In the wind . . .

Improbable recipes
My father is a retired Episcopal priest and as long as I’ve been in the organ business—starting as a teenager ostensibly growing up in the rectory—I’ve enjoyed corresponding with him about church music. We’ve spent countless hours together in section 26 (row 4, seats 13 and 14) at Fenway Park in Boston, watching the Red Sox play, and I’ve often reflected that we might be the only priest-organist team in the place. Last week Dad sent me the newsletter from the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, Massachusetts, the church where he was rector as I was growing up (The newsletter is called Three Crowns. Get it, Epiphany?), because the church’s music director had written a nice blurb about an upcoming musical service:

Trapped on the paper, it is just a lot of lines and squiggles, circles and flags, black and white—an ancient language, undecipherable to the uninitiated. But to those who are “called” to it, music on the page is the door to a multi-colored, “sensational” world, both a challenge and a reward for heart, mind, and soul . . .
It seems improbable that a few dozen pages of black and white “directions” could convey the recipe for an opera, or a symphony—and yet they do. But it is only the recipe. It takes a parish choir to pick up the pages, to apply much valuable time and energy, to learn the skills in order to share this amazing transformation with each other, with a church family, and in the praise of the Creator who has gifted us with the miracle that is music.
Take a look at the website of this wonderful parish, <www.3crowns.org&gt;. Suzanne McAllister has been minister of music there for many years, leading a vibrant and relevant choir program and playing the 1974 Fisk organ. This is the church where more than forty years ago I sang in the choirs and was inspired to learn to play the organ.
What is all this that we do? Whose idea was it that we would make a livelihood of flailing at a stack of keyboards during worship? Whose idea was it to solder up a lot of pewter tubes and make of them a musical instrument? And how did it ever get to be that a lot of squiggles printed on a sheet of paper can be read as organized sound?

§

I love the thought that a printed score is a recipe for a piece of music. When cooking, we can personalize a recipe by substituting lime for lemon or by fudging the amount of sugar or spice. When playing or singing a piece of music, we can personalize the recipe by adding a trill, by altering the tempo, or even by adding passing notes, altering harmonies, and (God forbid) improvising cadenzas. The older I get, the harder it is for me to accept the idea that just because we know (or assume) that a piece of music was composed by Uncle Johann it is therefore sacrosanct, that it is somehow illegal to change a note or two for the sake of fun. If, as we are taught, that it’s true that much of Bach’s music is improvisations that happened to get written down, do we imagine that it would please himself that dozens of generations of musicians are then forbidden to mess around with it?
Cooking is one of my favorite pastimes and I seldom cook directly from a recipe. I love to try to replicate something I had in a restaurant or something I remember eating when traveling, and I think it’s fun to fool with ingredients. For a long time I cooked “without a net”—throwing things together that I thought would taste well—and was often disappointed when the meat turned out tough, when the sauce congealed, and when one ingredient in a dish was overcooked while another was raw. With experience and lots of reading, I’ve learned a little of the chemistry of cooking and I’m disappointed less often.
During my recent trip to Thailand, I was thrilled with everything I ate. For many years I’ve enjoyed Thai cuisine as it is served in American restaurants, and while much of what I ate in Thailand was familiar (lots of what you eat in a Thai restaurant here is authentic), there was an unmistakable native flair about it in Thailand. My host had run a Thai restaurant in “The States” and was familiar with many of the recipes and ingredients we were enjoying, so I was given good insight into how the flavors are blended, and I looked forward to trying to re-create dishes. Before I came home, I bought several cookbooks and some of the particular spices and flavorings I assumed would be difficult to find here.
In my first excursions as a Thai chef, I adhered closely to the recipes and was pleased with how the unfamiliar ingredients morphed into the dishes I enjoy. A creative amateur cook can dream up a great-tasting batch of something that looks like the ubiquitous noodle dish Pad Thai, but until you get a jar of tamarind paste (available at Whole Foods, believe it or not) you’ll not get the authentic taste. Tamarind is a sticky, gooey, tarry substance that comes from a tree. It’s close to jet black in color and it’s hard to imagine that it’s something that occurs in nature—it looks more like one of the lubricants I use in my workshop. Taste it straight from the jar and you’ll be puckering for the rest of the day—ptooey! But when it’s mixed with fish sauce and lime juice, it produces an elixir that transforms a plate of noodles into ambrosia. All you need to add is rice noodles, onion, chicken, shrimp, chopped peanuts, tofu, green onions, and bean sprouts.
Now that I’ve gotten the hang of some basic flavors that are the core of Thai cuisine, I find that when you sauté almost any meat or fish with onions, add the cooked meat to a sauce of coconut milk, curry paste of any color, and lime juice, and throw in a couple handfuls of frozen peas you get a yummy slurry. If you like it spicy, add some red chili sauce. Scoop it over jasmine rice and you’ll recognize it as Thai food.

Musical ingredients
Our serious classical musical educations teach us the accepted and traditional use of the rare but essential ingredients. Figuratively, we know where in a Bach Prelude and Fugue we should put the tamarind. In fact, we can say that without the figurative tamarind you might argue whether it’s Bach or not. But some chopped toasted peanuts, a handful of raisins or grapes, or minced green onions can be tossed in without a need to change the name of the dish.
We place heavy emphasis on Urtext editions of the pieces we play, those publications claiming to be accurate transmission of the composer’s intentions—the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail. But does that mean we all have to play the pieces the same way? I think that Urtexts ensure that we start from the same recipe—that our extemporizing comes from the same source. But for heaven’s sake, don’t be afraid to add some garlic and salt and pepper to taste.

§

More than twenty years ago I took on the care of a large three-manual tracker organ built in the 1960s by one of our fine Massachusetts organbuilders. Without saying which organ and which builder, I’ll say that it’s a well-known example of the American Classic Revival, with a traditional architectural Werkprinzip form with towers and fields of façade pipes and an unornamented plywood case. It is considered an important example of that style of Euromerican organbuilding and it shows up in several of the standard pipe organ picture books.
Not long after I got to know the organ, I ran into the fellow whose shop built it. During our conversation about the instrument, I confessed that I had trouble tuning the Positiv Krummhorn. It was a thin-sounding buzzy little thing and many of the pipes were unstable in both speech and pitch. He replied, “I hate that . . . Krummhorn.”
Aha. So every stop in every respected organ is not a masterpiece. So it’s okay for an organbuilder to say that he’s disappointed in some feature of an instrument he built. Does that mean that it would be okay when assessing an older instrument to recommend the replacement of an unsuccessful stop? Or should the organ be respectfully and dutifully preserved in its original condition?
What’s that onion doing in my oatmeal?
Now just because I remember this one conversation about this one organ stop doesn’t mean I’m ready to justify the replacement of any stop that I think is less than great. And I’m not saying that this opens the door for us to look for convenient justification to do what we want without good artistic and academic consideration. But I do think that insisting on authenticity solely for the purpose of authenticity is not the best way to serve the future of our instrument.

§

Classic French cuisine includes some of the world’s best recipes and some of the most rigid attitudes about food. Jacques Pépin was trained as a chef in post-World War II France. He immigrated to the United States in 1959 to work for Pierre Franey in the celebrated Manhattan restaurant Le Pavillon, that esteemed and influential establishment that grew out of the restaurant of the same name at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. It was Le Pavillon that brought the grand tradition of French cuisine to America, and Jacques Pépin, along with Julia Child and other gastronomic luminaries, who created the revolution that remade the complicated and rigid tradition to be accessible and understandable to American palates and amateur cooks.
In his memoir The Apprentice (Houghton Mifflin Company), Pépin writes of the autocratic, authoritarian tyrants who were his mentors, and professional kitchens in which teen-aged apprentices were the butt of cruel jokes, subject to severe punishments for mistakes. It was not okay to substitute lime for lemon.
As I read and re-read Pépin’s words, I’m reminded of the stories I’ve read of French musical pedagogy of early- and mid-twentieth-century France. Marcel Dupré’s life as a student was as rigorous, demanding, and demeaning as Pépin’s. Dupré and his peers did not practice scales and arpeggios as if their lives depended on it. They practiced scales and arpeggios because they felt their lives did depend on it. Stern teachers stood over them ready to strike if a note was missed.
Modern educational theorists preach against such authoritarian techniques, quite correctly looking out for the feelings of the student. While it’s easy to argue that especially gifted students should be challenged, it’s equally true that rigorous, even violent teaching methods leave scars on the psyche that exceed the value of the lessons.
While Marcel Dupré was a generation older than Jacques Pépin, both were products of a rigorous, demanding, old-world educational system. Both were taught independently as apprentices rather than in large classes. Both were fully immersed and versed in ancient pedagogical traditions and both were able to use that intense pedagogy as a springboard for meaningful innovation. Pépin’s lilting contemporary recipes are exciting and fresh in a way similar to the bold harmonies, beautiful melodies, and deep mystic symbolism of Dupré’s masterpieces.
Neither Dupré nor Pépin could have achieved such breadth and depth of influence without the rigor of their educations, however demanding or daunting.

§

Ingredients in a recipe are the blueprint, the roadmap to be translated by the cook, through the utensils and heat sources, into the magic that is delicious food.
Notes on a score—those squiggles and symbols—are the recipe, the blueprint, the format to be translated by the musician, through the instrument, into the magic that is audible music.
The chef learns the basics, the techniques, the theories, and the chemistry. Once he knows those basics and can reliably prepare and present traditional dishes, he’s more free to experiment because he knows the rules.
The musician learns the techniques, the historical priorities, and the language of the art. Once he can reliably prepare and present the great masterworks, he’s more free to experiment, to innovate, and to challenge himself and his audience. How’s that for a lot of lines and squiggles? 

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

The upper class
I’m thinking about virtuosity these days. Last Tuesday, October 10, the New York Times published a tribute to Joan Sutherland following her death on the 8th. That day (noted as 10-10-10) happened to be my mother’s birthday and I enjoyed the coincidence as I remembered a family episode from the late 1960s. My parents are great music lovers and the instrument of choice when I was a young teenager was the then cutting-edge KLH stereo with amplifier and turntable in one sleek little unit and separate speakers. It seemed super-modern in those days of the console hi-fi built in the shape of a credenza. My father, an Episcopal priest, had a routine of closing himself into the living room on Saturday nights with a little analog typewriter on a card table and writing his sermon to the Saturday night live broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra hosted by Richard L. Kaye on WCRB, 102.5 FM.

Joan
My mother was devoted to recordings by Joan Sutherland as confirmed by the Winchester, Massachusetts police department. When our house was burglarized, mother was asked over the phone if she could identify the stereo. Not being much of techno-wiz, all she could say was she knew there was a Joan Sutherland record on the turntable. Good enough to reclaim the prized machine.
The piece in Tuesday’s Times, written by the paper’s long-time astute and influential music critic Anthony Tommasini, shared story after story of triumphant debuts, thunderous ovations, immense technical facility, monumental stage presence (in every sense of the word), and a flexibility of stylistic intuition and pure ability that allowed this one artist to be revered as perhaps the greatest living interpreter and presenter of the operatic roles of Handel and Wagner—two musical worlds that are afterworlds apart.
Miss Sutherland was also humbly self-deprecating, referring to her figure in her autobiography as flat in the bust but wide in the rib cage. Tommasini quoted her as saying that certain dresses “could make her look like ‘a large column walking about the stage.’”

The supremacy of youth
I had a brief personal contact with her. When I was an undergraduate organ major at Oberlin, I was, naturally enough, accompanist to a gaggle of singers. Joan Sutherland was to give a recital in Akron, about two hours away, and I rented a car from the college fleet to haul a bunch to hear her. We had terrific seats very close to the stage so my youthfully discerning and supremely knowledgeable companions could witness every tic. I don’t remember what she sang or who was the accompanist, but I sure do remember that, inspired by a couple little bubbles we heard in the Diva’s voice, one of my flock greeted her in the receiving line asking if she had a cold.
Another lovely moment with virtuosi in my Oberlin career was the morning after the long-awaited artist recital when Itzhak Perlman sat in the student lounge chatting with the students. A lot of classes were cut that morning. I’ll not forget his bright smile and twinkling eyes as he casually shared thoughts about music-making while drinking vending-machine coffee.

Re-creation as recreation
Vladimir Horowitz was one of the greatest virtuosi of the twentieth century, and while I never had an opportunity to hear him in live performance, I’ve seen and heard plenty on television and recordings. He was inspiring to watch. His posture had his face close to the keyboard and his hands were pure magic and mystery. The piano was made a chameleon with a range of tones as great as any hundred-knob organ. Of virtuosity, Mr. Horowitz wrote,

In order to become a truly re-creative performer, and not merely an instrumental wizard, one needs three ingredients in equal measure: a trained, disciplined mind, full of imagination; a free and giving heart; and a Gradus ad Parnassum command of instrumental skill. Few musicians ever reach artistic heights with these three ingredients evenly balanced. This is what I have been striving for all my life.

