming that there would be smoke to see. I handled the circuit boards as though they were poisonous, and while I understood what they were supposed to do, I had no idea how they did it.
Enough time has passed that we’ve been through generations of solid-state equipment. Looking back, the earliest systems seem pretty primitive. The companies offering them went to great trouble to make the pin-boards (rows of pins where you connect the wires from the console controls to the system) look as much like traditional pipe organ equipment as possible. Later, multiplexing was introduced—logic-based systems that reduce organ music to data streams that allow the information to be passed from console to chamber using a single wire. In my memory, multiplexing was the first scary leap. Simply put, the system is based on a clock that scans all the console outputs a prescribed number of times per second and sends a code along the wire to the chamber where it is “unscrambled” by another clock. For someone who started with trackers, it was hard to imagine that it would work or that it could be reliable. At about that time, there was a Star Trek movie during which the USS Enterprise was under reconstruction and the famous Transporter was malfunctioning. When a crew member was “beamed” up or down, the machine failed to unscramble the molecules accurately, resulting in horrible scrambling of human tissue. Would this happen to our organ music?
At first bad things did happen. One system I worked with had a clock that was going too slow, resulting in herky-jerky organ music. And lightning strikes were death. I was caring for a couple large organs that had new multiplexing systems, and I sweated out thunderstorms with good reason.
Now we are getting used to software-based systems in which the organbuilder connects the console controls (keyboards, stop knobs, piston buttons, swell shoes) to rows of pins, and using software determines which pin does what. After the organ is finished, you could decide to change divisional pistons into generals by updating the software through e-mail.
It’s fun to think back a few generations to the time when electro-pneumatic combination actions and pitman chests were introduced. Any good modern organ builder knows the symptoms of trouble in a pitman chest. But when those chests were first being perfected, technicians must have sweated out mysterious problems the way I have with solid-state gremlins.
In the exhibit hall of the AIO convention, I was most impressed by the sophistication of new developments in solid-state pipe organ controls, and even more impressed by the sophistication of my colleagues, the organbuilders, who in the last 30 years have worked hard to understand the function, uses, and benefits of this equipment. I joined in conversations in which organbuilders were suggesting improvements, offering solutions to problems, and describing innovative ways they’ve found to use existing controls. I saw an institutional comfort level that can only be to the benefit of our clients. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Because I’ve been involved in some very large organ projects in recent years, I’ve noted an important way in which organ organbuilding industry has changed. Seventy-five years ago, when American organbuilders were producing thousands of organs each year, there were a number of companies that had hundreds of employees. It was much easier for such a large company to marshal the forces to erect a 32-foot Principal, or just to transport an organ of 100 ranks or more. They had people employed in experimental roles, developing combination actions, relays, and new types of voices. Today it’s rare to find a company with 100 employees, and most companies employ fewer than ten people. In this environment, the importance of the supply house is increased as we can decide independently whether or not to build pedalboards “in house,” or which solid-state control system best fits the design and function of the console we design.
I thank the people from the companies who exhibited at the AIO convention. I appreciate the hard work you’ve done developing new products. The American organ industry is strengthened by your efforts. The fees you paid for exhibition space helped make this valuable experience possible. And thanks for the candies, wine, keychains, and door prizes you provided!
Earlier this year I wrote a two-part essay about the new life of the famous, enormous, and almost indescribable organ in the former Wanamaker’s Department Store (May and June 2007, “Size Matters”). In it, I wrote that Philadelphia boasts an unusual array of very large organs. The Wanamaker organ (6/462), the Austin organ (4/167) at Irvine Auditorium of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Dobson organ (4/124) at the Kimmel Center (home of the Philadelphia Orchestra) add up to 753 ranks in three organs that are within a few miles of each other. The Wanamaker Store and the Kimmel Center are within walking distance. The participants in the AIO convention had a wonderful opportunity to hear these three giant and wildly diverse instruments in two successive days.
While organ-people will no doubt always refer to the Wanamaker Store in Philadelphia, credit must be given to Macy’s Department Store, now the proprietor of this most grand of retail spaces. Robin Hall is an executive vice-president in charge of Macy’s Department of Annual Events, the group that produces the Thanksgiving Day Parade and July Fourth Fireworks along with numerous flower shows and musical reviews. There can be no division of a modern American corporation more enthusiastic or better equipped for the care of this most singular of pipe organs. In the brief period since their occupation of the store, they have funded extensive and expensive long-needed repairs, provided a large amount of space in the building dedicated to an organbuilding workshop, and established a collegial relationship with Curt Mangel, curator of the organ, and Peter Conte, Grand Court organist. To hear Peter and Curt talk about the people of Macy’s is to hear a gushing exceeded only by the amazing sounds of the organ itself. (Please refer to this column in the May and June issues of The Diapason for more about the Wanamaker Organ.)
Anyone who has attended an organ convention knows the bus rides—hundreds of like-minded people rattling across the countryside on a tight schedule to hear and see organs. Along with the organ demonstrations, there were workshop tours (Patrick J. Murphy & Associates and Nelson Barden at Longwood Gardens), workshop seminars on mounting toe-studs, stenciling façade pipes, and rebuilding Spencer organ blowers, and lectures in a large conference room at the convention hotel. Those lectures were on subjects as diverse as rebuilding and repairing Möller pitman chests, recovering keyboards, and conflict resolution.
Patrick Murphy, whose organbuilding workshop is in Stowe, Pennsylvania, was the chair of the convention, and the staff of his company was present throughout answering questions, guiding us as sheep on and off the buses on schedule, and providing a cheerful and welcoming presence. Randall Dyer (Randall Dyer & Associates of Jefferson City, Tennessee) is the chair of the AIO’s Convention Overview Committee. These folks deserve the gratitude of America’s pipe organ community for their contribution to the education, celebration, and advancement of American organbuilders.
I have always thought that organbuilders are a collegial bunch. Although we are competing with each other in a small market, we are typically willing to assist each other with advice and exchange of ideas, and even by sharing workers when projects get larger than a small staff can handle. But during most of the working year, we are buried in organ chambers in our own areas, seemingly out of touch with what our colleagues are doing. In King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, we came out of our holes blinking in the sunlight, and shared a wonderful week of professional growth and companionship. Nice to see you all. See you in Knoxville next year.■

