Yale School of Music Receives $100 Million Gift

R. E. Coleberd is an economist and petroleum industry executive.

In the March, 1997, edition of this journal we published
"Is The Pipe Organ A Stepchild In Academe?" The purpose was to call
attention to the perilous status of the King of Instruments in many
institutions of higher learning and to suggest concrete ways to shore up its
uncertain future. We closed the article with a call to action, a plea for
concerned friends of the organ--faculty, students, alumni and laymen--to take
determined action. We cited two examples of what is required: "Friends of
the Northrop Organ" at the University of Minnesota and alumni tours of
Woolsey Hall at Yale University, and we mentioned a followup article spotlighting promising developments.

The purpose of this article is to review the nature of the
problem in the context of the current complexion of higher education and to
discuss several auspicious programs in some detail.  The wholesale neglect, abandonment, and sell-off of organs
in colleges and universities which, sadly, threatens to continue, is perceived
as a nationwide phenomenon. This situation is attributed to the emergence of a
pervasive market-driven mentality in academe. Ill-advised budget officers and state legislatures are today preoccupied with student numbers and credit hours as the overriding criteria for funding. Policy and operating decisions by
administrators are based upon a frantic search for "hot buttons"
(computer science and genetic engineering, for example) to bolster enrollment
amid intense competition for students who are increasingly vocationally
oriented in their choice of school and curriculum. This short-sighted pragmatic
approach threatens the distinguishing features of a campus setting and its
time-honored mission as the repository of our culture, and the harbinger of our
future as a cultivated society.

In preparing this article the author has talked with a score
of music professors in all types of schools, public and private, large and
small, coast to coast. He has discovered some remarkable programs, which are
attracting institutional and community support leading to increased student
enrollment and funding. If the bold and imaginative initiatives taken by many
schools are adopted by others, the pipe organ has a bright future in academe.

Invaluable Goods

We repeat our premise that a pipe organ is not merely an
appliance or teaching device, but is a campus jewel along with the telescope,
the book collection and the art gallery. So recognized, these treasures should
be impervious to cost-cutting, down-sizing and departmental budget allocations
based upon enrollment. They should be classified as "invaluable
goods," a concept eloquently articulated by Professor Kenneth Arrow of
Stanford University, an internationally renowned economist awarded the Nobel
Prize in economics in 1972.  The
occasion for his commentary is his review of Margaret Jane Radin's seminal work
Contested Commodities in which her fear is that "actions which are
essential to personal identity fall under the sway of the market and are
measured by its criteria." Arrow's concept of invaluable goods rests upon
the belief that certain aspects of human life are so essential to whole
personhood that their existence and ultimate value cannot be measured in
dollars and cents. They are not--and should not be--bartered in the marketplace
and their value should not be judged by a monetary payoff. He acknowledges that
this concept is symptomatic of  a
failure of economics (and of the market mentality): "One of the oldest
critiques of economic thinking has been its perceived disregard of the deeper
and more sacred aspects of life" he writes.1 In short, when we begin, or
insist on, valuing the fundamentals of human life in terms of money, putting a
price on them and, without hesitation, buying and selling them based on this
criterion, we are asking for trouble. One example Arrow gives of invaluable
goods is children. No matter how poor or desperate a family might be, the idea
of selling the children is utterly unthinkable. Is it time that we invoke the
spirit of invaluable goods in our colleges and universities and declare the
pipe organ and other jewels of the campus as integral to the deeper and more
sacred aspects of the higher learning, and thereby untouchable?

We continue with the admonition that the trancendent
three-dimensional sound of a majestic pipe organ, as heard in an auditorium
convocation or chapel service, can evoke emotions which contribute immeasurably
to a vital sense of identity and community in the collegiate experience. One
striking, if novel, example of the lasting imprint of this experience is in
Robert L. Duffus's delightful little book The Innocents at Cedro. It
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  recounts the year 1907-08 when Duffus
and his brother William kept house for Thorstein Veblen in their sophmore year
at Stanford University. The publisher described the book as "an
unforgettable evocation of American college life in the early 1900s."
Written in 1944 near the close of a distinguished career in journalism as a
member of the editorial board of the New York Times, Duffus recalled what,
nearly four decades earlier, were his most cherished memories of college life,
the experiences that meant the most to him. Among them was joining fellow
students for a sack lunch on the quadrangle and listening to Professor Blodgett
practicing on the chapel organ. "The music would rumble along, formless in
the distance, but pleasant and tranquil" he wrote. 2

Auditorium Organs

We noted in the previous paper that the auditorium and its
majestic pipe organ have all but disappeared as a centerpiece of campus
activity. Too small for many functions or pre-empted by the drama department,
the auditorium often stands anonymously as a symbol of the vast increase in
enrollment and of specialized curricula, which together with other forces, have
compartmentalized student life into various "schools,"
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  i.e., engineering, business, nursing,
agriculture and others. We are happy to have discovered two exceptions.

Mansfield University

Mansfield University in Pennsylvania is one of fourteen
former state teachers colleges which now comprise the "University
System."  Its two organs are a
25-stop three-manual Austin, Opus 297, 1917, in Strawn Auditorium and a 27-stop
three-manual Moller, Opus 10652, 1970, in the Stedman Theater wing of the
Butler Music Building.

  These
instruments are the pride and joy of President Rod C. Kelchner, a graduate of
the school, who says: "You would have to drag me across the campus kicking
and screaming to get rid of our organs." He calls them significant symbols
in the ambience and character of the school and its history. He laments that
with the many changes in academe in recent years, history fades and is
forgotten; hence the need for reminders and recognition. Just as furniture
makes a house livable, hospitable to visitors and complements the personalities
of the occupants, so too do the treasures of a campus give it definition and
persona and bridge the generations, he asserts.