I love the use of the word re-creative, implying that once the music is created by the composer, the performer with free and giving heart can re-create the music. Earlier in the same quotation, Horowitz writes,

Classical, Romantic, Modern, Neo-Romantic! These labels may be convenient for musicologists, but they have nothing to do with composing or performing… All music is the expression of feelings, and feelings do not change over the centuries… Purists would have us believe that music from the so-called Classical period should be performed with emotional restraint, while so-called Romantic music should be played with emotional freedom. Such advice has often resulted in exaggeration: overindulgent, uncontrolled performances of Romantic music, and dry, sterile, dull performance of Classical music.
The notation of a composer is a mere skeleton that the performer must endow with flesh and blood, so that the music comes to life and speaks to an audience. The belief that going back to an Urtext will ensure a convincing performance is an illusion. An audience does not respond to intellectual concepts, only to the communication of feelings.
He speaks directly to the conundrum inspired by concepts like Historically Informed Performance. It’s essential to play music with deep knowledge of the practices of the times in which it was created, but never at the expense of the “communication of feelings”—the imparting of depth and delight to the listener. To any listener.

Biggsy
As a teenager growing up in the Boston area, I had quite a few opportunities to hear E. Power Biggs play recitals, especially on the beautiful Flentrop organ that he had installed in the hall formerly known as the Busch-Reisinger Museum (now called Busch Hall), a reverberant stone space on the campus of Harvard University. That organ was perhaps best know then (and still is today?) for the series of recordings, E. Power Biggs Plays Bach Organ Favorites, a fabulously successful series of recordings that gave both organ aficionados and professionals a new perspective on the music of Bach. I never questioned it then, and the group of organists I traveled with didn’t talk much about Virgil Fox except as some decadent music killer. Of course, now I realize that those two artists represented two wildly divergent points of view, both valid and both influential.
In his book Pulling Out All the Stops, Craig Whitney, former senior editor of the New York Times, presented an eloquent history of the relationship-feud-competition between Biggs and Fox. It continues telling the story of the twentieth-century American pipe organ by chronicling the lives and careers of Ernest Skinner, G. Donald Harrison, and Charles Fisk—a great read that still makes a terrific Christmas gift for anyone you know who’s interested in the organ.
In the fall of my freshman year at Oberlin, the new Flentrop organ in Warner Concert Hall was dedicated with a recital played by Marie-Claire Alain. A galaxy of stars of the organ world were there for an exciting weekend of discussions, lectures, and concerts, and I was fortunate to be chosen with a classmate to give Biggs and his wife Peggy a tour of the conservatory building and its organs. It was thrilling to spend that time with them, and while Biggs’s arthritis meant he was not up to playing, he had us demonstrate practice organs for him. We ended the evening sharing beers.
My girlfriend at the time was still in high school in Winchester. She didn’t believe my story, so went to meet Biggs at a record signing at the Harvard Coop, and Biggs corroborated for me: “Oh yes, he was the bearded one.” (I’ve had the beard since high school—it’s never been off.)

Yo-Yo
In the panoply of living virtuosi, perhaps none is more esteemed and admired than Yo-Yo Ma. He took the world by storm as a very young man, playing all the important literature the world across. The rich tone he produces from the instruments he plays warms the heart and feeds the soul, and his mature collaborations with other musicians have proven his versatility and inquisitiveness. And I’ll not soon forget his self-deprecation made public in his appearance on Sesame Street. The cool-dude, dark-shades, saxophone-playing Muppet, Hoots the Owl, greeted the great musician, “Yo, Yo-Yo Ma, ma man!” Wonderful.
A few minutes ago I took you to Winchester, Massachusetts, where my father was rector of the Parish of the Epiphany, a thriving and dynamic place with a wonderful music program and an organ built by C.B. Fisk. It happened that Yo-Yo Ma and his family lived in town. His wife was a Sunday School teacher and his children were part of the place. He asked my father for an appointment at which he asked if he would be allowed to play in the church on Christmas Eve. Dad responded showing the respect for church musicians that has so inspired me, “You’ll need to speak with Larry, the organist. Planning music here is his responsibility.” Larry Berry did not have to consider for very long.
Dad remembers that as he and the other clergy were robing for that special Christmas Eve service, a couple obviously unfamiliar with the familiar knocked on the obscure back door that opened into the clergy robing room. “Is this where the concert is?” asked the boor. One of the clergy replied, “Actually, we’re celebrating a birth here tonight.”
Yo-Yo Ma also appeared a couple times to play for the children’s Sunday morning chapel service, to the amazement and excitement of the Sunday School teachers. I was not present for any of those experiences, but I’m still touched by the humility that would lead such a great artist to make such a gift.

Jimmy
Wendy and I have seats at Symphony Hall for the “Thursday A” series of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. James Levine has been music director of that great band since the retirement of the organ-deploring Seiji Ozawa, and we’ve been treated to some of the most extraordinary music making since “Jimmy” came to town. His programming is innovative and imaginative, and his rapport with the orchestra is obvious and thrilling. Our seats are in a balcony above stage right, so every time he turns to the concertmaster we feel we can hear everything he says—he’s talking and singing all the time as he conducts. His consummate musicianship is communicated with the musicians of the orchestra, and through them to the audience. There’s something very special about the sound of Levine’s music. Mr. Levine is well known for the admiration his collaborators feel for him, made abundantly clear in the up-close interviews of Metropolitan Opera stars during the HD-simulcasts of the Met’s performances.
A pure example of Levine’s facility happened on Saturday, October 9. That afternoon at 1:00 he led the Met’s performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold and flew to Boston in time to lead the BSO and Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony at 8:00. Holy cow! And this from a man who missed much of last season because of serious illness. Hey Jimmy, what do you want to do tomorrow?

There’s nothing to it
The thing about virtuosity is that it takes infinite effort to make it look easy. And when it can look easy it sounds good. A student musician might tackle a great masterwork and exult that he “got through it” when the performance was finally over. “Getting through it” is not the apex of the musical or artistic experience.
I think it’s correct to say that a virtuoso is born. Unless one is endowed with particular gifts, one cannot become a virtuoso. But he who is born with those gifts and doesn’t embrace them by dedicating his life to nurturing and developing them squanders what he has been given. The musician who plays scales and arpeggios by the hour achieves the appearance of effortlessness. The musician whose power of thought, concentration, and memory allows him to absorb and recall countless dizzying scores achieves the ability to knock off performances of multiple masterworks in a single day. Have you ever stopped to wonder at the spectacle of the great performer having to “cancel due to illness,” only to be replaced at the last minute by an artist who dashes across the country, roars from the airport to the concert hall, combs his hair, washes his hands, and walks on stage to play a concerto with a strange conductor, a strange orchestra, and a strange piano? There’s nothing to it.

§

I feel privileged that my work brings me in contact with some of our greatest instruments and therefore, some of our greatest players. These thoughts on virtuosity are fed by the many thrilling moments I’ve had chatting with a great player at the console of a legendary organ. He draws a stop or pushes a piston and rattles off a passage, tries it on another combination, tries it with different phrasing or inflection. His conversation reveals that he is always thinking, always questioning, always searching for the actual essence of the music. There’s a depth of understanding of the relationship between the instrument and the acoustics of the room, between the intentions of the composer of the will of the re-creative performer.
Wendy and I have just gotten back to our sublet apartment in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. This afternoon we heard Ken Cowan play the dedicatory recital of the large new Schoenstein organ at St. James’ Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue at 71st Street. There was a large-screen video monitor set up on the chancel steps showing Ken’s work at the console with three different angles. There’s a great debate about whether or not this detracts from the experience. I love it. The organ is alone in its concealment of its players. Excepting the relatively few concert venues where the console is placed on the stage, most organists are completely hidden from view when they play. The extreme is the organ with Rückpositiv in a rear gallery. (I remember one concert where the organist was sitting on the bench before the doors were opened and announced he was about to start by playing a simple chord on a Principal. The audience never even laid eyes on him before he started. I can understand the desire to allow the music to speak for itself, but isn’t the performance of music a human endeavor and a human achievement?)
It’s great fun to watch an artist like Ken work the console, and seeing it on a clear screen adds greatly to the experience in my opinion. And of course, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to watch! The orchestration of Ken’s playing is the point. And of course, the Schoenstein organ is symphonic in design and intention—a great marriage between artist and instrument. It was a wonderful concert—fascinating programming and great artistry in a beautiful church building.

§

This little string of remembrances, inspired by Joan Sutherland’s obituary, seems to be about the humanness of music-making. Some great musicians are haughty and unapproachable. I was once eating in a restaurant at the same time (not the same table) as Lorin Maazel, then conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. He stood out because he stood up—when the waiter was ready to take his order he stood and announced the orders of everyone in his party. I don’t know if they knew beforehand what they would be eating. It seemed to me to be the performance of “a very great man.” I doubt he would have graced the Sunday School class of a suburban Episcopal church.
When a great virtuoso connects with the audience as a human being everyone learns a lot. As Horowitz said, it’s about communicating feelings. ■

Notes 1. Frank Rippl, “OHS 52nd National Convention, July 11–17, 2007, Central Indiana,” The Diapason, February 2008, vol. 99, no. 2, pp. 24–29.

Since the beginning of this century, the recital calendar of The Diapason has included numerous listings for Ken Cowan. A native of Thorold, Ontario, Canada, Cowan was first taught organ by his father, David Cowan; he subsequently studied with James Bigham, with John Weaver at the Curtis Institute of Music, and with Thomas Murray at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He has held organist positions at St. Bartholomew’s, St. James Episcopal Church, and the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City, and St. Clement’s Church in Philadelphia; during his college years he was on the roster of associate organists for the Wanamaker Grand Court organ in Philadelphia. He presently serves as Assistant Professor of Organ at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey; Rider University has honored him with the 2008 Distinguished Teaching Award.
A featured artist at the 2004 AGO convention in Los Angeles and during the 2008 AGO convention in Minneapolis (as one of several players during a concert recorded for Pipedreams), Ken Cowan has also performed at many AGO regional conventions, as well as at conventions of the Organ Historical Society and the Royal Canadian College of Organists. His discography comprises numerous recordings (for the JAV label) on Skinner instruments, including The Art of the Symphonic Organist, recorded on the 1921 Skinner organ at the Parish Church of St. Luke, Evanston, Illinois. (Note: John Speller’s review of this recording in The Diapason praised Cowan’s choice of repertoire, demonstration of the organ’s colors, and skill with buildup and decrescendo, calling the disc “one of the finest I have heard in some time.” See The Diapason, August 2004, p. 14.) With Justin Bischof, he recorded Aaron David Miller’s Double Concerto for organ with the Zurich Symphony Orchestra, on the Kleuker organ in the Tonhalle in Zurich (Ethereal Recordings). Cowan’s repertoire is broad, but favors nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers, from Bossi to Liszt, Wagner to Widor, Dupré to Roger-Ducasse, and much in between. He is associated with transcriptions, yet these do not dominate either his recital programs or his recordings. As a performer he seems relaxed, taking any difficulties in stride. Ken Cowan is represented by Karen McFarlane Artists.

JR: Let’s talk about your DNA! Your father is an organist, and other grandparents were too, correct?
KC: Yes, two grandmothers and great-grandmother Cowan. Thurza Cowan was an organist, and I think she must have been pretty good too, because the repertoire that is still sitting around my house in Canada shows she played some really difficult things.

JR: Were those the days when you had to have a pumper?
KC: A little bit after that, I think it was. She played a Woodstock organ. I saw a picture of the old console, and it looks like a theatre organ console. But it would have been electrified, I think.

JR: And your grandmothers?
KC: My father’s mother and my mother’s mother both played, each as a local parish organist.

JR: Did your grandmother teach your father?
KC: No, actually; that’s not our family’s habit. My father studied with a local organist named George Hannahson, actually a very good player; the brothers Hannahson did a lot of the church music in the area. Except for the things that my dad showed me to get me started at the organ, I think everybody in my family who learned an instrument always studied with somebody outside the family.

JR: Were your first lessons with your father?
KC: He got me started with the instrument. He didn’t teach me piano, so we always had it in mind that I would eventually find an organ teacher outside of our house.