New directions in US organ research

Quiet successfully the Organ Historical Society has added a new feature to its activities. On October 12-14, 2000, some sixty scholars and friends gathered at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, Princeton--where the OHS Archives are housed--for "New Directions in American Organ Research, a Symposium Exploring New Directions of Organ Research in America." The symposium was designed to showcase the handsomely arranged archives, in Westminster's Talbott Library, and archivist Stephen L. Pinel was the justifiably proud host. The symposium was chaired by John  Ogasapian, professor of music history at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and a former editor of The Tracker. Attendees were treated to talks, discussion, and an organ recital. Hopes were voiced that symposia such as this might become a regular, perhaps annual, OHS offering. This reviewer, with a few qualifications, readily agrees.

The first speaker, at an informal reception in the archives room itself, was Barbara Owen. She recalled that at the very first meeting of the OHS a triple program took shape: the organ visits that soon ripened into the annual conventions, a journal--The Tracker, and an archive. She warmly congratulated archivist Pinel for the skill and zeal--and countless hours of 'overtime"--that have brought the archive to its present stature. It is the largest such archive--anywhere. Its primary focus is, of course, printed materials about the organ. In fact, it has a noteworthy collection of organ scores, but the emphasis does not lie there. (Collecting scores is the emphasis, however, of Talbott Library, on the floor below, and also, importantly, of the Boston Organ Library, housed at Boston University. The holdings of all three collections are in the process of being listed in Internet catalogues.) Talbott Library is also the Princeton repository of organ recordings. (Librarian Nancy Wicklund was on hand to explain the workings of her institution.) Ms. Owen noted that archives such as this, while laboring to amass past documentation, will soon be, and to some extent already are, confronted with large new dimensions of information--data that are in one way or another generated by or stored (only) in computers. Increasingly, for example, organ shops generate no working drawings of the kind that can be folded up and put into an envelope. She is the organ editor of the forthcoming Grove's Dictionary VII, and pointed out that articles in it will have Internet-accessible bibliographical updating. In response Stephen Pinel reminded the audience that an archive is not exactly like an active library; of course, scholars use it as such, but its principal reason for being is to preserve information--in whatever form. Scholars use it as a library, but so do students, and the OHS Archive is located at an institution that teaches a significant number of undergraduate organ majors.

It is worth remarking that this, hopefully, was the first such symposium. As a result, most of the talk took up "that which is to be done," and was less systematic, or theme-dominated, than what might be expected in the future. In his introduction to the prepared papers, Ogasapian suggested that the following of the organ in the US is "self-referential and limited," however perverse this might seem--too much associated, in the public mind, with religion, an ingredient (as sound tracks make plain) in Victorian kitsch. He speculated that sometimes exactitude in performance practice might be self-defeating; audiences might respond better to the performer's act in itself, or to the charm and complexity of the instrument itself.