President Kelchner's office, not the music department, has
contracted for five maintenance visits per year for these instruments. This is
particularly significant because it illustrates the role the top administration
must play in the recognition and preservation of campus instruments. His
loyalty and devotion are especially noteworthy because Mansfield has not been
immune to organ enrollment trends. When the organ professor retired two years
ago he was not replaced, there are currently no organ majors on campus, and he
has had to go off-campus to find people to play the organ for commencement.

In another gratifying endorsement of music and its place in
the history of Mansfield, which will gladden the hearts of musicians
everywhere, President Kelchner chose Carl Ruck, a graduate of the school, as
commencement speaker two years ago. A well-known keyboard performer in the
Washington, D.C. area, Mr. Ruck also performs frequently on campus and is a
member of the alumni board. Kelchner toyed recently with the idea of a "non-traditional"
commencement, calling for the speaker, a musician, to be seated at the organ
console in Strawn Auditorium, playing and narrating classical music and its
place in time-honored liberal education, providing an alternative to the customary remarks to graduates.   

Boston University

The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ in the George Sherman
Union at Boston University is an eloquent example of the role of a pipe organ
as a distinctive jewel in a campus setting This instrument originated from gifts
of two residence organs to the school by prominent trustees who recognized the
lasting value of them in America's musical heritage and whose resources and
devotion to the school found expression in creating this one-of-a-kind campus
jewel.  The first organ was a small
Skinner in the home of Percy Rockefeller in Greenwich, Connecticut. The second
was a larger Aeolian from the Winchester mansion of William E. Schrafft, the
Boston candy-maker. Meticulously restored and greatly enlarged by organbuilder
Nelson Barden, this spectacular instrument resides in Metcalf Hall in the
Sherman Union, and was dedicated in October, 1994, in honor of Silber, the
Chancellor of Boston University.

This majestic instrument not only replicates the prominence
of an auditorium organ at the turn of the century, it goes a step further in
defining the institution and making a lasting impression on the students. With
102 ranks and 6,815 pipes, displayed prominently with the entire mechanism, the
latter behind plate glass windows, it becomes a commanding presence in the
ambience of student life. As Jonathan 
Ambrosino remarks: "From the start, the instrument was designed to
be a living display of art and technology, restored to perfection and open to
the public.  Whether playing or silent, the organ makes a statement on many artistic levels."3 As students pass through the building daily to and from classes, and as alumni gather for
special occasions,  the visual
presence and glorious sounds of this organ, linking past to present and transcending the cares of life, will evoke a lasting memory.

Promoting the Pipe Organ

In the economic realities of higher education, the market
mentality of administrators and state legislators who view a school today as a
business is here to stay, like it or not. In the final analysis, the best
guarantee of preserving faculty positions, maintaining instruments, and
budgeting scarce resources for tuning and periodic restoration and updating is,
first, never to miss a chance to call attention to the instrument. Second, is
to "shake the bushes" and aggressively recruit students from
traditional sources on campus and non-traditional sources within the community.
The type of missionary zeal required is found in Prof. William Kuhlman of
Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, who says proudly: "I have done everything
but stand on my head to bring about organ awareness and appreciation."
Indeed he has:  organ crawls after
church, summer organ camps for local grade school children, demonstrations for
faculty and board of regents spouses, family camps, church heritage workshops,
Halloween "monster concerts" and presentations to the local Rotary
Club.

In research for this paper the author has surveyed all types
of schools across the nation. He has come upon some enterprising and
imaginative faculty who are "pulling out all the stops" to promote
their departments, programs and instruments with gratifying results.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  For purposes of analysis and
discussion, it is useful perhaps to divide the landscape of higher education
into three categories: small liberal arts colleges, state colleges including
urban branches of state universities, and major music schools and universities,
particularly those noted for professional and graduate study.

Liberal Arts Colleges

The liberal arts colleges were historically church
affiliated and many retain strong church ties today. The Lutheran schools, in
particular, enjoy a rich legacy of liturgical music in the heritage of their
denomination, and churches of all denominations traditionally reflect the
prominence of music in the experience of corporate worship. Thus, the church
connection augurs well for maintaining pipe organs as integral to campus
resources and central to the music program. These schools benefit from an
articulate and active alumni and the corresponding sensitivity of the
administration and trustees to alumni concerns in budgeting decisions. The
choice of liberal arts as an initial course of study is perhaps indicative of a
lesser concern with the vocational job-market payoff in selecting a school and
a curriculum. The church-going life style of students enrolled in these
schools, particularly those students having a musical background and interest,
may cause them to contemplate making a musical contribution to parish life and
to prepare for organ and choral opportunities. Therefore, although these
schools are not totally immune to the market-orientation mind-set, and have
adjusted curriculum to broader trends, they have never suffered such a loss of
organ enrollment as to justify ending the curriculum and liquidating the
instruments. The challenge of these schools is to continue to insure the
rightful place of music in the philosophical and operational image of the
liberal arts and to affirm organ study in music programs, resources and curriculum.

Marylhurst College

Practical Outreach

One of the most imaginative and innovative programs in a
four-year undergraduate curriculum is the one developed by Nancy LeRoi Nichol
at Marylhurst College, a Catholic women's school in Portland, Oregon. Acutely
aware of the precarious position of organ studies in her school and elsewhere,
where faculty are constantly admonished to "double our enrollment"
and to be "accountable" in matching revenue with cost, she has taken
giant steps to expand the student base far beyond the traditional BM and BA
degree programs in organ performance and sacred music. Her efforts benefitted
from a rich tradition in sacred music in the order which founded and operates
the school, and from the George Bozeman rebuild of a vintage Hutchings-Votey
tracker instrument installed in the auditorium in 1995.