JR: Did you insist on organ lessons, or did he suggest you should take them?
KC: No, it was me. He insisted that I study the maximum amount of piano possible before I ever touched the organ. Ever since I was three years old, I would hang around the organ bench, and I knew what all the stops were. I knew the difference between a Lieblich flute and a Rohr flute when I was little—before I could play anything. And I was the token key-holder in the family—if the reeds needed to be tuned, I would be carted down to the church. The arrangement was that if I was well-behaved in church, he would play whatever my favorite organ tunes were before we would go home. I still remember that.

JR: So what were your favorite organ pieces when you were a wee lad?
KC: They were a little different from what they are now! (laughter) Probably mostly little songs that I knew how to sing at the time. Or wedding pieces and old campy hymns, I used to like those too—and I knew all the words. Somewhere I have a tape of myself singing along, I think—locked away! Anyway, I was fortunate that there was a really nice Casavant organ from the ’20s in the church where my father played, a three-manual organ, so it was great just to get to know registration on a nice instrument first. And we always had a lousy piano—which is still there, actually! So to have this really nice organ—I couldn’t resist but to learn how to play it—or try.

JR: How old were you when you started playing the organ?
KC: I knew how to play a hymn on the organ, but I really started to learn pieces around eighth grade, so twelve or thirteen. I knew how to play the piano pretty well by then. In fact, I got a lot more interested in piano after I realized how much I really liked playing the organ. I learned about some organ pieces that had been arranged for piano—I remember one was the Liszt B-A-C-H—I guess if you don’t realize that it’s a hard piece
. . . . So I improved a lot as a pianist after I decided I wanted to try to become as good an organist as I possibly could, and realized at that time, too, that piano was the key, at least for a lot of it. A couple years after that, studying some Bach and other things, I heard music of Dupré for the first time. So I went along for a while just learning all the pieces that made me think “oh, that’s a really neat piece!” It wasn’t the most logical progression, but it worked out all right.

JR: What was your first recital like?
KC: First recitals on the organ—I was 13 or 14. At that time it was mostly playing the Widor Toccata, the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor—I used to work on lots of Bach pieces when I was in high school, so I always programmed that. I could practice the same pieces quite a lot, unlike now where there are piles and piles of things to get through in a short amount of time. But at least when I began performing I was confident that “I’ve been playing this Bach piece for a few months, it’ll probably be all right.”

JR: What was your first church position?
KC: I was sort of the perpetual assistant organist! I worked that way alongside my dad for the last year or so of high school, so I guess outside of any kind of familial supervision was when I went to college. I was assistant at St. Clement’s Church—and that was being thrown into the deep end of the pool, because Peter Conte was the organist at that time and of course ran a pretty tight ship, and still does there. I stayed at St. Clement’s the whole time I was in college in Philadelphia, and worked for a couple years at St. Mary the Virgin, and then at St. James Madison Avenue, and then at St. Bartholomew’s.

JR: You had said that when you were first studying, you weren’t sure about a career. At what point did you know that this was going to be your life’s work?
KC: I think that when I went away to college I knew pretty well that music was going to be what I would do primarily. And I never had any doubt that certainly I’d always be involved in music in my life. But I guess I was brought up in a casual enough way that no one ever said “You must be a musician.” And there are plenty of other interesting things out there to do! So it was by the time I went away to Curtis for college. I was fortunate that they were willing to take me in, and it was a great experience. I’ve been fortunate, in every place and with everyone with whom I’ve studied—I really made some lucky choices.

JR: At this point, could you identify who your big influences are?
KC: I think now it’s sort of a conglomeration. But there’s no one that I’ve ever studied with who hasn’t been an influence, and recordings are very valuable too. I remember when I was in high school—even though it wasn’t a complete immersion in music like college, I remember clearly what I learned from James Bigham, who was my teacher at that time—a major influence and a masterful player and teacher. At Curtis, of course, I was studying with John Weaver, and he had a different approach to teaching and was demanding about what was to be expected week to week.
My experience at Curtis was great. I still remember bringing in—I think it was my second year there—the Liszt Ad nos, and I was trying to be conservative, in the sense of not using countless general pistons. At that time the organ at Curtis Hall had just twelve general pistons, so I learned it using only one level, and I thought, “well, that’s a bit of restraint here”—a mere twelve generals, with lots of divisionals. I finished playing through it, and we talked about the music, and John Weaver said, “Now, I just should tell you, that when you’re approaching the registration of a piece like this, you can’t always count on having a dozen general pistons. I just bet that through use of more divisional pistons, I could work out all the registrations for this piece with no compromise whatsoever, on six general pistons.” And the amazing thing is—that he could! He was really impressive in that way, because, having decades of touring experience, he’s mindful that there weren’t always multiple memory levels. So he was very encouraging about people not being a slave to a computer combination action. For example, if you hit a piston for a chorale prelude registration that had a flute here and a cornet there, you’d be asked—“Can’t you remember these stops? Why do you have to hit a piston?”
Then of course, Thomas Murray is sort of a wonder in his own way. I enjoy just watching him at an organ—how he approaches the instrument, how to choose registrations—musically and registrationally always doing the most with the least, and loving every minute of it. I think a lot of people associate him with “oh, and he hits 500 Swell pistons.” Actually he doesn’t; he uses the fewest number to get the greatest effect. I didn’t realize that until really watching.
Martin Jean began teaching at Yale the same year I began studying there, and he was a really interesting person to study with as well. I had lessons with him for a semester at Yale while Tom Murray was on sabbatical; in addition to a coaching here or there at other times, students in the Yale department were free to coach with faculty outside of their own studio. Martin was full of curiosity about compositions and their possible interpretations, so I would always leave lessons with him pondering many possibilities. And I remember along the way I had a few lessons with McNeil Robinson, and he, in terms of how to learn a piece of music in a really thorough way, is just masterful. But you don’t have to study with someone for five years to get something immensely valuable, that you’ll never forget.

JR: Were you fairly confident with your registration ability before you studied with John Weaver and Tom Murray?
KC: I guess I was. Since I was a little kid I was fascinated with how stops were built, what the different ones did, the difference between the various colors, and so on. And there were enough nice instruments around that I pretty much understood how that worked—also, my dad was good at registration himself; that helped. If you’re around someone just an hour a week, that’s different than being around somebody all the time—as an aside, you can at any point say, “hey, how come you would do this, as opposed to something else?” And then Jim Bigham, with whom I studied in high school, just has an amazing imagination for registration and a huge instrument at Holy Trinity Lutheran; that was another great stroke of good fortune for me.

JR: When you studied with John Weaver and Tom Murray, did you work more on interpretation, or did they spend a lot of time with registration?
KC: A little of everything. Tom Murray in particular is very attentive to registration; even if he doesn’t change something radically, he is very sensitive to the finest details. Even if you can row your own boat to start with, I’d say to study with Weaver is to learn his system of managing a big instrument. He’s quite amazing in that he can register an entire recital in a couple of hours, and it will sound as though he’s played the organ for a long time, just because he’s so clear about exactly what he’s going to do at every point in a piece. Tom Murray is known as this “orchestralist,” who gives each color in an instrument its best opportunity to shine, so just to watch him do what he does is really an education!

JR: At Curtis, you were required to play pieces from memory. How many pieces have you memorized?
KC: Oh, probably hundreds. I think from year to year there are pieces—especially pieces that I learned when I was in high school—that I find I can usually play without really thinking about it much at all. From year to year I’ll carry around a few recital programs’ worth of repertoire, at any given time, and I try to keep on expanding that. During school semester, for example, there’s just not time to practice the number of hours a day that I’d love to, so I’ll always practice technical things on the piano, even if I don’t touch an organ. I find that to maintain a few hours of music is manageable, but it takes a lot more time to be constantly learning dozens of pieces.

JR: Do you have some favorite pieces? Desert island pieces?
KC: I’ve always loved Bach, and I think as is the case with so many people I ended up playing the organ because of the music of Bach. As things have gone, I’ve gotten into a lot of repertoire that is far from Bach—I’ve always loved symphonic organs, orchestral transcriptions and that sort of thing. But I think I could do just fine with some of the great works by Bach.
Now as far as what’s fun to play in a concert, on, say, a particular type of organ—for Skinner organs, they’re great at something English Romantic; the Willan Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue is a fun piece to play because it relies quite a lot on the interpreter, as does Liszt, Reubke, Reger—if you hear three people play the same piece by Liszt, or Reger, or Reubke, it will sound completely different, as I think it should.
Many people who play those pieces think that it couldn’t possibly be done any other way than their own, because they require a very strong interpretive perspective, but in reality there are of course many possible interpretations. I love playing transcriptions, because on an American symphonic organ, you really push the instrument to the edge of what it’s able to do, and that’s always kind of fun. And historically it’s been controversial because for much of the twentieth century the attitude of most organists was “why would you do such a thing? Go learn some more legitimate organ pieces!”

JR: It’s nice stuff!
KC: Yes, there are so many great pieces that weren’t originally composed for the organ. I think once you do learn most of the standard organ repertoire, it’s fun to look beyond it a little bit and see how an instrument can work at interpreting something else. I have to confess, too, that I started listening to records of transcriptions when I was in high school. I have old recordings by George Thalben-Ball, for example, and I still remember getting two recordings of transcriptions by Tom Murray and Thomas Trotter, I think both made in the ’80s, and so I thought, “Wow! That instrument sounds great—and very expressive. Wouldn’t it be fun to learn how to do that?”
Anybody who gets into this kind of orchestral stuff might be pigeon-holed with “Oh, all he plays is Wagner,” or, “All he plays are transcriptions,” which of course I don’t think is true of anybody who does. One of the keys to having success with transcriptions, though, is to know when it’s a good idea not to play something, because one of the pitfalls about the organ is you cannot bring exactly the same program to every instrument, or else you’ll win some and lose some. I find as with some of the big Romantic works, a transcription can sound great on an ideal instrument and it can sound like a dismal failure on the wrong instrument. I hope to usually be a good judge of when’s the time, and when’s not the time, to play a particular part of the repertoire.

JR: How about the future of this instrument with young people?
KC: I’m always glad when I know someone is bringing kids to a recital. And in a way, it’s a good reason to think about programming very carefully. Every once in a while I’ll play a program that might get a little too—mature for the newcomer.
If I were only playing for myself, I could go on for days listening to very intense-sounding organ music. But I’m not just playing for me; though I guess some people would say you should always be playing as though no one else is there—but someone else IS there. (laughter) So I am usually quite cognizant of the fact that there may be some young person there who’s never heard an organ recital before.

JR: Do you ever program a specific piece with children in mind?
KC: If I know they’re going to be there, yes. Things that are very effective with kids are pieces that are programmatic and tell a story, or pieces that really are “visual” in how the instrument is used. Kids immediately get a kick out of the fact that there are all these different colors and that wow, the organist plays with his feet, and beyond that things like Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre are great for kids, because they understand—they can tell what’s going on in the story as it’s going along. Of course, that’s a transcription, but there’s George Akerley’s A Sweet for Mother Goose nursery rhyme suite—that would be just the thing. I’ve heard some people do things like Carnival of the Animals and so on—that’s another work that’s not originally an organ piece, but can certainly get children’s interest in the instrument. And they all love the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor!

JR: How do you plan a program? Fast–slow, or loud–soft, or keys?
KC: Having interesting key relationships can be nice, particularly if you segue from one piece to the next. More importantly, just not flogging people with the same kind of piece over and over again is a good rule of thumb. For example, I wouldn’t play half a program of, say, a prelude and fugue by Bach, followed by a preludium by Buxtehude followed by Prelude and Fugue on the Name of BACH, and so on—but contrasting forms, contrasting styles. I’ve never been much into the philosophy that “we should always go in chronological order.” It’s more a question of how can you give a good psychological flow to it? I guess that’s the right way to describe it. And it’s different on recordings, too. I think how you listen to a recording is a little different. In a concert, you can go from fast and furious to very intimate, to scherzo, back to this, back to that. On a record, if you do exactly the same thing, you end up with people constantly adjusting the volume control.
Programming is a constant challenge. And then the trap is, when you find a combination of things that you think works really well, to then be able to get out of it. I remember reading an article years ago about Glenn Gould’s thoughts on why he stopped playing concerts; he said he was feeling that sometimes he settled in on the same small number of pieces, the philosophy being, “well, the Beethoven worked in Toronto, it’ll probably work in New York, too, so I’ll play it again!” And again, and again—and so on it goes. Trying something new, even if it means going out on a limb, is a good idea, I think.