The first two papers given might best be understood as examples of organ research, or of how further organ research might be carried out. Independent scholar Lynn Edwards drew attention to the new "Bach organ" in the Thomaskirche, Leipzig, and how it attempts to recreate the c. 1700 organ built for Johann Christoph Bach in Eisenach. J.S. Bach almost certainly played this organ, and yet it is probably illusory to continue the search for the "ideal Bach organ." A thorough professional and practical musician, he performed as well as he could on the organ at hand. What we can, however, understand better is the full spectrum of the organs at hand. Recent efforts at investigation and restoration in the erstwhile DDR have shifted our focus somewhat from Schnitger and Silbermann. Organ author Rollin Smith next spoke about organ ephemera--advertising pieces, service programs, posters, newspaper clippings, visiting cards, and the like. He provided samples, a nicely got up folio of all the above, including a fine color reproduction of the eleven-year-old  Verdi conducting from the console! The point of "that which is for only a day" is its immediacy: this is what they were doing, this is what they played. The field is open for our interpretation, but ephemera are hard data (at least of someone's advertising spin, if not Verdi's career); amassing ephemera produces, eventually, insights available in no other way. It tends to be the first thing pitched out when clean-ups occur. So keep a sharp eye out.

The second set of two papers dealt with, to say the least, broad vistas. If they sinned, they sinned by being a bit diffuse. Laurence Libin, curator of musical instruments at the Metropolitan Museum, suggested some quasi-philosophical perspectives on current organ research. Gone for good is the musical Darwinism of earlier efforts to understand the past, the idea that Western music is the leading edge of world music, and that Western music is improving--Wagner, say, being a mighty advance from the medievals. It would be better to consider various kinds of composition and performance practice as not only relevant to the time when they appeared but as permanently valid. Evolution may be considered to be adaptation to randomly changed circumstances. Importantly, changed circumstances include changes (apparently we should not say improvements) in the construction of instruments, so that instrument-making does in the end provide a driving force in the development of new musical styles. But how can, or will, the pipe organ change?

A rather more optimistic approach was taken by British organ historian Stephen Bicknell. The organ may well be contemplated with an emphasis on its abiding being as an artifact--as one would contemplate a famous if multi-faceted painting. No one has established that, somehow, organ pipes mellow with age, but they do stay around for successive, comparative modes of contemplation. Great organs exist as artistic wholes, and while they come about as vehicles for a repertory there is nonetheless much to be learned from viewing them as artifacts in their own right.

The first full day of the symposium ended with a fine organ recital by Westminster faculty member Stefan Engels on the 1935 Aeolian-Skinner in the chapel. He played the Bach Toccata, Adagio and Fugue; two of Vierne's Pièces de fantaisie; Dupré's second symphony; and two Karg-Elert works, his arrangement of Wagner's Meistersinger prelude and the rarely heard Kaleidoscope, an extended 1930 piece that is quite interesting (and may be found in the OHS Archive).

The final meeting of the symposium was devoted to free-ranging discussion. Points raised included, first, the real need for serious scholarship in the US. There have been exemplary books written in recent years in the US (including, I hasten to add, those of Rollin Smith), but it may be that The Tracker should expand or acquire a sister journal to accommodate real monographs. Secondly, a promising topic for a future symposium might be, in broadest terms, "the social history of the organ"--something along the lines of Arthur Loesser's Men, Women and Pianos or Craig Roell's The Piano in America.

The symposium was successful. There was a great deal of friendly, informed conversation among very intelligent well-informed scholars and friends of the organ. But the symposium was also successful in a way that, perhaps, its originators did not intend: the way presentations and conversations tended to gallop off in all directions really did offer a picture of current US organ research. There is a wealth of monographs done or in the making. There is a dearth of received modes of conceptualizing the area of interest as a whole. There is as a result a persistent anxiety as to how to reposition the organ in US culture. We need to distinguish more carefully between US organ history and the history of organs in other places that happens to be written by US citizens; there are many stories here, not just one. We probably need to work up a more purely secular rationale for being interested in the organ--I mean being interested not only in concert-hall organs but also in the secular value and content of any organ. We surely need more information on how the organ was "positioned" in previous space-time settings. So there is much for future symposia to do; it would doubtless be best to take up a single topic on each occasion.

Joseph Fitzer is a freelance organist and independent scholar living in the Chicago area.

http://www.carillons/caught.in.the.net/

Sydney J. Shep is Associate Carillonneur of the National War Memorial Carillon in Wellington, New Zealand. She wrote this reflection on carillon web sites for the newsletter of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. Dr. Shep is also a Printing Fellow at the Wai-te-ata Press at Victoria University of Wellington.

New tech, high tech, more tech, no tech? As everyone gets on the proverbial bandwagon to create web sites, the world of the carillon is no exception. In this review of carillon sites, I want to survey some of the existing sites,  assess them according to some principles of effective web design, look at the fundamental nature of the electronic medium, and point out the pitfalls for those contemplating their own entry into this new performance field.

What are the advantages of a web site? As most of us are aware, the contemporary hunger for information has engendered a network of facts and figures which requires a different kind of tool for efficient access and navigation. The internet is one such tool which complements but does not substitute for existing tools. This is particularly true both in its role as a dynamic, continually updateable, on-line database and in its populist form, the newest vehicle for super-marketing and advertising. Print-based resources still have a place in our lives and consciousness,  and books are definitely not dead. So, what information about the carillon can be best delivered through the internet rather than through any other communication medium? Pictures, sound, video, statistics, recital programs, publications? Most of these, yes; some, definitely not; and others, well, design is everything.