Cornerstones of the new format at Marylhurst are two new
classes, a one-semester "Meet the Organ" and a one-year "Basic
Training in Organ." The first class is a semi-private group of three to
four students who, in recent enrollment, have ranged in age from 24 to 74. They
are seeking primarily a general introduction to the instrument. The class may
include non-organ music majors, non-music students from other departments and
music aficionados from the community. It sets its own course of study such as
service playing knowledge and skills, a specific repertory area, or perhaps,
depending on the students, preparation for an AGO exam. The goal of this course
is to foster a love of the instrument and its music, to recognize its singular
historic prominence in the spectrum of music and to promote the contemporary
role of the organ on campus and in the community.

The "Basic Training in Organ" class meets
two-hours a week in three ten-week terms, for a total of 60 hours of
instruction. Enrollment is limited to eight participants who are solicited
through a letter to local clergy of all faiths. It reminds them of the chronic
local, as well as national, shortage of organists and points out that this
economical and efficient program will fulfill their needs. Churches also are
encouraged to subsidize all or part of the students' $1242 per year tuition as
a wise and minimal investment that will pay rich dividends for many years in
the worship life of the congregation. Results have been most encouraging, with
interest coming particularly from piano teachers who welcome the opportunity to
broaden their keyboard experience and to increase their income potential by
becoming part-time church organists. In the class they learn fundamentals of
technique, registration, practical repertoire, and begin each class playing
church hymns.

The new programs more than meet the cost-revenue guidelines
mandated by the administration at Marylhurst. The semi-private group
instruction has been particularly successful in increasing productivity of
faculty resources without any decrease in quality. In Professor Nichol's
experience, the group format, with its collegial and supportive atmosphere for
learning, is far more advantageous to students at this juncture in their
careers than are individual studio lessons. In addition, the group format makes
lessons financially attractive for many students. At the end of the
introductory year the students can choose private lessons or continue in
semi-private instruction in groups of three. The school also has established a
Certificate in Sacred Music option, a two-year program in which one-half of the
curricula is in theology and the other half in music. The success of the
Marylhurst programs can be explained, in part, by the fact that it is primarily
a commuter school in an urban setting. Community outreach and the role of
continuing education is an established factor in its educational philosophy.
Thus, it has long been accustomed to probing the surrounding area for special
educational needs and the corresponding potential for enrollment.

Dordt College

Church Music Training

Dordt College in Sioux Center, (northwestern) Iowa,
illustrates the importance of a strong denominational and cultural tradition in
providing a prominent instrument on campus, and in keeping vibrancy in its
organ curriculum. A comparatively new school, founded in 1955, Dordt is
affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church of Dutch heritage.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Most students are from Christian high
schools where music programs are strong. Many students, including 150 from
Canada, are first or second generation immigrants from Holland where the organ
is a centerpiece of their culture. When these families visit the campus they
ask about the pipe organ. The large Casavant tracker instrument in the
auditorium makes a statement (see photo). Thus, music and the organ program,
established in 1967 by Dr. Joan Ringerwole, are a priority in the mission of
the school. The auditorium platform and instrument are reserved for organ
students from 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, after which it is available for choir, band,
orchestra, and other ensembles. As in many other church-affiliated colleges, a
number of non-music majors take organ lessons, seeking to become good hymn
players and build a repertoire of church music, perhaps in anticipation of
strong church ties as adults and an active role as a musician in the local
parish.

The place of organ in the achievements and image of the
school were recognized in an alumni magazine article, "Playing the organ
is their occupation," featuring four graduates from the 1980s who have
gone on to graduate study and to choice positions in the profession. These
include Dr. Christian Teeuwsen, professor of music at Redeemer College in
Ancaster, Ontario; Dr. Laura Vander Windt, organist and choirmaster at All
Soul's Church in Oklahoma City;  
Dr. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, university organist and music professor at
Eastern Michigan University; and Dr. Martin Tel, chapel organist and lecturer
in church music at Princeton Theological Seminary. "They're a passionate
group. Each of them speaks with warmth and intensity about the organ, its
repertoire and the joy of playing it," the alumni magazine columnist
wrote. Another organ graduate of Dordt, Brent Assink, president of the St. Paul
Chamber Orchestra, was named outstanding alumnus two years ago. A current
student, Bonnie Runia, a senior from Melvin, Iowa, won first place in her
junior year in the National Federation of Music Clubs competition. These people
speak with glowing praise for their teacher, Dr. Ringerwole, who inspired them.
"She was a gentle spirit, always pushing us to pursue excellence but never
hard on us. At the same time she expected a lot from us," said Vander
Windt.4

University of Evansville

Musical Anchor for Liberal
Arts

The University of Evansville, in Evansville, Indiana,
affiliated with the United Methodist Church, enjoys a rich tradition in organ
which dates back to 1919. The relocation of the school from Moores Hill,
Indiana to Evansville that year coincided with the installation, in the
Soldier's and Sailor's Memorial Colliseum, of a large Moller concert organ.
James Gillette, the first chairman of the music department at the school, was
also the municipal organist. He was succeeded as organ teacher on campus by
Ralph Waterman, who served many years. The program made giant strides in the
1960s under the leadership of Carl Staplin, the nationally-known keyboard
artist now at Drake University, who guided the selection of Holtkamp
instruments for the concert hall and the chapel. Staplin was succeeded by
Robert Luther, who moved to Carleton College in 1975 and he was followed by the
present incumbent, Douglas Reed.