JR: You’ve long been an Organ Historical Society convention favorite. How did that get started?
KC: Good fortune, I guess! When I was working at St. Clement’s in Philadelphia, I think it was 1996 the OHS had their convention in Philadelphia; at that time we were doing an Evensong at St. Clement’s as part of the convention, and they wanted Peter to play something, and he was already going to play a recital at the Wanamaker Store, so he said, “I’ll play the prelude, and why don’t you have my assistant play a short program after the Evensong?” I think there was some trepidation at first; “who is this guy?” I guess they liked it. And one thing led to another there; I’ve been back several times since.

JR: Yes, including in 2007 with your wife! Tell me about her, and how you cooked up this scheme.
KC: We met in graduate school; she went to Yale too. While we were students there, I had always liked an old recording I had of Jascha Heifetz and Richard Elsasser playing the Vitali Chaconne, as arranged by Leopold Auer. So on one of JAV’s Skinner series recordings, Joe Vitacco asked me to go out to Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian in Detroit, and I checked out the organ and it’s a great instrument—huge sound, and very mellow sound. I thought this would be a good accompanying organ, and that it would be neat to try and do a violin piece. So I asked Lisa to come along then, and that was the beginning of playing together. In the last seven or eight years, we’ve been asked to play duo programs together, so we’ve always been on the lookout for good repertoire that has been written for violin and organ, and things that transcribe well. We’ll often do an early piece, maybe something that’s contemporary written for those instruments; from the Romantic period, Rheinberger wrote some violin and organ works. I’ll often transcribe a concerto accompaniment for the end, and do a violin concerto as a violin and organ piece. And then we’ll usually do a solo piece each, too.

JR: The review of the OHS convention in the February 2008 issue of The Diapason mentions Lisa playing behind a screen.1
KC: We did the Karg-Elert Fugue, Canzona and Epilogue, for organ and violin, and a quartet of women’s voices is included at the end. I think Karg-Elert may have started this tradition himself, but there’s been a long practice of putting the violinist and the singers either offstage or in the Swell box. And at this particular church it worked, because you could open the door behind the Swell box and there was a hallway in behind. So everyone crammed in behind the chamber and you could have this diminuendo to nothing at the end. It was very unexpected color coming out of the organ chambers suddenly! It was a lot of fun, and everyone was a very good sport about the whole thing. The instrument was a Kimball organ, and certainly played repertoire well, but maybe accompanied even better. So it was nice to show that side of things.

JR: At the AGO convention in Minneapolis you played some new works. Do you play new pieces from memory?
KC: Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. One of the things I’ve been working on this week is memorizing them. I find if I have a deadline, it doesn’t take long to get things like that learned. I probably spent a week or so learning each of the preludes and fugues. But then the question is—what do you want to do with it? There’s no question that I play a piece better after a year than after a week. So the rest of the time is spent just trying to refine things and get a clear interpretation, especially with brand-new pieces. The composer Henry Martin is a pianist and is probably known for composing 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, and he teaches jazz and music theory at Rutgers, Newark. The reason for the commission was that Michael Barone really liked his piano pieces, and so commissioned him to write a couple for organ. Not knowing what his musical taste is—of course, when you learn a piece like that, I found I was initially sort of cautious in an interpretive sense—if it’s not written in the score, well, is it OK to do something? Well, he has a great imagination, and is a good sport about everything. That was actually nice to discover. Interpretive freedom is good! So I really liked them—they’re difficult, but I think will make nice pieces.

JR: Teaching versus performing—do you enjoy the balance that you have right now?
KC: Absolutely! I think it would probably be hard for me to only teach, because you end up living musically only through your students, instead of being able to do something yourself—so you need an outlet. On the other hand, it’s great to work with other people—it’s so satisfying and exciting when students work very hard and get a lot better, and you can help them along their way. This year, it was only the second time in recent memory that I didn’t play Easter Sunday some place. So before cooking dinner for family, I went to Trinity Church where two of my students play, and I had a better time listening to them accompany the Easter service than I would have if I’d done it myself! I’ve always been interested in teaching, so I have no regrets there at all.

JR: Tell us about your position at Westminster. Do you teach service playing, or does your teaching concentrate just on recital literature?
KC: Mostly my colleagues Alan Morrison, Matthew Lewis, and I end up concentrating on creating some kind of structured program of study for each student. I do at times make students learn hymns and accompaniments as part of their lessons. I find that you can teach somebody about as much about creative possibilities at the organ through hymns and accompaniments, at least from a registration point of view, as from anything else, because so often with a lot of the primary parts of the repertoire—Bach, Franck, Vierne, and so forth—you frequently follow convention or instructions for registration; in service playing you have a blank slate, and can really get acquainted with the organ in a more individualistic way.
The school’s strong emphasis on choral training provides a great background for developing graduates who can become very effective church musicians. There are classes in improvisation, courses in organ literature, there’s a class on accompanying at the organ, which is primarily a service playing course. Then the sacred music department offers courses on the history of church music, theology, choral pedagogy and management of programs, worship planning, and congregational song. A broad range of guest lecturers in the organ and sacred music departments address other specific topics. It could be a masterclass on organ playing or literature on some occasions, or frequently guest perspectives on the general field of church music in America.

JR: Do you see any consistent patterns of problems among your students?
KC: Nothing that applies to everybody. In fact, that’s one of the fun challenges of teaching—it’s all problem solving, but everybody’s a different case. For example, some students don’t learn pedal technique in a structured way, and I’m surprised that students coming in at the graduate level sometimes don’t understand very much about registration—that can be a big project. But that’s certainly not unique to everybody; some of them are great at that. Nuanced registration is a hard thing to teach in a short time. And if you encounter people who are trained to do only one thing in a particular situation, it can be a real challenge to make them more curious and sensitive to the precise character of each stop or chorus on different instruments, and how they combine with others. Then comes the issue of how to control the instrument in the context of a complex piece if they’ve never been trained to manage a console with a combination action.

JR: Do you have responsibilities at Westminster besides teaching?
KC: I also am the coordinator of the organ and sacred music program. That involves plenty of meetings, planning, and discussions with other faculty about how to proceed with programs and curriculum. In the past year we have revised the entire curriculum in organ and in sacred music. This year began the implementation of those revisions, which is a big undertaking, but a necessary step to try to keep the program from getting behind the times. Of course, I’m not doing that on my own, but I certainly have to stay involved with how things develop. And then another task for sacred music at Westminster will be to find a faculty member to succeed Robin Leaver, who just retired. Hopefully we’ll soon be looking for the next teacher of sacred music there, but in the current economic climate, universities can be tentative about filling vacancies. Always something, you know! It’s the sort of place where I can stay there until ten o’clock every night and have plenty more to greet me the next morning.

JR: Are you ever able to go hear other organists or other concerts?
KC: Here and there. There’s not as much time as I’d like there to be, because I’m often away weekends, when a lot of great concerts happen. Going to conventions and so forth, I can hear a lot of things in a short amount of time, just to keep track of who’s doing what. And then the nice thing living between New York and Philadelphia is oftentimes there will be good concerts on week nights. Plus, Princeton has some really good music series right in town. So whenever possible, I attend performances.

JR: Do you have any big projects planned?
KC: For Westminster, keeping the department growing stronger is a priority. As far as playing goes, it’s asking myself, what do I want to play now that I haven’t played before? And I’ve got lined up some recordings that I’ve been promising to make and that I haven’t gotten around to yet, so I’ll just keep chipping away at them. A new CD on the big Schoenstein organ at First Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, was just released this February on the Raven label. That disc has German Romantic repertoire (Reger, Reubke, Karg-Elert) and a transcription of the Liszt Mephisto Waltz #1. But otherwise it’s a question of just balancing responsibilities out—and finding some time for fun, too.

JR: Thank you so much, Ken!

Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of The Diapason.

Christopher Houlihan may very well be the youngest organist ever interviewed by The Diapason. A Connecticut native, Houlihan—sometimes known as “Houli”—made his debut album at 19 (a recording of the Vierne Second Symphony, made before he went to France in his junior year; see the review by David Wagner in The Diapaso, January 2009, pp. 19–20). His second recording (Joys, Mournings, and Battles, Towerhill Recordings) was recently released—a significant achievement for any artist, but all the more amazing given his youth. Houlihan, who placed first in the High School Division of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition (see David Spicer, “Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition 2003,” The Diapason, November 2003, p. 17), is a graduate of Trinity College, where he studied with John Rose; during his senior year he made his orchestral debut with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, performing Barber’s Toccata Festiva. Rose had insisted that Houlihan pursue some study with a different teacher, so during his junior year Houlihan studied with Jean-Baptiste Robin at the conservatory in Versailles, where he earned the French equivalent of an artist’s diploma. He also served as assistant musician at the American Cathedral in Paris, under Edward Tipton, working as choral accompanist and directing two children’s choirs. One Sunday when Tipton was away and Houlihan was to serve as both organist and choir director, the cathedral received a few hours’ advance notice that the President and First Lady of the United States, Mr. and Mrs. George W. Bush, would attend.
Houlihan’s first teacher, John Rose, described meeting the youngster prior to playing a recital—the young man and other family members came an hour early to get a bird’s-eye-view seat, in order to see the console and player up close. This initial meeting led to lessons with Rose at Trinity College, and subsequently to Houlihan’s matriculating there. Rose notes that one of Houlihan’s qualities is the ability to generate excitement about the organ and its music, to be able to communicate the music and his passion for it to an audience, and credits some of this to Houlihan’s technical mastery of rhythm and accent in way that makes the music “electrifying.” Rose feels that Houlihan’s “thirst for knowledge and learning” lead him to be “well informed about various performance practices,” yet realizing “the importance of bringing his own ideas and a fresh outlook to his interpretations. He also understands (and enjoys) the need to adapt his ideas uniquely, as needed, from one organ to the next.”
Christopher Houlihan’s fans are of all ages and include an 85-year-old retired math teacher at Trinity, along with students at the college; they have formed a group known as the “Houli Fans,” and this has expanded into marketing: t-shirts, caps, and mugs are available. Most of these students had never experienced an organ recital before supporting their friend. When he performed with the symphony during his senior year, they chartered buses to take throngs of students to the orchestra hall, where they rained down loud cheers from the balcony. Christopher Houlihan currently studies with Paul Jacobs at the Juilliard School, and is represented by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists (www.concertartists.com). Houlihan can be found on Facebook and YouTube, and his website is www.christopherhoulihan.com.

Joyce Robinson: Do you come from a musical family?
Christopher Houlihan: My family isn’t musical, but my parents have always been incredibly supportive of my passion. I think my mother signed me up for piano lessons just so I would have something to do after school. At the beginning I liked it, I thought it was all right, but I kept practicing and eventually joined a church choir in my hometown of Somers, Connecticut when I was about 8, and discovered the organ. The organ in the church was an electronic organ, and the organist there always had the tremolos on, but she showed me everything she knew and encouraged me to explore. She let me practice on the instrument. I was immediately excited by it and drawn into it, and I started reading as much as I could about the organ and tried to talk to other organists, but at the same time, I had no idea how to take organ lessons. It was obvious you could take piano lessons or lessons on any other instrument, but the organ was kind of a mystery to both my parents and me. My mother loves telling the story of walking into my bedroom and seeing me at my digital keyboard, moving my feet around. She discovered I had put rows of masking tape on her hardwood floor, in the outline of the pedalboard, so that I could learn how to play the pedals. She was a bit horrified that I had put tape all over her floor, but at the same time, she thought it was pretty clever.
Then, in 1999, my mother read in the newspaper that there was an organ concert going on in Springfield, Massachusetts. We’d never been to an organ concert before, never really heard any classical organ music, but we went, and I got hooked. I still have the program from that recital, and, looking back on it, I can’t imagine having had a better introduction to concert organ music: I heard Franck’s Pièce Héroïque and Vierne’s Third Symphony for the first time that day. After the concert, we spoke with the organist, and I said, “I want to take organ lessons, what do I do?” And the man said, “Why don’t you come down to Hartford and play for me?” This was John Rose. We went to Trinity, and I played for him; I was twelve years old, and he took me on as a student. From there, it just took off—I kept studying with him throughout high school, and when it came time to look at colleges, Trinity turned out to be a very good fit for me. John never pushed for me to go to Trinity; he would have been supportive of any decision I made, but for a lot of reasons I chose Trinity, and I’m really glad I did.

JR: Is that where your interest in Vierne came from? John Rose is well known for his work on Vierne, and your first recording was mostly Vierne.
CH: Yes, it was. John has been a wonderful mentor, and he’s never forced any particular style of playing on me, and I’ve studied all sorts of repertoire with him. But I do suppose I’ve had more exposure to Vierne than many other people, certainly because of his love of Vierne. I remember working on the “Berceuse” from the 24 Pieces in Free Style; that was probably my first Vierne piece.