Virtually all web sites these days include a picture of the tower, possibly the bells themselves, maybe even the clavier and performer. Great--a picture can paint a thousand words. But remember, not all computers have image-capabilities and those that do may not be operated by a user who wants to spend time (and money) downloading a full-screen, full-color bitmap. A useful text tag describing the image both permits the non-image user to feel part of the imaginative net-scape, and acts as a signal for the image-capable to click here if s/he so desires. Another shortcut is to provide only a thumbnail of the image with a hypertext link to its "full" size version, but again, use the full-size image opportunity to add a caption line.

Many web designers think images add a little spice to the page to save it from boredom and inertia. However,  a few images here and there, surrounded by text so dense you might as well read it in a book is not the answer. Screen resolution is an eyewearying 72 dpi, not the 1220-2400 dpi we are accustomed to in print. For example, if you are presenting a guided tour of your carillon, don't let the text do the driving. Add graphic navigational aids like maps and pointers. Otherwise, you are encouraging the reader to download to a print version, and haven't you then lost the whole point of using this electronic medium? On this point, compare <http://www.chapel.duke.edu/chapel/tour.htm&gt; Duke University Chapel with <http://smith2.sewanee.edu/gsmith/MapServe/AllSaints.html&gt; All Saint's Chapel.

Furthermore, like creating an advertising slogan or a poster, the web site requires a different kind of writing--clear, concise, to the point--definitely more a report than an essay. Hypertext links assist in ordering these chains of information nuggets. Think of the home page as both cover and table of contents, not the whole book itself. Since first impressions are everything, the home page can either tempt your reader to continue the journey, or can turn her/him away completely. A simple, catchy layout with the primary facts plus a road map for further exploration all in the space of one screen, are sufficient for the home page. The advent of frames and tables-supporting browsers has led to greater awareness of the need for simple design, a tune called KISS ("Keep It Simple, Stupid") which paper-based graphic designers have been singing for decades. Good examples are found at: <http://www.cis.yale.edu/carillon/&gt; Yale University Carillon and at <http://www.bells.usyd.ed.au/&gt; University of Sydney War Memorial Carillon.

Through several levels of linking hierarchy (the pros suggest three levels maximum--with four you're in danger of getting lost yourself), a large amount and variety of information can be presented, but order it in advance to help your readers along the path.

Let them savor the information byte by dark chocolate byte rather than confusing them with the whole cake. And to prevent information overweight, recall what Dorothy says in "The Wizard of Oz"--there's no place like home. At the bottom of each page, a "Home" or "Back to Home Page" link provides a way of getting out of the sensory maze. For the overindulgent, take a look at <http://www.cict.fr/toulouse/carillon/carillons.html&gt; if you want to be overwhelmed by blinking video clips, dark image backgrounds and text which is barely decipherable. We are in the business to communicate, even in the postmodern world, n'est-ce pas?

Additional multimedia features available on the net can be a trap. As with images, both sound and even more so, video, require enormous amounts of time to download, memory, and specialist software. Are the results worth it? Let's look at sound for a moment, something most folks probably think is an ideal marketing tool for an instrument which, after all, is an audio experience. We all know that the carillon and its acoustical environment is one of the most difficult instruments to record, new digital technologies notwithstanding. Translate that to computer reproduction on the net and are you really doing the carillon a favor by including a sound byte? A barely recognizable, 410K, 20-second morsel of Jef Denyn complete with high-volume hiss and overmodulation certainly doesn't do justice to the composer, performer or instrument. Ditto, a 312K, 30-second, unnamed and unnameable folksong. As the net is becoming more and more a powerful marketing tool, you could be responsible for turning people right off the carillon because your sonic shorthand is  such an inadequate representation of the real thing. No wonder an electronic carillon sounds like a better option for the un- or mis-informed!

Until sound reproduction is more advanced on the computer, an excellent solution is to list where good-quality carillon recordings can be bought. The easiest mechanism for this is to include a linked e-mail address for further information, or even an order form if you are in the distribution business yourself and have no qualms about electronic commerce. If you want to list recordings, music editions, catalogs, or other statistical information, you need to provide clearly, visually-oriented material. Take the example of music composition. Some organizations go to a lot of work to provide octave range capabilities of the music they are selling, recognizing that most carillonneurs are shopping for music they can play on their own instruments, or music of a particular variety such as original compositions, arrangements, solo, duets, etc. So, rather than long composer/title lists which make the screen-reader go cross-eyed in short order, why not provide a set of links starting with instrument size, or with genre of music. Shaping the information in a manner appropriate to the instrument and its musicians is important. Long alphabetized lists just don't sell your product to carillonneurs or anyone else out there.