The program also enjoys active support
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  by the administration.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  The president, Dr. James Vinson, a
physicist by training who has a special affinity for organ music, says:
"The presence of the organ at significant ceremonies greatly enhances the
event." The two visiting artists in the annual recital series, in addition
to Reed's faculty recital, are funded by the administration. The college
chaplain, Dr. John Brittain, also an organist, is equally enthusiastic for the
organ program and its place in the school, as are the comparatively large
number of musicians in other departments.

A distinguishing feature of the Evansville liberal arts
philosophy and of the place of music in it, is the three-semester World
Cultures Curriculum. Here Reed presents a lecture on baroque keyboard music and
plays the harpsichord and the two Holtkamp organs. The organ is used
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  during noontime chapel recitals and was
part of a successful "Music at Midnight" event. Another popular event
in recent years was a "Handel with Care" program endowed by an
alumnus. On tours of the campus for visitors and prospective students, student
guides are instructed to call attention to the instruments.

Other attractions at Evansville for prospective organ
students are the Neu Chapel Organ Scholarship, awarded to a freshman, selected
by audition, each year. Also, the community's unusually rich organ resources
represented by Fisk, Jaekel, and Taylor & Boody tracker instruments.
Students are welcomed at performances and in master classes at the First
Presbyterian Church (C. B. Fisk, Opus 98, 1991) funded by the church's Sacred
Arts Series.

Organ Study and Other Curricula

If liberal arts students also are sensitive, ultimately, to
the employment outlook (i.e. the absence of well-paying positions in church
music), a majority of organ students are likely to be part-time while wisely
acquiring marketable skills in other departments. Nonetheless, part-time
non-music degree students are quite enough to support a program and to justify
the security of organ faculty and resources. This is the experience of Dr. John
Behnke of Concordia College in Mequon, Wisconsin. The majority of his students
are in accounting, business, physical therapy and other majors. They welcome
the opportunity to pursue a personal if not a primary career interest. His
appeal to them is based on his fervent belief that the future of the organ and
its role in a liturgical setting 
(where it is the most effective musical vehicle for leading group
singing) is in training grassroots organists. "Playing hymns well, playing
exciting uplifting hymn preludes are of equal importance to the organ
masterworks," he says, adding "I believe training an organist
exclusively for a career as a concert performer is unrealistic." The
importance of a church focus is echoed by Professor John Ferguson at St. Olaf
College who asks: "Why should a church invest in a college or university
trained organist if that person leads congregational singing no more creatively
than an amateur?" His experience suggests that students are interested in
developing skills as church organists as well as performers of the literature.
"They know that most of the professional opportunities are in
churches." The dual focus upon literature and church music at St. Olaf
perhaps explains why the organ department remains strong with 12 Bachelor of Music performance or church music organ majors out of a total of 26 organ students this year.

Much recruiting of high school students for future organ
study is indirect, as Davis Folkerts of Central College in Iowa explains. That
is, it begins with  the admissions
office soliciting applicants in the entire spectrum of music: band, orchestra,
vocal and keyboard. John Hamersma of Calvin College in Michigan finds music
students often are persuaded that organ study wisely complements their basic
program; such as in fulfilling the keyboard requirement in music education, or
as part of a combined degree, perhaps in music and religion. He observes
that  the organ holds a fascination
for students, once on campus, because of its size, visual appearence, range of
pitch, volume and color. Karen Larsen of Wartburg College in Iowa notes that
the flexibility of combined degrees, and of a broad curriculum in music, is
especially appealing to students due to uncertainties of the job market. And as
W. N. Earnest of  The Old Presbyterian Meeting House in Alexandria, Virginia notes: "Schools of all sizes and the AGO should recognize that churches aren't looking just for organists anymore; they're looking for ministers of music."

In the church affiliated liberal arts colleges, organ
teachers are accustomed to teaching courses as well as studio lessons and, in
fact, they welcome this broad approach to music as integral to their
philosophical approach to education. Professor Rudolf Zuiderveld of Illinois
College considers himself a professor of music, not just
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  of organ. He views himself as an
advocate of the liberal arts and its cosmopolitan approach to learning, a
curriculum he much prefers over a conservatory education at the undergraduate
level.

Drake University

At Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, a regional
privately-supported school, promoting the pipe organ is, in large measure,
maintaining the momentum of its sterling reputation. Drake is an eloquent
example of a thriving private school in a large metropolis (Washington
University in St. Louis is another) which is a focal point of the artistic and
cultural life of the community. It enjoys high visibility and widespread
community financial support. This in turn fosters administrative resource
priorities in support of its image.

Drake is well-known and highly regarded in the organist
profession,  particularly for its
excellent preparation for graduate study. This mirrors its emphasis on
performance. The bachelor's degree curriculum in church music requires the same
number of performance hours as a performance degree. The school's reputation is
also based upon its faculty and resources. The former began with the venerable
Frank Jordan in the 1940s , continued with the legendary Russell Saunders, and
is represented today by the well-known Carl Staplin. The resource attraction is
anchored in the 1972 Fine Arts Complex featuring a 50-rank three-manual
Holtkamp recital  instrument, a
three-manual Reuter studio organ and two modern practice organs. Mechanical
action instruments by Phelps and Dobson in nearby churches are also used for
teaching and recitals. Total organ enrollment of 39 students in 1997-98 attests
to the vibrancy and competitive position of  the school. Drake has recently launched a certification in
church music program encompassing seven courses in church music and eight hours
of studio instruction scheduled in weekend classes and to be completed over two
years.