JR: How old were you then?
CH: I’m not sure! I was in middle school, probably 13. Then when I got to Trinity, he said “You should really learn the Vierne Second Symphony, I think it would be a good piece for you.” And I learned it, and I absolutely loved it. Vierne is very chromatic, it’s very different from most Widor . . . Some people say things like, “You should never play a complete French symphony, it’s too long, it’s trash, audiences don’t like it,” but I find it incredibly gratifying as a performer and as a listener to hear a complete symphony. You rarely go to an orchestral concert and hear the Finale from a Beethoven symphony—you hear the whole work. I think a Vierne symphony works much better as a complete piece . . . the individual movements speak much more profoundly when you hear them in the context of the whole symphony.

JR: You must have worked on quite a bit of French repertoire with John Rose before you went to France.
CH: I did.

JR: And when you got to France, did you find the approach to French music to be different?
CH: That’s a complicated question to answer, but yes, the approach was very different. I went to France because I had a strong affinity for French romantic music, but I also wanted to learn more about French classical music, as well as study modern French music. Certainly one of the most beneficial aspects of studying organ music in France is hearing and playing on French organs. But having grown up on American organs, playing primarily in drier American acoustics, and approaching music from an American perspective in general, I really had to learn a new style of playing, one that was more effective for those instruments and rooms. My teacher, Jean-Baptiste Robin, often talked to me about “taste,” which is, of course, completely subjective, but I became more aware of the fact that taste is also cultural, and people from two different backgrounds (musical and otherwise) will have very different opinions about what they consider to be “in good or bad taste.” For example, sometimes I would phrase something a certain way, or accent something a certain way, and Jean-Baptiste would remark that it sounded “American.” Well, I am American, after all!
What is true, though, is that French music sounds most “at home” on French organs. One of the most incredible experiences I had was going to Poitiers Cathedral, where Jean-Baptiste Robin is titulaire, and hearing the 1791 Clicquot organ there. When I heard French classical music on that instrument I was almost in tears, it was so beautiful. That music came alive and worked in a way I had never heard it before. The same can be said of romantic music, but to a less extreme degree, when hearing it on French romantic organs. But what I’ve come to believe through those experiences is that what is far more important than choosing the historically correct stops, or playing in a historically correct way, is the type of musical effect that comes across to a listener. If hearing Widor played at St. Sulpice brings you to your knees, then that music should have the same effect wherever you’re playing it, and, typically, in my opinion, to get that kind of effect on American organs, you have to play the music in a very different way than you might in France.

JR: So are you saying that one must register more with one’s ears than just looking at labels on the knobs?
CH: Yes, absolutely. And at the same time, you don’t have to travel all the way to France to register that way. I think you have to go with your gut—you have to look for what’s the most musical solution when you’re registering anything. It’s not what the book says is the correct registration, but what has an effect—what makes the music come alive.

JR: Was there any particular aspect of registration that you had to make adjustments for when you returned to the U.S.?
CH: There are all sorts of things one can do. One basic idea that is important to know about is the upward voicing that a lot of the French organs have, where things really sing in the treble in a way they don’t on most of our organs. There’s not an easy solution to this, but it’s something to keep in mind and listen for. The other thing is that our Swell boxes are, generally, much more expressive even on smaller organs, and you can use them in a different way for the kinds of musical effects that naturally occur without moving the box on a French organ. The reason Franck used the Hautbois with his 8′ foundations was to make the Swell more expressive . . . if the oboe isn’t needed, I leave it off. Many American organs have the only chorus reeds in the Swell, and they might be quite loud; therefore, you don’t always have to play with the full Swell on where Vierne or Widor says “full Swell.” If you’ve only got a full Swell and one more reed on the Great, you don’t get a crescendo effect; you go from loud to louder. You’ve got to allow more liberty for these things, because in the end you’re being truer to the composer’s intentions . . .

JR: Tell us a little more about your time in France. Life in Europe is usually different than it is here, so what was it like for you—your schedule, your study, your practicing? Did you spend time learning the language?
CH: I was there through the Trinity College Paris program. They have about 20 to 30 students there each semester, and through that program I took French language classes, a class on French culture, a course on art history and architecture—they offer all sorts of courses, ranging from history of the European Union, to independent studies on anything you want to learn about. I did part of my coursework through them, and Trinity gave me credit for my organ lessons at the conservatory in Versailles, and my private harmony lessons with Jean-Baptiste.
I was also lucky enough to have an incredible job at the American Cathedral in Paris, working with Ned Tipton. I was the assistant musician, which meant that I accompanied the choir on Sunday mornings, and I directed two children’s choirs—the children’s group, and a teenager group—and along with all this I had an apartment in the cathedral tower, which was really incredible! You could climb to the top of the tower, and you had one of the most spectacular views of Paris. You could see all of the major monuments, really stunning. The cathedral is on the Avenue Georges V, which is right off the Champs Elysees . . . the whole experience was very surreal and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity. And the people at the cathedral are so wonderful. There are a lot of Americans, of course, and people from England, from Australia, and French people too!

JR: During your time in France, you performed for George and Laura Bush at the American Cathedral in Paris. Can you recall that day?
CH: I’ll certainly never forget it. It actually began on a Saturday afternoon when I got a knock at the door of my apartment. Now, my apartment was 83 steps up a cement spiral staircase, so I didn’t get very many knocks on the door . . . I was fairly surprised to discover the dean of the cathedral and two French police officers with enormous rifles standing in front of me. They explained who would be coming for a visit the following morning. To complicate things, Ned was away, the adult choir hadn’t had a rehearsal the previous Thursday, and we had the children’s choir scheduled to sing that morning too. Unfortunately, we had to keep the news completely secret for security reasons, so I couldn’t let the choirs know what would be happening. Sunday morning was a little hectic . . . security came and set up metal detectors, dogs sniffed through the whole building, and of course, they didn’t care that I had a choir to rehearse! We wound up with about 15 minutes to run through the anthems, but we pulled it off pretty well.

JR: What were your studies like with Jean-Baptiste Robin?
CH: Robin was an excellent teacher and I learned a great deal from him. At his recommendation, we spent the year working almost exclusively on French music, and nothing could have made me happier. Each week I would prepare a different piece, by de Grigny, Marchand, Couperin, or one of the other French Baroque composers. We worked a great deal on Franck, of course, on Alain’s Trois Danses, as well as one of Robin’s own pieces, Trois Éléments d’un Songe.

JR: What made you choose Juilliard for graduate study? For that matter, why even bother with graduate study, because you had already made a recording, you were signed to professional management before you even got a bachelor’s degree, if my calculations were correct?
CH: True. I chose Juilliard because I really wanted to work with Paul Jacobs and I have had a wonderful time studying with him. I’ve been lucky at this point to have studied both at Trinity and at Juilliard, and have had vastly different experiences at both schools. At Trinity, the focus was on studying music in a broader context—a liberal arts school; I took classes in all sorts of things: science, math, philosophy—it was wonderful, and I made friends with all sorts of people studying all different subjects, and I can’t say enough positive things about how that can affect one’s perspective on making music. But I really felt I was ready to study music in a much more intense environment, and Juilliard was a great choice for that. I love being in New York City, being at Juilliard, and working with Paul. It’s been very rewarding.

JR: Has it been an opportunity to learn a lot of new repertoire, or just refine what you already know?
CH: One of the unique things about the Juilliard program is that we’re required to perform a new piece each Thursday morning in our organ studio class, which is open to the public. And that was definitely a big draw to go there, to learn a lot of repertoire. It can sometimes be difficult to learn a piece very deeply when you’re going through so much music so quickly, but you can always bring things back to Paul and work on them more, and of course work on them more on your own, which is where the real music happens, spending time getting to know the music very intimately. To touch on the last question again, even though I’ve been lucky to have these opportunities to record a CD and study in France and work under management, which I’m incredibly grateful for and excited by, I believe one never really stops learning. Juilliard has been a wonderful place for me to grow more as a musician, and I hope to continue to do that for the rest of my life.

JR: You have a website, and a presence on Facebook—do you find that these media help build your audiences?
CH: I’m not sure, but I do think they’re incredibly important tools. How many people are on Facebook now? I have no idea, but there’s no reason not to take advantage of it and to be communicating in the world where most people are interacting today. I don’t know if my online presence necessarily helps build my audience, but it certainly doesn’t hurt it. It certainly helps attract younger people.

JR: Do you notice that your audience has a younger demographic than that of other organists?
CH: I don’t think so, not yet at least, but attracting younger people to classical music is something I feel very strongly about. And one of the greatest things I experienced at Trinity was bringing my friends who weren’t musicians to my organ concerts, and getting them excited about it. They responded very positively.

JR: Would that be the Houli Fans?
CH: The Houli Fans grew out of that, from friends of mine who weren’t musicians, but who came to my organ concerts and got excited by the music and discovered something far more fantastic than they ever expected to. I would have never guessed some of my college friends would greet me by humming the opening bars of Vierne’s Second Symphony—or talk to me about how fascinating a Bach fugue was. Houli Fans has caught on in a very organic way, and audiences everywhere I go are interested to hear more about it. At Trinity, students came to the concerts and saw that I loved performing, thought the music was exciting, and they responded by getting more people to come! This is such a good sign for organ music, to see people, of any age, who don’t know anything about organ music responding to it. I think in a way the organ may stand in a better place now than it ever has, I suppose you could say—it has been so dismissed and ignored for so many years, that now it stands to be rediscovered. We’ve all been in situations where people ask about being an organist. They really don’t know what that is, they don’t know what that means, what we actually do. When they hear exciting classical organ music, they’re so wowed by it—it’s true. I’ve played recitals this year and people come up to me and say, “This was my first organ concert and it was way better than I ever expected!” I tell them, “Now go tell somebody else. And come back again and bring them!” Once people discover what’s going on, they’re excited by it. And that’s a really good sign.

JR: Do you see any special role for technology such as iPods or YouTube to advance organ music, or are those just tools like a CD would be?
CH: I think what’s important is reaching as many people as you possibly can. And people are on Facebook, on YouTube—a lot of people are using these things, and if we ignore them (and I’m not suggesting we necessarily are), you’re ignoring a big part of your audience. So I think it can absolutely help. YouTube is a fantastic resource for hearing and seeing performances—it’s an incredible archive of music and musicians and organs and all kinds of music, not just organ music, and quite a tool for marketing and advertising. Everything links to something else, and people can see you and discover other organ music and other performances.

JR: Well, back to the Houli Fans. What are they up to these days?
CH: We have shirts and hats and coffee mugs, and people are really responding well to it. Everywhere I’ve been this year I hear “Oh, I’m going to join the Houli Fans” and “I’m your newest Houli Fan” and things like that. And I find that both musicians and non-musicians want a very fun way to connect with the performer and somehow be involved in the performance. It’s fun!
And there’s nothing wrong with having a little bit of fun, or with classical music being fun. It’s been fun for centuries!

JR: You also have an interest in musical theater. Do you have much time for that any more?
CH: No, not right now, in graduate school, and with a busy performance schedule. But I did a lot of it in high school—I was music director of several shows. That was a lot of fun, and actually a really great learning experience. And I did a lot of it in college, too—music directing, performing on stage, singing, dancing, and all of that. I really enjoy it. At the moment I don’t have plans to do it professionally, but it’s a small passion of mine. I particularly love the music of Stephen Sondheim, and, coincidentally, I’m going to be inaugurating the organ at the Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts in Fairfield, Iowa.
I think there’s a lot that musicians can learn from theater, both from straight drama and musical theater, about how to approach a musical score, similar to the way an actor takes a script and analyzes everything that’s going on to create a character, and perform that character night after night. I try to approach music the same way—take the score and truly consider how to create a musical experience—in a way . . . a whole play. Not necessarily a story, but create the kind of experience I’d like to have as a listener. I think there’s a lot we can learn from theater and the other arts.

JR: Of what you’ve worked on so far, is there any particular repertoire you found a difficult nut to crack—you mentioned finding the character and learning how to bring that out; is there any music that’s been, say, a little more opaque for you?
CH: One of the most incredible things about the organ literature, and one of the most daunting, is the centuries that it spans. All this repertoire and all these different styles—personally, I think it’s impossible to be fluent in and to perform all these styles in a convincing way. Maybe it’s possible; I’d like to be wrong. When I’m learning a piece in a different style that I haven’t studied before, I try to approach it with respect for the scholarship that’s been done on it and its performance practice, but also perform it in a way that feels honest to me, so that I can perform it and convince the audience of the music. I don’t think there is much value in performing something just because you think you should—that you should play so-and-so’s music. Well, what if you don’t like so-and-so’s music? A lot of people may like so-and-so’s music, and a lot of scholars may say it’s important . . . But I don’t have to perform everything under the sun.