And, don't forget to update your information. The whole advantage of the net is that it provides the opportunity to furnish the most recent information. Such dynamic, online database capabilities are useless if the material is inaccurate or obviously outdated. The record of last year's concerts, workshops, and congresses may provide an interesting archive of facts and figures, but does nothing for the image of an institution if such information is tired and worn, or worded in the present tense. In the hiatus between annual events, why not include a general announcement about forthcoming events and retain last year's to give an indication as to the breadth of programming. The need to be vigilant about this is an essential part of the public profile of the instrument Similarly, don't rely on someone else to tell you when your links to other sites no longer work. It is your responsibility to check them regularly or use one of the software packages that can autocheck for you. There is nothing so frustrating to the first-time surfie or seasoned user to come up with a screen which shouts "URL Not Found." This also goes for many web sites which have changed servers or directory architecture and are likewise inaccessible unless you too change your html files.

Finally, where to start to get an overview of the wealth of carillon sites out there today and to assess their strengths and weaknesses? Most people begin with the proprietary search engines which come with your browser software: yahoo, lycos, etc. Yahoo's search pulls up nine entries for carillon; judge for yourself their relevance to our concerns: the Lubbock, Texas "Carillon Retirement Center" (not a bell in sight except for the corporate identity); two entries for electronic carillon manufacture (why spend money and time on old bells when you can have the chime master system); and most obscurely of all, the University of Regina's long-standing student newspaper entitled (what else) "Carillon." Lycos is more fruitful, with 1,225 "relevant documents," the first 19 out of 20 at least having something to do with the bell instrument we all know and love. In the interests of time and sanity, I suggest you bypass this route completely and jump to an excellent point of departure, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut Guild of Carillonneurs' home page, URL <http://www.trincoll.edu/~carrill/carillon.html&gt;. In one hit, the major carillon installations worldwide are available for your surfing pleasure. Enjoy!

Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of THE DIAPASON.

James Kibbie is perhaps best known through his position as professor of organ at the University of Michigan, where he has served on the organ faculty since 1981. Also quite active as a performer and clinician, Kibbie is at present involved in a project to record all of J. S. Bach’s organ works, with the recordings to be made available, free of charge, through Internet distribution rather than CDs (see www.blockmrecords.org). A portent of this is Kibbie’s own website (www-personal.umich.edu/~jkibbie/), where the professor has presented a yearly “Christmas card” of a downloadable performance, recorded on the Létourneau instrument at his home. We talked with James Kibbie during a visit he made in May 2007 to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois to present a recital and masterclass.

Joyce Robinson: Let’s begin by asking how you got “the bug.”
James Kibbie: I’m from Iowa! A lot of organists are from Iowa, and the way I got interested in the organ was the way that every single organist does, by hearing it played in church. It is a really valuable thing for churches to allow young musicians access to the organ. That was the case in the congregation where I grew up, and I think that experience is what creates organists.

JR: Did you come from a musical home? Were your parents musicians? Did they encourage your musical studies?
JK: My mother was a pianist, and I begged her to teach me to play. She was a school teacher, and she knew kids pretty well. She was smart enough not to try to force me to practice. Instead, the rule was that either I practiced regularly, or I had to give up completely and never touch the piano. That was enough motivation (sometimes just barely). My father was also a teacher, and he believed fervently that young people should pursue their own dreams and goals, wherever that led them. He always encouraged me, though I think it was a surprise to him to have a musician for a son.

JR: I notice you are wearing a POE shirt!
JK: This is from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a couple of years ago. I am so hot on this idea of pipe organ encounters! They have been enormously successful. I’ve taught at a number of them with somewhat different formats, and it turns out that any format for the POE works, because if you just bring young people together with the organ, the instrument sells itself.

JR: AGO statistics don’t show college enrollments going up. By now POEs should have had an effect, but they don’t seem to be increasing enrollment in organ programs.
JK: We’re doing well with enrollment at the University of Michigan. Not just in numbers, but in terms of quality—phenomenally gifted students, particularly undergrads. We routinely see now on résumés from students who are applying that they have as high school students attended at least one, many times more than one, POE. We definitely see the results—not just in numbers, but in the level of preparation for students.

JR: That’s reassuring. Now where did you get your bachelor’s degree?
JK: What at that time was called North Texas State University. It’s now the University of North Texas. I got bachelor’s and master’s there, with Donald Willing.

JR: And then you went on to Michigan, and you studied with Marilyn Mason—who’s now your colleague!
JK: Yes. I was really lucky—I had those two master teachers, who are very different as musicians and as people, but they were both so kind to me. And it turned out later that they were both exactly the right teacher for me at that particular time in my development.