State Colleges

In our second category of schools are former state colleges,
many of them now universities, which began as teachers colleges, located
regionally throughout the states, and new schools. Grand Valley State
University in Michigan is 
representative of large public institutions which emerged in response to
population growth and voter demand for higher education. It also reflects the
crucial role of private funding in adding essential resources to the base of
public support. Founded only thirty years ago, it enrolls thirty thousand
students, and aggressively recruits from the region with an ever-expanding
array of courses and programs. The Cook-DeWitt ecumenical center and concert
hall, the gift of two families, houses a 27-rank, two-manual Reuter organ. This
instrument permits organ instruction as the initial step in the future development of an organ curriculum.

In this classification we also include branches of state
university systems located in metropolitan areas, schools that are
predominantly vocational in orientation, offering myriad programs for part-time
and full-time day and evening students of all ages. These schools are the
quintessential examples of mass higher education focusing on transmitting
knowledge and skills and on training students for opportunities in the world of
work.

With their emphasis on career preparation in certificate and
degree programs, these publicly-supported schools are expected to bear the
brunt of the projected tidal wave increase in enrollment in the next several
years (400,000 in the next eight years in California alone), placing a premium
on facilities and bringing enormous pressure to increase faculty-student
ratios. The urban campus perhaps will end up resembling Grand Central Station,
with legions of students funneling in and out, moving anonymously through their
huge classes with scarcely any attachment to the school. Adding to this
prospect is the anticipated revolutionary impact of the Internet which in the
long run may diminish seriously the role of the campus in the educational
process. 

Yet sheer numbers and the clamor for low-cost education
should augur well for a minimum number of students in organ. Although campus
facilities may be crowded, the proximity of church instruments nearby, many of
them large and up-to-date, should fill the needs.  These schools will be able to capitalize on nearby
off-campus resources because churches, desperate for revenue, will be only too
glad to rent their faciliies. 

Central Missouri State

Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Missouri,
is symbolic of the transition of a school from having an auditorium organ as a
campus centerpiece to a much larger campus with specialized department
facilities. In 1923 the school installed a three-manual Austin organ in the
auditorium as a memorial to alumni casualties of World War I. Its prominence in
the image of the school was indicated 
by the photograph of the console in the college viewbooks of this era.
Heavily used until after World War II, the organ and the auditorium were
largely abandoned as a music facility when instruction and performance relocated
to a new music building with a McManis organ (see photo) which now services
department needs.

CMSU reflects some developments in state funding which in
their experience have worked to the detriment of organ enrollment. Formerly,
students paid a flat tuition fee per term which covered every type of
instruction, including studio organ lessons at no extra charge. This encouraged
students, many with strong church ties, to study organ as an academic interest
apart from their major field of study. Beginning in 1985, however, the school
moved to a fee schedule based upon number of credit hours. With the rising cost
of higher education, coupled with the premium placed on graduates with
marketable skills, the result of this "pay by the drink" mentality
has been to force students to concentrate on their major and degree
requirements, and to forego organ lessons because of the additional cost. In
Professor William McCandless's judgment, this has caused a noticable reduction
in organ enrollment, omitting those who had looked forward to beginning or
continuing an interest in organ with the resources on campus.

In another far-reaching development in Missouri, perhaps to
occur sooner or later in other states, the legislature has stipulated that each
of the five regional state colleges specialize in a particular curriculum,
ostensibly tied to vocational preparation; one in technology, another in public
service, another in teacher training, etc. The purpose is to foster economies
of scale in educational resources and to stem the tide of rising costs to the
taxpayer. The implications of this development are ominous for the fine arts in
general and music in particular. The legislature has mandated that all future
capital expenditures be channeled into these narrow specialties, and if capital
funds fall short of need, existing resources be converted, without hesitation,
to the newly-concentrated programs. This, in effect, seriously diminishes the
American tradition of liberal higher education and moves these hapless
institutions one step closer to becoming trade schools.

Promotion of the organ by interested people outside the
music department and the school is illustrated by the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.  When Michael
Ferris, the organ teacher, resigned to accept a position at the Eastman School
of Music, the chairman of the music department dragged his feet in appointing a
successor. Clergy at campus churches and thoughout the two cities called and
wrote to the dean pleading with him to replace Ferris, which he did in the
person of Michael Keeley. Steve Shoemaker, pastor of the McKinley Foundation
and Presbyterian Church, observes that In the March, 1997, edition of this
journal we published "Is The Pipe Organ A Stepchild In Academe?" The
purpose was to call attention to the perilous status of the King of Instruments
in many institutions of higher learning and to suggest concrete ways to shore
up its uncertain future. We closed the article with a call to action, a plea
for concerned friends of the organ--faculty, students, alumni and laymen--to
take determined action. We cited two examples of what is required:
"Friends of the Northrop Organ" at the University of Minnesota and
alumni tours of Woolsey Hall at Yale University, and we mentioned a followup article spotlighting promising developments.

The purpose of this article is to review the nature of the
problem in the context of the current complexion of higher education and to
discuss several auspicious programs in some detail.  The wholesale neglect, abandonment, and sell-off of organs
in colleges and universities which, sadly, threatens to continue, is perceived
as a nationwide phenomenon. This situation is attributed to the emergence of a
pervasive market-driven mentality in academe. Ill-advised budget officers and
state legislatures are today preoccupied with student numbers and credit hours
as the overriding criteria for funding. Policy and operating decisions by
administrators are based upon a frantic search for "hot buttons"
(computer science and genetic engineering, for example) to bolster enrollment
amid intense competition for students who are increasingly vocationally
oriented in their choice of school and curriculum. This short-sighted pragmatic
approach threatens the distinguishing features of a campus setting and its
time-honored mission as the repository of our culture, and the harbinger of our
future as a cultivated society.