JR: In one of Gavin Black’s regular columns in The Diapason, one of his points was that if you don’t really like something, why waste your time learning it? Life’s too short—unless you’re in a competition and it’s required.
CH: At the same time, I’ve learned some pieces—I’m not sure I can name a specific one—where I’m not sure about it at the beginning, or I think I’m not going to like the piece. But then after I learn it I think, “Wow, now that I’ve studied it, and learned more about what the composer was trying to do, and found ways to make it come alive for my own performance, it really is a good piece.” And sometimes I decide to learn a piece, starting off by thinking it’s a great piece, and then after becoming more familiar with it, decide “This isn’t right for me.” It works both ways.

JR: You’ve already recorded two CDs—are you preparing any other recordings? What are your other plans for the future?
CH: I hope to be able to keep recording, and I hope to be able to continue performing. I really enjoy traveling and meeting new people, but most importantly, I love performing and bringing music to an audience. I believe it’s more like making music with an audience. Sometimes I even tell that to the audience too—I thank them for making music with me, since I can’t do it by myself, and since I get so much joy from performing. Eventually, I’d love to be teaching and sharing my love of organ music with others in any way I can.

Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of THE DIAPASON.

Back in 1915, for the Panama-California Exposition, John D. Spreckels dedicated an organ pavilion in Balboa Park to “the peoples of all the world.” The post of Civic Organist of San Diego was first held by British-born Dr. Humphrey John Stewart (one of the founders of the American Guild of Organists), who served from 1917-1932. Stewart’s latest successor is Dr. Carol Williams, also British-born--and the first woman to be appointed to the post. Trained both in the UK and the USA--at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Yale University, and the Manhattan School of Music--Carol’s career today is anchored by her Civic Organist activities, but not limited by them. She has concertized throughout Europe, North America, and Asia, and continues her musical travels when possible. She has recorded a video and twelve CDs (details are available from her website, www.melcot.com). Carol Williams is represented in the USA by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, and in the UK by PVA Management.

Carol traveled to Illinois in March, and we had the opportunity to meet with her as she was preparing for a concert at Chicago’s St. Vincent de Paul Church, home of a 1901 Lyon-Healy organ that is undergoing restoration.

JR: Carol, I’m curious about your theatre organ background--you said you grew up playing theatre organ. Did you start with piano lessons?

CW:  Yes, that’s right. I started piano at age 5; I read music before I could read. There were electronic organs in the family, Hammonds, Lowreys--my aunt had a Hammond--and it just naturally progressed from having a Hammond, then to hearing a theatre organ.  I started theatre organ playing when I was about 13 or 14, and all the way through I continued a very strict piano training. I didn’t start classical organ until I was 17. But it was a natural progression.

JR: By the time you started classical organ, were you playing in theatres?

CW: I was doing concerts, yes, playing some theatre organs. But there were very few theatre organs left in their original surroundings; some had been moved into concert halls in England. I guess I started playing late since I didn’t sing in a boys choir, because I was a girl! The natural progression for the cathedral organist was you sang in the choir and then you naturally moved over--this didn’t happen to me, I just moved over. I heard Carlo Curley at the Alexandra Palace, and that was a turning point, because I thought, “this is really exciting!”

JR: Was it what he played, or how he played it, or the instrument?

CW: Everything! The Father Willis there was not working and there were electronic organs on stage and there were, I think, three or four organists. He was chauffered in, in a white Cadillac, I remember that. And Virgil Fox was there--he didn’t play; he stood out--that’s the closest I got to him. I was seventeen; I just clicked--”that’s my instrument!” I really do see myself as a concert organist. I enjoy playing light music, and it all feeds me, in the sense of keeping me alive. But I don’t see myself as a theatre organist. I enjoy playing it, and you have to be able to play light music in the park; you can’t just play a straight Buxtehude-Bach program--it would just go down like a lead balloon.

JR: I’ve been fascinated by your programming choices and liking them, because I’ve seen how audiences react to a varied program.

CW:  A lot of people find it hard to go into a church--I mean, they don’t see it as a concert venue. That’s why the park is great, because there are no “sacred” connotations, so you can play whatever you like. You can’t always do that in a church--you’ve got to show some respect. But you’ve got to get them in there, you’ve got to get them to stay, and you’ve got to get them to go again. So, you must play what they want to hear.

JR: Did you actually have theatre organ training? It’s definitely a different style of playing and registration. And did you learn how to create theatre arrangements, with the little fill-ins after a bit of melody?

CW: A lot of theatre organ arrangements are done from piano score and piano conductor score. I had two theatre organ teachers. Vic Hammett, who was a really fine artist, had so many innovative ideas, and my second teacher  was Eric Spruce, who was organist at the Empire Leicester Square in London--a very famous venue. They both knew what was entailed for playing theatre organ programs. That was alongside my classical organ training, so they were both feeding each other. It’s musicianship--you listen to orchestral scores, and then sometimes you might take a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical and you carve out your own ideas. You just let the music flow through you. But the training really helps. You work a lot from piano scores and novelty numbers--Zez Confrey . . .

JR: Kitten on the Keys!

CW: Beautiful stuff! James P. Johnson, Scott Joplin, they’re all quite delightful. They work well on a classical program, too. I love playing them!

JR: You play it very well. Some people just can’t make it work and you do.

CW: I like jazz. I think it should be like a soufflé, very light--and the pedal should be more 8-footish than 16 foot, so it really is more light, like a double bass plucking away. It shouldn’t be heavy. If you play Lefébure-Wély, this approach really helps, because that music is very flamboyant--it shouldn’t be stiff and stodgy.

JR: There are people who look down their nose at Lefébure-Wély.

CW: But he was an eminent musician. He was organist at Saint-Sulpice and he was one of Cavaillé-Coll’s key players. There is a funeral march by him, his opus 122, it’s some lovely music--not all oom-pah, oom-pah.

JR: You had so much training in England, then you came to the United States and you earned a DMA here. Why did you feel the need for training in America after such a good solid grounding in the UK?

CW: Well, I came to the States in ‘94, and I did a series of concerts. I really liked it out here. I went back and I happened across a CD of Thomas Murray--The Transcriber’s Art--and I just fell in love with that. You can never learn enough. I remember one teacher saying to me, “you should always remain a student,” always willing to learn. It just seemed right to come out here and do an artist’s diploma with Tom Murray, so I did. And I felt I really should do that DMA--you know, it’s worth having. I admire McNeil Robinson greatly; he’s a tremendous teacher. I enjoyed the scholarly aspect behind it; I did my thesis on 19th-century concert organs in England. The DMA at Manhattan School of Music is fairly performance based, which is me. I didn’t want to spend my time with textbooks and not play the organ. I wanted to play. So it worked out well. And for remaining in this country, I think a DMA really probably does help.

JR: Do you hope to teach some day, or just keep playing? 

CW: I think keep playing. It’s hard for me to take on a series of students because I’m traveling a fair amount and it’s not fair. At this stage I just want to play.

JR: But you did have one church job when you were in New York.

CW: Yes, I was an assistant organist at Garden City Cathedral, and that was good fun; I enjoyed the work. But doing that job, I realized that’s not what I want to do, because I didn’t want to immerse myself in conducting a choir, playing anthems--it just wasn’t me. But it fed me musically. While doing study at Yale, I was organist at Yale University Chapel; that was a good position. But from doing something, you learn something: that you don’t want to do it (if you follow me!).

JR: You seem to have a lot of fun with the Spreckels Pavilion concerts, including dressing up for them. You’ve got your Mexican dress for Cinco de Mayo, and if it’s a sunny day you have sunglasses--have you had to make any wardrobe investments just for that job?

 CW: Yes. A lot of warm stuff! (chuckles)

JR: Really? San Diego is warm!

CW: The building faces north, and it is so cold there this time of year. Actually they’ve just had a heat wave there this week. Yesterday it was in the 90s; this time of year, from October-November-December-January-February, and especially now, February-March, it’s the worst season. So the audience is in the sunshine, but you’re in the cold. And the organ is outside, the console is on the platform, and it kicks up a wind. It is the coldest place I have ever played! I remember Robert Plimpton saying to me, “You’re going to be cold.” I know English cathedrals--how could anything be as cold as an English cathedral? Well, he was absolutely right! I have a lot of silk things, underwear and stuff, layers--I wear a hat and warm coat. What I did start doing is going to the gym a lot, so I work out and that has helped me enormously--just keeping fit. Getting fit, I should say!

JR: What type of exercise do you do?

CW: Pilates and just general workouts--Pilates is really good for an organist, because of the neck--sitting at the organ, especially practicing under a lot of pressure, your neck is vulnerable. I’ve had serious neck problems, actually, and Pilates just strengthens your whole core. It makes you strong, and is well worth it.

JR: How about your shoes? I’ve also noticed that you don’t wear the standard organ shoes like a lot of us do. You’ve found shoes you can manage in?

CW: Yes. I think it’s personal. These are ballet shoes--and the sole is suede, so I can feel the pedals. And I have the heel made up so it’s not too flat. People have criticized them, but they work for me. Everybody’s feet are different. I have a very high arch, so I can’t wear a lot of flat shoes. But these work perfectly for me; other shoes don’t. I find them too solid. I wouldn’t feel supple--I want to feel like a dancer when I play--to feel that your feet are as nimble as your hands. If they’re solid, then it just doesn’t work. But I get a lot of shoes--different colors, too.

JR: Since you’ve had formal training in the UK and here, is the approach to playing any different? Would you say that there are different “schools” between the two countries?

CW: Yes. We have bigger acoustics in England. A lot of the cathedrals have tremendous resonance. A lot of the buildings over here do not have big resonance. One can play faster in dry acoustics; you go back home to England, or France, and you can’t do the same thing.  You play at St. Sulpice, you’ve got to really listen to that organ or it’s like having an argument with somebody and the organ would win. You’ve really got to listen to the instrument.

Each country, each acoustic, the voicing of each organ will bring out a different interpretation; you’ve got to be flexible.

JR: You clearly thrive on travel. Do you have an approach when you come to a new place and you have to learn the organ fast, because you’ve only got so many hours before that concert starts?

CW: It initially starts with them sending you a specification, getting that through the management. That gives you some idea of what you’re dealing with.  But it’s only something on paper. It’s nice to have two days if it’s possible--it should be possible, yet in England, many places, at cathedrals, they’d just give you a couple of hours. And it’s not fair; you barely get through a program, registering; it’s no way for musicians to work. You need that time to register, you need that time to savor the sounds, keep playing it through, always changing sounds--you know, change your balances. It takes a long time! I don’t like to work with my back against the wall because I don’t think I give my best.  I’d like to have two days if I could with an instrument.

JR: And the specification is just the starting point; you don’t know what the organ really sounds like or how responsive it is.

CW: Some of the big organs in this country with a big acoustic may have an action that is very light, and this can be a problem. Playing somewhere like St. Sulpice, the action is heavy but this can be very helpful with a large acoustic as this then allows the music to really make sense in the building.

JR: Are you saying that a heavier action works like a brake?

CW: It helps you. It makes you then appreciate what you’re dealing with: a big, big animal, a big friend. You’ve got to listen to it breathe; and you can’t do that at breakneck speed. Like the organ here: it’s got a big acoustic, the action is nice, but it’s light. You’ve got to switch off and put your ears in the building and listen to it as you play.

JR: About your Spreckels position--when you heard about it, what was it that made you think, “you know, I’d like to apply for that”?

CW: (chuckling) I saw it in The Diapason.

JR: Really!

CW: I did, yes. I remember reading it in The Diapason and I thought, “now that is an interesting position and that’s a position I know I could do,” because it was performance all the time. I always had in the back of my mind if there’s ever any job I wanted, it would be to be a civic organist--Lemare and people like that; his autobiography is fascinating, and the programs he played. I knew that would be me. So I applied. They had many applications--I understand about 100 applications--they narrowed it down to five, and the five were invited to give a Sunday afternoon concert. And I did; I did my best show, I thought. I loved the atmosphere because the audiences there are the general public, because it’s right in the middle of the park, it’s not far from the zoo, and there’s a museum of art, there’s all the big museums there. It’s a beautiful environment--there are about a thousand people there every Sunday afternoon. And I played a concert and I just clicked with the venue, I thought. Because you’re not limited as to what you can play, you can play what you want, within reason, on a big 73-rank Austin organ. And the organ itself is very versatile; it’s basically a good concert organ--plays the main repertoire incredibly well, and transcriptions. But it’s also got a tibia rank, so it plays theatre organ music well, and if you use the orchestral reeds and the couplers and the strings, you can get a good Wurlitzer sound from it. So it’s very versatile and it suits me, because I like to play all types of music. The organ and I, we’re a good marriage, I think.