JR: You went on to win some competitions—the Grand Prix de Chartres and the Prague competition. You had recorded and played music of Czech composers—Ropek, for example—was that an outgrowth of the competition?
JK: This was in 1979, at the height of the Cold War, so it was a very different place than the Czech Republic is now. After the winner’s recital at Dvořak Hall in Prague, Jiří Ropek came up and introduced himself and invited me to have dinner with him and his family. He was professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory and also organist at St. James Church, which is a historic church in the Old Town section of Prague. That started a long, warm friendship. In fact, one of the pieces I’m playing tonight is his variations on Victimae Paschali—he gave me a copy of the score to those variations at that first dinner, and said that he hoped maybe I would learn them and perform them, and I have performed them many times over the years. He passed away in 2005.
During the first years that I knew him, we corresponded—though not too often, because he said if he received too many letters from the West, it was a red flag to the Communist authorities, and he got in trouble, because he was a known opponent of the Communist regime, so it was certainly easier for him after the fall of Communism. He had earned a doctorate at the Carolinian University in Prague, but the Communist government had prevented it being awarded. Finally, in 1990, when Communism ended, the university could officially award him the doctorate that he earned over 40 years earlier. It’s remarkable!

JR: You’ve been at the University of Michigan now for over a quarter of a century!
JK: That’s right, 26 years. I love it! I get up most mornings looking forward to most of the things I’m going to do that day. I realize that’s a gift that not everyone has.

JR: Over the course of over a quarter of a century you must have noticed some changes, both in the program and in the students.
JK: There have been big changes in the field of church music, and all of us are either working as church musicians, or teaching students who will work as church musicians, so it’s central to everything that we do. I don’t think anyone of us could have foreseen all of the ways that church music has changed over the past 25 years. That means we can’t foresee how it’s going to change in the next 25 years.
I’ve been thinking about this—how do I prepare my students when I can’t foresee exactly all of the ways they’re going to need to change and adapt professionally? The answer must be to return to core values—to teach the commitment to excellence. If I can communicate to students that there’s one standard of music-making for everything that we do—our best effort—that is the thing that will serve them well no matter how the field changes.
If I’m coaching how you play an ornament in Bach, or how you achieve a legato line in Franck, I’m not just dealing with that repertoire, I’m modeling for the student this attention to detail and integration of all of the elements of performance that they’re going to have to rely on to create music in ways that I might not be able to imagine right now.

JR: Do you talk with your students about the job situation in church music?
JK: Yes, and without apology, we position our students to compete for the jobs at the top end. There the situation is quite favorable—salary, working conditions, the artistic content of the jobs—can be very satisfying. Where our profession is really struggling is in the part-time positions, particularly in some communities where there is not a tradition of paying well for church musicians. Those aren’t the kind of jobs necessarily that our graduates from the University of Michigan apply for, but they’re the jobs that the majority of our professional colleagues nationally are holding.

JR: Have any of your prior students been in touch with you and communicated that a church job they were in was starting to go in the “happy- clappy” direction?
JK: Oh my, yes, sure! (laughter) But if nothing else, we can take Johann Sebastian Bach as our model—if things don’t go well in a church job, you look for another one, but you don’t quit the present job until you find the new job first, which is what he did!

JR: Can you discuss the imbalance of today’s high level of talent, yet fewer college teaching positions and fewer upper-rank positions for church musicians?
JK: I recall something that I heard about the American jurist Daniel Webster. When he was a young man, he apparently wanted to become a lawyer. He went to his father and said, “I’m interested in the law as a profession, but it’s very crowded. I’m not sure about the job prospects.” His father said, “Remember—there’s always room at the top.” I’ve told that story to my students countless times. The answer for them is that they have to position themselves in terms of their abilities and their résumé and their preparation to compete at the top.

JR: How has your teaching changed over the last 25 years? Do you use different method books now?
JK: The longer I’ve taught, the more comfortable I’ve become communicating my own point of view. That’s what students come to their teacher for, and ultimately it’s all the teacher has to offer. I’ve used several method books successfully, but I keep coming back to The Organist’s Manual (love the pun) by Roger Davis. It has a superb selection of repertoire and just the right amount of technical exercises and explanations. If students balk at the price, I explain how expensive it would be to buy all of the repertoire separately.
When I was a freshman organ major, I assumed I’d study the “canon” of great organ music. Most organ students still expect that today, but there has to be room in our canon for great, noble music by living composers, including women, and music from many cultures and traditions—African-American composers, for example.

JR: At the University of Michigan there is a scholarship fund established in your name. How’s that going?
JK: It’s going very well! It’s endowed permanently, so we award it in perpetuity every year. It’s one of a number of named scholarships that we have and it is so necessary. You know that the costs of education are far beyond many families’ ability to pay, and church musicians don’t have the potential for large income after graduation the way some other fields do, so we have to have scholarship funding for our students. It’s essential.