In preparing this article the author has talked with a score
of music professors in all types of schools, public and private, large and
small, coast to coast. He has discovered some remarkable programs, which are
attracting institutional and community support leading to increased student
enrollment and funding. If the bold and imaginative initiatives taken by many
schools are adopted by others, the pipe organ has a bright future in academe.

Promoting the Pipe Organ

In the economic realities of higher education, the market
mentality of administrators and state legislators who view a school today as a
business is here to stay, like it or not. In the final analysis, the best
guarantee of preserving faculty positions, maintaining instruments, and
budgeting scarce resources for tuning and periodic restoration and updating is,
first, never to miss a chance to call attention to the instrument. Second, is
to "shake the bushes" and aggressively recruit students from
traditional sources on campus and non-traditional sources within the community.
The type of missionary zeal required is found in Prof. William Kuhlman of
Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, who says proudly: "I have done everything
but stand on my head to bring about organ awareness and appreciation."
Indeed he has:  organ crawls after
church, summer organ camps for local grade school children, demonstrations for
faculty and board of regents spouses, family camps, church heritage workshops,
Halloween "monster concerts" and presentations to the local Rotary
Club.

In research for this paper the author has surveyed all types
of schools across the nation. He has come upon some enterprising and
imaginative faculty who are "pulling out all the stops" to promote
their departments, programs and instruments with gratifying results.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  For purposes of analysis and
discussion, it is useful perhaps to divide the landscape of higher education
into three categories: small liberal arts colleges, state colleges including
urban branches of state universities, and major music schools and universities,
particularly those noted for professional and graduate study.

Liberal Arts Colleges

The liberal arts colleges were historically church
affiliated and many retain strong church ties today. The Lutheran schools, in
particular, enjoy a rich legacy of liturgical music in the heritage of their
denomination, and churches of all denominations traditionally reflect the prominence of music in the experience of corporate worship. Thus, the church connection augurs well for maintaining pipe organs as integral to campus resources and central to the music program. These schools benefit from an articulate and active alumni and the corresponding sensitivity of the administration and trustees to alumni concerns in budgeting decisions. The choice of liberal arts as an initial course of study is perhaps indicative of a lesser concern with the vocational job-market payoff in selecting a school and a curriculum. The church-going life style of students enrolled in these schools, particularly those students having a musical background and interest, may cause them to contemplate making a musical contribution to parish life and to prepare for organ and choral opportunities. Therefore, although these schools are not totally immune to the market-orientation mind-set, and have adjusted curriculum to broader trends, they have never suffered such a loss of organ enrollment as to justify ending the curriculum and liquidating the instruments. The challenge of these schools is to continue to insure the rightful place of music in the philosophical and operational image of the liberal arts and to affirm organ study in music programs, resources and curriculum.

Conservatories and Universities

Our third category of schools comprises the nationally known
professional schools and universities including:  Eastman, Oberlin, New England Conservatory, Westminster
Choir College, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, North Texas and Yale. We are also happy
to note that, contrary to the report in the previous article, Syracuse
University, long a member of the elite group, is again prospering and
attracting students under the dynamic leadership of Katharine Pardee. The
curriculum of these schools is centered on career preparation as a performer or
teacher and, with the exception of Oberlin, focuses primarily on advanced
degrees. 

These prestigous schools enjoy a level of recognition and
support not found elsewhere among private and public institutions. The organ
faculty, with advanced degrees from top-drawer schools, are well-known and
highly esteemed in the profession, by virtue of their recital appearences
before American Guild of Organists gatherings as well as from their
well-publicised recital tours in this country and abroad. Their accomplishments
and high visibility contribute to the luster of the programs, are a key factor
in attracting highly qualified students, and, most important, guarantee vital
institutional support. Status-conscious administrators acknowledge that recital
performances and offices in professional organizations are, in terms of
institutional recognition, almost the equivalent of a Nobel Prize.

In addition, these institutions frequently are beneficiaries
of substantial private funding by wealthy individuals and families who identify
with the school as alumni or as benefactors in the arts. A striking example is
the $50 million 1973 endowment of the School of Sacred Music at Yale University
by Clementine Miller Tangeman, based on the Cummins Engine Company fortune
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  A more recent illustration is the $18
million Simon Music and Library building at Indiana University, now awaiting a
52-stop Rosales tracker organ. This building was funded exclusively by private
subscriptions to the University Foundation, not an appropriation by the
legislature of state tax dollars. 
The University of Iowa music department has also been privately endowed.
The prominence of these schools, in recent times, has hinged significantly on
private funding and their continued prosperity will depend on these sources.

These schools represent what Martin Trow defines as elite
higher education which centers around high ambition and the resources required
to nuture it. This paradigm reflects a close and prolonged relationship between
student and teacher, and the social and physical setting in which this kind of
relationship can exist, i.e., low faculty-student ratios, excellent physical
plant and other resources. It makes high demands on students in the severity of
the curriculum and because of these demands it does not encourage or admit
older or part-time students. It is most likely to be residential, highly
selective and richly staffed. Clearly these schools are in a class by
themselves. As Trow notes: " . . 
. elite higher education is too costly; . . .  only a fraction of students and teachers have the interests,
motivations and ability to profit from the intense and demanding personal and
intellectual relationships that mark it."5