JR: Do you remember what you played on your audition concert that sealed the deal for you?

CW: Well, I didn’t know for a while afterwards--not knowing is worse than anything! I played from Marchand right through to the Beatles, I remember. I just went the whole spectrum: Widor; Reger; as I said, the Beatles; Bach; a varied program.

The people there, they want to hear all types of music. The concerts are free; the organ was given by John D. Spreckels. And part of the deed was that the concerts have to be free. And I think it’s the hardest audience to play to, because  you get a lot of people who wander by, sit down, and the only way you can keep them there is if you play things that they want to hear, and in a way that they find exciting. If somebody’s paid 30 or 40 dollars for a concert, they’re going to sit right to the end. But if it’s free, they’ll go to another museum. So it’s hard. You’ve really got to connect with them--tell them about the organ, tell them about the music. You mustn’t be stuffy, play things that maybe two people might want to hear. With maybe 1000 people, you’ve got to try and connect with those thousand people. For the Monday night festival concerts we average 2500 people, and then on opening and closing nights we get about 4000. I shared a concert with Joshua Rifkin--I did the first half, he did the second half. He did beautiful ragtime; oh, it was fabulous! And then we did some duets at the end. We had 4000 people! It really was magic.

JR: Did you do Joplin duets with Rifkin?

CW: Yes. Maple Leaf Rag.

JR: You’ve recorded that already on your own.

CW: Yes--I love ragtime!

JR: Duets with Rifkin! He started the whole ragtime revival.

CW: Yes, he did. We owe the revival to him. He has exquisite playing, and it suits the tasteful construction of the music; they work well together. And he’s a great man, too; he’s a lot of fun.

JR: You’ve already talked about one occupational hazard at Spreckels, and that’s the cold. What about in summer? Does it get impossibly hot?

CW: It does get hot. We sometimes have the hot weather from the desert, and that’s what really fueled the fire in October. And it’s a dry, hot wind; it’s unbearable. As soon as you raise that big door on the organ, you suffer; so does everybody. It seems to suck out something from the atmosphere and the tuning unfortunately goes; there’s nothing you can do about that. But the Monday night festival concerts, because they’re at night, don’t have that problem so much. Sometimes you get an atmosphere problem, with moisture in the air, during late August and it can be very damp at night. That’s a problem; the keys get wet and the bench is wet; these are things you have to deal with.

Last year I shared a concert with Hector Olivera. He brought the Roland Atelier. We did the Guilmant First Symphony--he did the orchestra, and I did the solo organ. It was fabulous, absolutely fabulous. As we got to the second page of the Guilmant, I saw the biggest bug on the pedals! And I looked down and thought, “oh, no!” I didn’t have much to do that page, and I jumped off the bench. Lyle Blackinton, the organ curator, removed the bug; Hector looked at me, dazed, like “we haven’t finished, we’ve only just started,” and I jumped back on. The bug was crawling away--it was huge! I was terrified. We have these bug problems and I tell women not to use hair spray or anything like that. There are certain things that you cannot do!

JR: Does the Spreckels program have an endowment that funds the concerts?

CW: My position is two separate positions, actually. I’m the civic organist for the city, and then separately I’m the artistic director for the Spreckels Organ Society. And they put on the summer festival. They work on funding and donations and that’s a lot of work. From that we can put on concerts and pay artists to come and play. But it’s a lot of work because we can’t charge for programs, so it has to be done with donation. Next year is the 90th year with the instrument--she started life December 31st, 1914, so next season, the official 90th birthday, will be a very special year. For the opening concert we’re going to have the three civic organists--Jared Jacobsen, Robert Plimpton, and myself--they’ll call us the Three Tenors of the organ world!

This year’s an international festival; we have organists coming from Poland, Australia, France, Germany, and they’re going to be playing some music from their own countries. So that’s the flavor for this year. Next year will be very much linked with the celebration of the organ. So programs must have a connection with the instrument and the city. I have to say, it is a lot of work planning a festival.

This year, closing night, we are doing a Lloyd Webber Spectacular--including  artists in costumes. I’m playing the accompaniments to Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, etc. After a very serious festival and after a lot of serious organ music, I think it’s good that you have something that’s completely different, and this will bring in a different audience. Otherwise, you keep attracting the same audience, the same organ enthusiasts. So I’m always looking for something different each year that’s going to have a different appeal. I am also going to play some of Lloyd Webber’s father’s music--his father, W.S. Lloyd Webber, was an eminent musician.

JR: The Spreckels website shows pictures that look especially delightful, from programs where you were accompanying young people playing other instruments. That looked like so much fun!

CW: It was good. The concert was with children--”Music with children 2003”--and it’s getting young people involved, and not just organists. I’ve got a singer who’s actually going to be with me opening night--eleven years old and he has a voice that’s just amazing. His name is Daniel Myers.

JR: Is it a boychoir voice?

CW: He’s a boy soprano, but his voice hasn’t broken yet. It’s got power behind it. The director of the San Diego Children’s Choir, Dr. Garry Froese, recommended this youngster--said he wanted to sing Granada. I thought, singing Granada? But I couldn’t believe it when I heard him. Goodness me, the power behind it! So he’s going to be with me opening night.

We do something for children that’s important. That’s for the people of San Diego, that the instrument is used for really good things. I don’t mind if kids play violin, or sing, or whatever--they get a chance to play for a thousand people. And they love it!

JR: When you’re in San Diego, you’re playing at the pavilion. Do you do your practicing there, or how do you manage? Do you have an instrument of some sort at home?

CW:  I have a Rodgers at home. But I actually like going into the park early in the mornings to do practice, because it’s so quiet. I like working with the organ when there’s nobody around, telephones not around. I turn my cell phone off--I know I shouldn’t do that, but I just like to be left alone sometimes. Just get into the music. And there’s a piano in the pavilion, and the building’s very quiet. It’s very peaceful, so I can really get into my work. I make sure that I do so much practicing, then I will put on the computer and sort out the e-mails. I’m really disciplined about that. You can get so stuck into paperwork and e-mails and that; practice comes first for me! If people get in the way of my practicing, I can be very difficult. I mean, I’ve got to practice--that’s what I’m supposed to do! If you get in the way of that, then you’re not going to be performing so well. So that’s definitely first on the list every day.

JR: How much do you practice?

CW: At least three hours a day. I’m happy when I can do five, or when I’m traveling and working with new instruments, it can be up to eight hours a day. It’s a different type of work, getting used to a new organ.

JR: Let me ask you one last question. Where do you go from here?

CW: I love being busy, I love traveling, I love playing. The San Diego position I very much enjoy because you’re getting through to new people all the time. People come there specifically to hear that organ; people come from all over the world to hear it. It’s really refreshing to hear that. Just doing more and more recording; I love French organ music, I want to do some more recording of French organ music. Just keep busy--I’ve hardly started!

JR: Thank you so much.

Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of The Diapason.

Not too many of today’s organists have a listing in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. One who does is Thomas Trotter, who has made his mark with a dazzling, effortless technique and compelling interpretations. In 2001 the Royal Philharmonic Society presented their Instrumentalist Award to Trotter, citing him as “one of the foremost exponents of the organist’s art” who “makes the organ one of the most warmly romantic of instruments. His technical and musical accomplishments have played a significant role in raising the profile of the organ, an instrument at the heart of British music-making.” Trotter was the first (and so far, only) organist to win this award.
Trotter has a busy schedule, underpinned by his position as City Organist in Birmingham, England; he is now also Artistic Adviser and Resident Organist of the Klais organ at Symphony Hall there, where he gave the opening recital in October 2001. He also serves as organist at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey, along with teaching, and performing concerts in Europe and the U.S. Trotter presents upwards of 50 concerts a year (about half of those, in Birmingham). He has performed with many orchestras, including the Vienna, Berlin, London, and Royal Philharmonics, and the San Francisco Symphony. His appearances at major festivals include Salzburg, Vienna, and Edinburgh; he has performed on major instruments, including at Woolsey Hall at Yale (where he recently served as visiting artist-in-residence), St. Ouen in Rouen, France, St. Bavo in Haarlem, Netherlands, Weingarten Abbey in Germany, and the Klais organ at the new Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore.
Trotter’s performances, both live and recorded, have received critical acclaim. A review of his most recent CD, Sounds Phenomenal, praises the “mastery of musical pace and flow” and “beautifully sensitive playing in the lovely Schumann canons.”1 Trotter played the dedicatory recital on the Klais organ at Overture Hall in Madison, Wisconsin; a reviewer commented on his “impeccable articulation” and “deft foot work.”2 The playing in Trotter’s recording of (his own) arrangement of Mozart’s two Fantasies in f minor (K. 594, K. 608) was praised for its “technical brilliance and conservative, yet satisfying schemes of registration.”3
The most recent addition to his discography, which numbers over 20 recordings, is Sounds Phenomenal, recorded on the 4-manual Klais instrument in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. He is represented in the U.S. by Karen McFarlane Artists.
We spoke with Thomas Trotter by phone in March.

JR: It’s lovely to talk to you, and thank you so much for agreeing to do this. Are you in Birmingham right now, or are you in London?
TT: I’m actually in Windsor where I live.

JR: Are you near the castle?
TT: Yes, quite near, about five minutes’ walk.

JR: You were an organ scholar there, yes? At St. George’s Chapel?
TT: Yes, for a year before I went up to Cambridge, while I was still at the Royal College of Music. Until then I had no experience of church music, so it was a great preparation for life as a Cambridge organ scholar.

JR: How did you become interested in the organ?
TT: I had always wanted to play the piano and started having lessons at the age of five. My piano teacher at my secondary school was also the organist there, and when I was 11 he introduced me to the organ. From then on I became much more enthusiastic about the organ than the piano, but I continued to study the piano seriously until I left the Royal College of Music. So it was via the piano that I came to the organ.

JR: Did you continue your piano studies because you felt that you needed that as a foundation, or was it continued interest in the piano?
TT: Both! I wanted to play the piano repertoire, and anyway when I was eleven I was barely tall enough to reach the pedals. I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to play the organ properly for another few years, so in the meantime it was prudent to continue at the piano. It was also much easier to find a piano to practice on than an organ—we had one at home for a start!

JR: There is a new organ method approach, in which one doesn’t need to start with piano; students go directly to playing the organ.
TT: I’m sure it’s possible to play the organ without having played the piano, but there is much to be gained from playing more than one keyboard instrument. Bach himself advocated the clavichord for developing a sensitive touch. A sensitive touch and a good ear are crucial on the piano, and that can surely only benefit organ playing too. A good piano technique is also very helpful when it comes to playing the Romantic and contemporary organ repertoire.

JR: Describe organist training in England. What does the college curriculum comprise?
TT: There are two main options for organ study in Great Britain. One is the music college (for example, the Royal College or Royal Academy of Music in London or the Royal Northern in Manchester) and the other is university, with both kinds of institutions offering courses at degree level. The courses have a more practical bias at the music colleges, but often the performing opportunities can be greater at the universities where music students are in the minority. The “apprentice” system exists in both music colleges and universities (at least those with links to cathedrals), but it is most strongly associated with the Oxbridge colleges, where an organ scholar will act as assistant to the director of music (or be the director if there isn’t one!). This is an extremely effective and comprehensive training, particularly useful for those wishing to pursue a church music career.

JR: Which track did you follow? Did you have aspirations for a cathedral post or were you more interested in concertizing?
TT: I was always more interested in concertizing, so I first studied at the Royal College of Music, London with Ralph Downes, who is best remembered today as the designer of the Royal Festival Hall organ. I never planned to pursue the Oxbridge “apprentice” path and had little interest in church music, but the idea was put into my head by the then director, Sir David Willcocks, who pointed out that an Oxbridge organ scholarship would be a good springboard for any performing career. So a year later I applied for and won the organ scholarship to King’s College Cambridge, where I read for a degree in music and acted as assistant organist to the director of music Philip Ledger. At this time I studied with Dame Gillian Weir, who was a marvelous teacher and a great inspiration to me. After leaving Cambridge I moved to London, where I embarked on a freelance career which included playing harpsichord and organ continuo, accompanying on the piano, some church work, and most importantly giving solo recitals. I had just won the St. Albans International Organ Competition, which resulted in a number of recital invitations. I also continued my studies with Marie-Claire Alain, traveling over to Paris once a month for lessons. Her scholarly approach made me look at the music from a different perspective, and I played French Classical and Romantic instruments for the first time. My big professional break came when I was appointed Birmingham City Organist in 1983.