JR: That’s quite a tribute. It was your students who set that up.
JK: They did, and it was done at the conclusion of the complete Bach works series that I played in 2000. It was announced at the final concert of that Bach series. They “passed the hat” at that concert, and then one of my alums, Dr. Edward Maki-Schramm, led the fund-raising, and it’s done very well since.

JR: As musicology evolves there’s always something new in performance practice. Do you keep integrating this with your teaching?
JK: I do, and particularly for older music—Bach and Buxtehude—there are so many questions that all of us have that must be answered just to play the piece. That’s what I concentrate on—the practical performance-based decision-making that performers must face. I have gradually come to understand that some of those questions—for example, in Bach’s time—had a precise answer. Whether or not I can discover it after more than 250 years is another question. Some of those questions never had a single answer. There was a range of possibilities open to the performer, and the individual performer was expected to make personal choices from that range of what was possible or appropriate.
That’s what resulted in a unique personal performance, which is so vital to all music, especially Baroque music. Performing Bach or Buxtehude is more of a partnership between the composer and the performer than is true of music of some later generations. I have increasingly moved in teaching to encouraging students to identify what that range of possibilities, historically, is, and to make their own choices within that range to create a performance that might be very different from my conception of a work—or someone else’s—but still faithful to the intent of the composer.

JR: Do you have an overall philosophy of performance practice?
JK: What I value most in music performance is the sense of certainty—a compelling performance, a convincing performance: “This is the way it goes!” Dr. Karl Schrock, one of my doctoral students years ago, said to me, “I think the most authentic performance is a convincing performance.” I have decided that what creates that sense of being so convincing is not just making effective decisions about all of the issues of performance—registration, tempo, ornamentation, articulation, nuance—but that intuitive ability of some performers to integrate all of their choices into a single vision of the music.
That’s what I concentrate on in teaching. When I judge competitions, I think that’s what I respond to—not necessarily looking for somebody who plays the piece the way I do, but who creates that sense of certainty.

JR: Some performers maintain that Bach, for instance, should be played in a certain way.
JK: Anybody who knows the nature of the historic record has to acknowledge that there is so much we don’t know. The answer to so many of these questions is—we don’t know. If anyone pretends to know how Bach played the organ, they’re deluding themselves. We have to be intellectually honest enough to be able to say the words “I don’t know.”

JR: Bach was such a musician and so knowledgeable about the organ; if he had the instruments and technology we have today, would he have used them?
JK: He might have written very different music. All of these people—Bach, Buxtehude, Franck, Dan Locklair—are using the materials that they have at hand to create great music: the kind of organs, the way people play the organ, the abilities of the musicians they’re working with. And because they’re geniuses, they use that raw material to create great musical works. So then if, after the work is created, I depart from that, I introduce anachronisms—the word means “out of time,” something that doesn’t belong to the time of the composition—I weaken it.
Even though it’s true that Bach might have used different sorts of organ effects that weren’t available to him then, the fact is that not having had them, he wrote music that doesn’t need them. Actually, by introducing them, we’re weakening the musical content of what he provided us. Our generation’s contribution to the understanding of performance practice has been that the music sounds best if you hear it approximately in the context of how the composer conceived it. Within that, as I said, there’s so much that we don’t know.
Our generation hasn’t grappled with what may be the central question: if I can create a 100% authentic performance, if I could play the organ exactly as it existed, the instrument that Bach knew, in exactly the acoustics, and play every detail of the performance exactly as Bach did it, my audience would be listening to it with 21st-century ears, not 18th-century ears. As a result, it’s a radically different piece of music.
We have not begun to address that limit on authenticity, and I think it’s probably the next generation that’s going to have to grapple with that. Our generation seems not to have been willing to think about that.

JR: One of the current trends in organ building is in the direction of larger scales and higher wind pressures—we’ve moved away from the Orgelbewegung and now we’re in another direction. Is this a fad?
JK: The best organ builders may draw inspiration from various historic periods, but they invariably build instruments that are of their own time and their own place, and that reflect the personality of that builder. The artistic direction of the particular builder doesn’t come essentially from historic models; you can learn from E. M. Skinner or Arp Schnitger or whomever, but the finest builders must gradually develop their artistic personality. I am not as interested in historic modeling as I am in the quality mechanically and tonally of the instruments, judged by contemporary standards.

JR: You have a Létourneau instrument.
JK: In my house—I’m so proud of it. We have another Létourneau at the University of Michigan. My colleague Michele Johns recently led a project to relocate that organ to a newly created small concert hall that’s a joint project of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and the School of Public Health. It will be the focus of an ongoing series of chamber music concerts and will also be used for teaching and practice. The room is great—cabaret seating, a catering kitchen, and even a rose garden.