Oberlin College

No discussion of the pipe organ in academe would be complete
without reference to Oberlin College which stands preeminent in the history of
music in colleges and universities in America. The nation's first conservatory,
founded in 1865, Oberlin is internationally recognized for its faculty and
facilities offering world-class musical training. With its rich tradition,
legions of distinguished artists and performers among its graduates,
unparalleled facilities, and uncompromising ideals in the higher learning, it
is clearly the exception to other schools. A leitmotif for excellence in
American higher education, the school has been blessed with the resources
required to maintain its gold-plated image. The luster and status of organ
study at Oberlin is confirmed by the spectrum of instruments beginning with the
1974 Flentrop in Warner Concert Hall embracing the 18th-century North German
style. It continued with the Brombaugh organ in Fairchild Chapel as an exquisite
example of the late Renaissance period. To complete the rainbow the school has
contracted for a $1.2 million Fisk organ, scheduled for installation in Finney
Chapel in 2001. A symphonic organ, made possible by the initial bequest of Kay
Africa, it will be well-suited for music of the 19th and 20th century. Styled
in the paradigm of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, this Tiffany instrument will
reinforce Oberlin's image as progressive and up-to-date in the world of organ
pedagogy. In  the Fisk Opus List it
joins the company of Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Rice and Wellesley, among
others, in the gallery of this prestigous trophy builder.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  North Texas University has also
selected Fisk to build the recital organ for its new concert hall, as yet
awaiting funding.

Yet despite its lofty status, and the preferred position of
its graduates in the music marketplace, Oberlin has addressed the legitimate
aspirations of students who seek flexibility and potential employment options
outside music performance. The answer is a double degree program; a fifth year
program established thirty years ago for conservatory students who then receive
a Bachelor of Arts degree. This "Double Degree" program now includes
one-third of the 550 students enrolled in the conservatory. Officially described
as a program to produce a more broadly educated person, it undoubtedly reflects
a recognition by the school, and by the students, of the need to explore many
possibilities at this juncture in their budding careers. Oberlin's challenge is  to continue to command the financial resources needed to attract top talent, which means the generous scholarships required to bid them away from  competing schools.

Westminster Choir College

The staggering financial requirements of private higher
education today were dramatically illustrated in the recent history of
Westminster Choir College whose phalanx of prominent graduates have made it a
household word in American church music. According to Professor Eugene Roan,
the merger with Rider College (now University) three years ago was a godsend in
the fortunes of a school that, despite its sterling reputation, could not have
survived as a stand-alone institution 
For Rider, a college little-known outside New Jersey, the Westminster
acquisition gives them an instant nationwide visibility and prestige that no
amount of money could buy. As for Westminster, it gained the necessary
resources in scholarships and bricks and mortar to continue its storied
tradition. The organ program counted a total enrollment of 51 in the Fall of
1997 including 22 graduate students. The standards of admission and levels of
performance are the highest on record, according to Roan. An excellent
placement program features a subscription-only job newsletter circulated every
two weeks. With a preferred position in an uncertain nationwide job market for
church musicians, Westminster should continue to attract students who can
reasonably expect to find employment in their chosen profession upon
graduation.

The so-called elite institutions under discussion are
indicative of the fact that nationwide there is a core of highly qualified and
professionally ambitious students who actively pursue quality education in
high-profile schools, but who are increasingly selective in their choice of
school and are actively shopping for the best financial package. Therefore, the
financial challenge is one of obtaining scholarship money in ever increasing
amounts to attract the top talent and to compete successfully with other
schools which are seeking the same students. This is the economic price one
must pay for being an elite institution.

Summary

We have argued that the pipe organ is a jewel of a campus
setting, imparting definition and meaning to the collegiate experience.
Unfortunately, this fact has not been adequately acknowledged by the majority
of decision-makers. We have shown that if the organ is not to continue to fall
victim to enrollment criteria as the basis for funding, it must be aggressively
promoted on campus: to trustees, alumni, visitors, townspeople, in special
programs and to today's generation of students.  It should be featured in campus publicity, on tours, in the
alumni magazine, and in the recognition of organists among prominent alumni.
Marylhurst, with its enterprising community outreach, Dordt capitalizing on
church ties, and Evansville emphasizing the core of the liberal arts, are
showing the way. The innovative approaches of these schools, others we have
noted, and, no doubt, many more, can be adopted and applied successfully by
schools everywhere. The costs are minimal and the potential rewards are great.
Undeniably, the potential is there--in group study, combined curricula, and
untapped student sources within the community.

Organ professors in academe are a very close-knit
professional group who communicate with each other frequently and who are eager
to find ways to bolster the immediate prospects of their school and the
fortunes of their colleagues elsewhere as well. They should be encouraged to
exchange ideas in regional and national gatherings of organists and music
educators and on the Internet. The professional media should be admonished to
publicise program details and achievements. Perhaps the AGO should contemplate
establishing awards to individuals and programs that demonstrate innovation and
leadership in advancing the profession and the instrument.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      

For critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper the
author gratefully acknowledges: 
Byron Arneson, Nelson Barden, Jack Bethards, Charles McManis, Albert
Neutel, Jack Sievert and Haskel Thomson.

For research input the author thanks:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  John Behnke, Margaret Cries, George
Damp, Delbert Disselhorst, W. N. Earnest, John Ferguson, Davis Folkerts, Lee
Garrett, John Hamersma, Rod Kelchner, William Kuhlman, Karen Larsen, William
McCandless, Thomas Murray, Nancy LeRoi Nichol, Dale Peters, Douglas Reed, Joan
Ringerwole, Eugene Roan, Larry Smith, Carl Staplin, Herman Taylor, James
Vinson, Chris Young, and Rudolf Zuiderveld.

Notes

                        1.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Arrow,
Kenneth J., "Invaluable Goods," Journal of Economic Literature, Vol.
XXV (June 1997), pp. 757-765.