JR: Let’s talk a little about Birmingham. You are the City Organist there, and also the Resident Organist at Symphony Hall. Are those two actual different roles?
TT: No, since my residency at Symphony Hall is an extension of what I was already doing at the Town Hall. As city organist I present a regular series of concerts at the Town Hall, and, since the arrival of the new Klais in 2001, at Symphony Hall also. In theory, you could have a different organist playing at each venue, but the musical scene in Birmingham is not big enough to support two resident organists. There have only been five city organists since 1842, and they have mostly served for between 30 and 50 years. I’m in my twenty-third year now and I’m planning to be around for a good few more years!

JR: It seems that there are many more town hall organist positions in the U.K. than we have in the U.S.
TT: Well, the whole tradition was born in this country, so it’s not surprising that there are more positions here. The English are by nature very conservative, and they jealously guard their traditions. Another reason might be the system of public funding. All of these town hall positions are funded by local councils, whereas in America the arts rely much more on sponsorship by wealthy individuals. The thing about public funding is that it’s available in good times as well as bad, whereas private sponsorship can be more precarious. There have been regular organ recitals at Birmingham Town Hall since 1842, and the commitment from the City Council is as strong as ever.

JR: How’s the attendance these days? Has it changed at all?
TT: We’re in an interim period at the moment, because in 1996 the Town Hall closed for a huge renovation project, and for the last nine years the concerts have been presented at the nearby St. Philip’s Cathedral. Before the hall closed, the regular attendance was 400 or 500 people, whereas at St. Philip’s the attendance is half that number. At Symphony Hall, the attendance is usually around 400, but some of the events—the Christmas carol concerts for example—can attract up to 2000 people.

JR: Do a lot of young people come to the concerts?
TT: Nearly all of the concerts take place at lunchtime, and so our audience consists mainly of retired people. We’d like to attract more young people, but generally the younger people are preoccupied with earning a living, and the really young people are at school! A couple of years ago at Symphony Hall we had a very successful event aimed at children, but this was a one-off event, and the regular support comes mostly from the older generation.

JR: Your commitments include Birmingham, serving as organist at St. Margaret’s Westminster, teaching, and concertizing, often in other countries. Do you have flexibility built into your commitments so that you are able to travel?
TT: Absolutely, yes, because traveling around playing concerts is my main source of income. The Birmingham position provides me with a very solid base, and I receive other playing invitations as a result of being there. At St. Margaret’s Westminster I am responsible only for the organ playing, so my commitments are not great, and with the help of deputies I have complete flexibility. For the last three years I’ve been teaching several of the organ scholars at Cambridge, which involves two or three visits per term, so not a huge commitment there either. My priorities are the recital series in Birmingham and my recitals elsewhere, and everything else comes after that.

JR: What level are your students? Are they concertizing already?
TT: Yes. They all play in public to a professional standard, and the King’s scholars especially are used to working under pressure whether it be in chapel, concert hall or recording studio. Nearly all of them will be professional musicians when they leave university. Sometimes they learn things rather too quickly than they ought to because they’re very good sight readers, which is an essential quality for an organ scholar. But they’re very clever, and smart, and talented, so I feel lucky to be teaching them.

JR: Do you have enough time to practice? How do you fit that in?
TT: Well, the older I get, the less practice I seem to do, which is a dangerous thing to say. But I think I use the time more efficiently. My organ at home has a very revealing touch, and two hours practice on that is equivalent to four hours on a lesser instrument. I rarely practice for more than three hours a day, but rarely less than two either. Sometimes practice means preparing the registration for a concert at a venue, sometimes it’s learning a new piece or revising an old one, sometimes it’s just keeping your technique up to scratch—a bit like an athlete keeping fit!

JR: You seem to play mostly larger instruments—huge instruments!
TT: That’s true, certainly in America and Britain. And obviously, if you’re playing on a large organ, then you’ve got to cut your cloth accordingly and play the big pieces—which I enjoy. But I also play a lot of smaller instruments, especially in the Netherlands and Germany, where there are many beautiful historic organs.

JR: Smaller instruments can be limiting for a lot of repertoire.
TT: Yes, but it’s not a problem if the instruments are well designed. This June I will play a concert in the Handel Haus in Halle on a one-manual organ with rudimentary pedals, built in 1770. At first I was rather daunted at the prospect, but after some thought it wasn’t so difficult to put together a program. I’ll play a Bach partita, some Elizabethan music, some of the smaller Mozart pieces, and a pared-down arrangement of one of the Handel organ concertos.

JR: I associate you with the larger—I’ll say “swashbuckling”—kind of pieces, with orchestra.
TT: I’m certainly better known for playing that repertoire, but I’ve always wanted to explore other areas of the repertoire. And it’s true I do quite a lot of concerto work, which started with Simon Rattle in Birmingham. I enjoy it, but not more than playing solo. There are so many technical difficulties associated with playing concertos—making sure the balance is right, coping with acoustical delays, watching the conductor and making sure the ensemble is good—these difficulties don’t exist when you are playing solo. You can always tell more about an organist in a solo context!

JR: Yes—it’s nice just to have your own canoe to paddle!
TT: Exactly! In the last few weeks I’ve been working on a new concerto for wind band and organ by Piet Kee, who was the former city organist in Haarlem in the Netherlands. The concert will be at the Concertgebouw, which has a Cavaillé-Coll organ recently restored by Flentrop. He sent me a computer-generated recording of the piece, which is quite comical in places, really. But it’s helped to give me an overview of the piece and how the organ fits in with the orchestra.

JR: You’ve recorded in the Netherlands.
TT: Yes, that’s right! I did a Mozart disc on a beautiful 2-manual instrument in Farmsum, which is a little town in North Holland. We were there in the depth of winter where the average temperature was one degree centigrade—and that was inside the church! The organ is by Lohmann and dates from the 1830s, but stylistically it’s very much within the 18th-century tradition. It has these wonderful sweet-sounding flutes that you often hear on a fairground organ—you know, a calliope, or whatever you call it in America. I love that sound—that pure sound; it was perfect for Mozart. I’ve also recorded music by Jehan Alain on a very large 4-manual instrument by Van den Heuvel in Katwijk, further down the coast of Holland.

JR: Most of your recordings were made on organs either outside the U.K., or if they’re in the U.K.—let’s say “Father” Willis doesn’t stand out in your discography! Is that just by chance?
TT: When I was in my twenties I just loved anything that was French. Then I started getting into the German Romantics and early music. And then about eight years ago I realized that I had neglected English music, which audiences, particularly in Europe, expect English organists to play. So recently I’ve tried to redress the balance, and instruments permitting I always include British music in my programs. The Elgar Sonata is of course wonderful, there are great pieces by Parry, Stanford, Bridge, Howells, Bairstow, and some exciting new music by Judith Bingham, James MacMillan, Michael Nyman, and others. But my recent recordings have been on the Symphony Hall Klais, for which traditional British repertoire is not an obvious choice. But it’s my intention to record English music in the future, and “Father” Willis might come into the picture at that point. Authentic “Father” Willis organs can be quite intractable though—they sort of clatter a bit, and the devices for changing the stops can be primitive to say the least—they certainly present their own problems!

JR: For a long time England was seen as provincial or parochial in its organ building. This seems to be changing. Are mechanical action and a more classical orientation the norm?
TT: The organ reform movement, which has been so important in shaping organ design in the last 80 or so years, hit these shores rather later and with less force than in the rest of Europe. But today the work of British organbuilders is highly respected at home and abroad, with many new organs now being built for export. For the majority of builders I would say that mechanical action is the preferred choice, but bearing in mind the architecture of British churches and the necessity of placing organs near choirs, this option can be impractical. Certainly the best electric actions I’ve ever come across are found in Britain.

JR: You’ve played on numerous Klais instruments. Were you responsible for bringing Klais to Birmingham? Was that mostly your decision as the organ consultant?
TT: The Symphony Hall organ project first came up in 1989 as the hall was under construction. Because of lack of funds it was decided to commission the organ in two stages, the first of which was to design and install the case façade. Klais won the contract on the strength of their innovative design, and the case was installed in time for the opening of the Hall in 1991. The rest of the money was raised some five years later, which enabled Klais to complete the organ in 2001. In the intervening years the original concept changed, and I think we have a better organ now than we would have had the organ been completed in 1991. I’ve opened several other new Klais instruments—the one in Madison, the one at the Esplanade Hall in Singapore; in Moscow, at the House of Music, where Klais collaborated with Glätter-Gotz.

JR: Did you take very much heat for working with Klais in Birmingham rather than championing a British builder? Was that an issue?
TT: Well, we already had that issue at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall in 1997 where the organ was built by the Danish builder Marcussen. I was the consultant and very much in the firing line for that. But as a consultant you have to go with what you think is the best scheme regardless of nationality, and of course the larger English builders do regularly export their instruments abroad.

JR: Are there special considerations when designing a town hall organ other than the obvious things—that this is a large hall, and the organ might have to work with an orchestra as well as performing as a solo instrument?
TT: Well, that is precisely the most important factor determining its design. A town hall or concert hall organ needs very loud stops to match the power of an orchestra and many 8¢ stops, which will assist with blend. It also needs to have many pedal stops, including 32¢ registers, because those pitches are lower than what any orchestral instrument can provide. Concert hall organs need a degree of eclecticism in order to cope with many styles of music played by organists from widely different traditions. But of course there are far more similarities than there are differences between a town hall and a church organ.

JR: Playing transcriptions seems to be an interest of yours. What do you think about them being back out there after being out of vogue for so long?
TT: Well, it’s great that we are allowed to enjoy ourselves again! I first became interested in transcriptions at King’s, where I always enjoyed the challenge of recreating the sound of the orchestra in pieces like the Fauré Requiem or the Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs. But my real chance, my excuse for playing solo transcriptions, came in 1983 when I was appointed Birmingham City Organist, as I knew that this tradition had always been associated with such positions. The first one I learned was Wagner’s Meistersinger overture, which I played at my first concert, and from then on I was hooked. I usually include perhaps one or two transcriptions in most of the programs I play, and sponsors often ask for them. I’m not so keen on playing whole programs of them, and I’ve noticed that there are a few organists who are doing that now. The legitimate repertoire should always take pride of place, and there is some wonderful real organ music that should not be ignored at the expense of transcriptions.

JR: Well, I don’t think you could ever be accused of tilting the balance too far. But I’ve enjoyed the transcriptions I’ve heard you play, and it’s nice to just lighten the mood a little bit.
TT: Exactly! And it’s fun to hear music in a different medium than the one for which it was originally conceived. And you read reports of Edwin Lemare’s playing, and apparently he used to bring out details that you wouldn’t have heard in the orchestral version. Sometimes music can take on a different kind of life—you can hear things that you can’t hear in the original.

JR: I’ve really enjoyed your recordings, especially things like the Naji Hakim homage to Stravinsky and your recording of Rubrics.
TT: Rubrics is such an effective piece—it has the perfect number of movements, none of them lasting too long, each of them exploiting a different color of the instrument, and I so enjoy playing it. I love discovering pieces like that, that are modern and different, but at the same time are accessible. That’s the other thing I’ve taken to doing in recent times—always playing a piece by a living composer.

JR: You’ve made some arrangements of pieces—Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride, the Mozart Fantasies, for instance. Did you enjoy doing those, and do you plan to do any more?
TT: It was fun, but writing out arrangements is very time-consuming. The Mozart pieces were not such a problem because I had already performed the music many times, and my arrangements don’t differ that much from the original four-stave versions that are currently available. Recently I did my own arrangement of three movements from Stravinsky’s Petroushka, which was challenging and certainly challenging to play. But it did help me to while away many hours in dreary hotel rooms.

JR: Do you have any projects planned for the immediate future, particularly recordings? Anything new coming up?
TT: I did a recording of English choral classics with the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus in January for EMI, which will be released in the near future. I’m certainly planning to do more recording at Symphony Hall and the Town Hall when it comes back on stream in 2007—the time of the reopening is October 2007. So there’ll definitely be more recordings from there, but hopefully from other places as well. I’ve not been a prolific recording artist compared to some of my colleagues, but I make up for it with the number of concerts I do—maybe 50–60 every year. Recording—I’m never satisfied with the results! You know, no matter how carefully I prepare, I always want to do it differently three months later!

JR: What are some of your future plans and goals?
TT: I don’t really have any long-term plans other than wanting to improve as a player and continuing to broaden my horizons. Discovering and learning new music gives me the greatest satisfaction, and if I still enjoy playing 15 years from now I will be happy!

JR: Well, Thomas, thank you so much for your time.
TT: Not at all. A pleasure.