JR: Let’s talk about the instruments at the University of Michigan.
JK: Our students typically have some of their lessons on the big four-manual E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner organ in Hill Auditorium, some lessons on our Fisk in the style of Gottfried Silbermann, and some lessons on one of the two studio organs. We also have the Létourneau organ in its beautiful new hall, and we have a number of tracker and electric-action practice organs. All are pipe organs, of course. That’s what students expect, and only a pipe organ allows for performance of the repertoire to the standards we require. We also have access to some fine organs in local churches—Ann Arbor is a great “organ town.”

JR: Did you choose a Létourneau for yourself because of the one at the university?
JK: Yes, and because I had worked as consultant on a number of projects where Létourneau had been the builder chosen, and I developed a particular fondness and respect for his instruments. When I got this house organ in 2000, I wanted to make a little recording—sort of like a baby picture, you know, the proud parent!—so I recorded a partita Hugo Distler had written for his own house organ and put it on my website as a free download at Christmas time. That began what’s now an annual tradition.

JR: Your Christmas card!
JK: Yes! And I tracked the month-by-month downloads for those various recordings, and where the requests for downloads were coming from. It’s phenomenal, the number of people that month after month download these little house organ recordings—from Romania, China, western Europe, South Africa—all over the world! That’s what alerted me to the importance of this field of Internet downloads, and it’s one of the things that made me decide to release the Bach recordings as free Internet downloads rather than as commercial CDs.

JR: Do you have a grant for the Bach recordings?
JK: It’s very expensive, about $60,000 over three years to make the recordings, plus the expenses connected with the website. I puzzled a long time over how it could be possible. Then Dr. Barbara Sloat came to see me. I hadn’t met her before, but she explained she wanted to do something to honor her husband Barry, who was nearing the end of his life. He had attended all 18 recitals in the complete Bach series I had given at the University of Michigan in 2000. She wanted particularly to recognize Barry’s interest in the organ and in Bach, and she offered a very generous donation toward my Bach recording project. The University of Michigan has provided the remainder of the funding.
It’s a three-year project to record the complete organ works of Bach on historic 18th-century organs in Germany. As the recordings are made and mastered, they’re put on this website (www.blockmrecordings.com), sponsored by the University of Michigan, so that they can just be downloaded free by anybody, anywhere in the world.

JR: Your project is recording Bach on historic instruments. What were the criteria you used for choosing instruments to record on?
JK: There’s no single “Bach organ,” because he wrote for such different instruments over the course of his life, from the North German organs he knew in his youth to the late Baroque organs of his Leipzig years. I haven’t tried to make my recordings an anthology of historic organs. I’ve chosen a limited number of instruments, so I can deal with each instrument in detail. The 2007 recordings are on three Silbermann organs, the one-manual and two-manual instruments in Rötha, and the magnificent three-manual organ in the Dresden Kathedrale. About seven hours of repertoire on these organs is now posted on the website.

JR: Robert Clark recorded on the organ at Naumburg. Is that one of the instruments?
JK: No, instead I’m using two Trost organs next year that have a similar late-Baroque character, in Waltershausen and Grossengottern. But I love that recording of Robert Clark! I think the performer, the repertoire and the organ all match perfectly. He must have thought a long time in putting it together—selecting not only the organ, but the pieces that would go with the organ and go with him and what he wanted to do. I think it’s one of the great Bach recordings.

JR: What will you tackle next after your Bach project on the Internet?
JK: Bach is enough to think about right now, but I’ve already decided that my reward in 2009, when I finish all of the Bach recordings, is going to be particularly to go back to the organ works of Franck. It’s been several years since I’ve performed Grande pièce symphonique, for example. I’ve performed all of the Franck works, but I’m looking forward to going back to them as a sort of reward for finishing the Bach project.

JR: Do you have any favorite instruments that you like to play, besides your own?
JK: Instruments that belong to the time and place where they were built, not instruments that try to do everything, but instruments that do one thing, or one slice of the pie, particularly well. If you have a beautiful instrument, it lends its beauty and its integrity to anything that you play on it. Silbermann never thought of his organs playing anything other than contemporary music—music of 18th-century Germany—and yet churches with Silbermann organs have very multi-faceted musical programs, and the organ is central to that music program now in the 21st century as much as it was in the 18th, in ways that Silbermann couldn’t imagine. Because the instrument is so beautiful and so well built, it becomes flexible over time.

JR: Do you have an overall hopeful view of the organ world, especially in our culture? Ours is a culture of mediocrity, feeding off the bottom. How do we who feed off more lofty things deal with this?
JK: I’m enormously optimistic. The level of organ performance right now in this country is the highest that it’s been, I think anywhere, historically. The students, particularly the undergraduate students that we’re getting at the University of Michigan, are some of the finest talents that we’ve ever had. The quality of organ building is as high as it’s ever been in this country; there are new pipe organs being built all the time, including some really significant instruments in high-visibility venues. I am not worried!