                        2.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Duffus,
R. L., The Innocents at Cedro, New York: 
Macmillan, 1944, p. 25. 
Reprint Augustus M. Kelley.

                        3.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Ambrosino,
Jonathan, "The John R. Silber Symphonic Organ at Boston University",
The New England Organist,Vol. 7, No. 3, May & June, 1997, pp. 8-11.

                        4.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Jongsma,
Sally, "Playing the organ is their occupation," The Voice,
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Dordt College, Vol. 42, No. 4, May,
1997, pp. 12-13.

                        5.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>                  Martin
Trow, "Aspects of Diversity in Higher Education" in Gans, Glazer, Gusfield
and Jenks, eds, On The Making of 
Americans:  Essays in Honor
of David Riesman, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, pp. 171-270.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>        

R. E. Coleberd is an economist and petroleum industry executive.

Pipe organs advertised for sale by colleges and universities raise serious questions about the vitality of the King of Instruments in institutions of higher learning.  Organs that are abandoned or replaced are routinely advertised in the classified columns of The Diapason and The American Organist, an economical and efficient way of reaching potential buyers. However, until now, solicitations by schools have clearly been the exception.

In discussions with active and retired organ faculty and
music department personnel across the country, the author has discovered what
he finds to be a disturbing nationwide phenomenon symptomatic of a paradoxical
trend in higher education.  The
advertised sales seem to be the tip of an iceberg. Many organs, having too
often been systematically neglected and abandoned, are now being sold off at an
increasing rate. The experiences of the schools cited below, together with
comments by faculty who, all too often, have watched the sad spectacle of the
pipe organ fading into the sunset, demonstrate that we are witnessing a crisis
with profound implications for cultural life in America.

The purpose of this paper is to create awareness of the
gravity of the situation. We will analyze causes of the phenomenon and give
examples to illustrate the scope of the problem in both auditorium, concert
hall, practice and studio instruments. The reader will, no doubt, be aware of
similar examples elsewhere. Each one differs but there are common threads
through all of them.  We will offer
recommendations on how persons who are deeply distressed by these ominous
developments--because their lives are so closely connected to the instrument:  faculty, students, alumni and concerned laymen--can protect and promote the pipe organ in an academic setting. In retrospect, we believe the S.O.S. should have been tapped out thirty years ago.

Background

We begin with the premise that a pipe organ on a college
campus is an integral part of the intellectual, cultural, artistic and musical
resources of the school, standing alongside the telescope in the observatory,
the paintings and sculpture in the art gallery and the book collections in the
library. These time-honored treasures of a campus setting constitute the raison
d'être of institutions of higher learning, traditionally the trustees of
our culture and the guardians of our future in science and the arts. They make
possible its mission and accomplishments, and define its status and recognition
among its peers.

We continue with the admonition that a pipe organ is
symbolic of the achievements of western civilization and the legacy of our
European origins. It embodies the collective experience of generations in its
recognized prominence in the creativity and expression of music as well as in
architecture, technical developments and craftsmanship. Without the King of
Instruments, the great music it made possible would not have been written, and
without this rich tradition the instrument would not have enjoyed its glorious
position in history. The pipe organ embraced the finest craftsmanship in
Europe, just as precision workmanship survives in organbuilding today, symbolic
of the artistry of hand-crafted objects. In technical strides, the instrument
was the equal of any developments in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At the
turn of this century, the pipe organ was perhaps the most complex mechanism
ever developed. The combination action and other features of the console,
particularly the unrivaled Austin combination action, were an example of binary
algebra and an immediate predecessor of the computer. The Skinner player
mechanism on residence organs employed a pneumatic/mechanical computer to
decipher the rolls; in retrospect a further development of Charles Babbage's
difference engine dating back to the 1820s.1

Therefore, a pipe organ is not merely an appliance or
teaching device. Its value and contribution, along with other cornerstones of a
campus setting, are in the perpetuation of an atmosphere of excellence in
learning and human aspirations in culture and the arts. Sadly, these timeless
elements have gone largely unnoticed today by college administrators and state
legislatures who fail to recognize the stature of the instrument in their
budgetary deliberations and who base their decisions on square feet of space
required, number of credit hours generated and dollars of support necessary.

The fate of the instrument and the crux of the problem is,
in many ways, a manifestation of the unique characteristics of the pipe organ
which set it apart from other campus resources. The pipe organ in an
institutional setting suffers from a spatial, temporal and what some might call
an existential problem. In comparison with other musical instruments it is
quite large, requires considerable space, is fixed in location and, therefore,
its musical delivery is confined to the proximity of the instrument. In
contrast, violinists and pianists perform in a variety of venues the world over
thereby fostering a close symbiotic relationship between themselves, their
music and the instrument. Moreover, as Will Headlee points out, because of the
nuances and complexities of the pipe organ, requiring a close interaction with
the performer, music making on the organ is akin to chamber music which
necessitates a chamber music mentality versus a soloist mentality.2
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  The linkage between organists and the
instrument is not so close in part because they play many different
instruments. The problem is exacerbated when the music-going public think of
themselves as deciding first to go to hear an organ, and second, to hear a
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  particular organist.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Sadly, they don't go very often.
Furthermore, those interested in organ music per se have available compact
discs of the world's great instruments, and in the course of listening to them
they become less interested--and less supportive--of instruments of lower
quality and reputation.

The pipe organ is no longer a priority item with music
school deans and department chair persons, who must compete for students and
who struggle to maintain their share of a diminishing campus budget in an
atmosphere of financially strapped institutions. Tragically, pipe organs are
too often considered expendable. As Western Washington's Albert Smith explains:  in contrast to other musical instruments, a pipe organ is a "terribly expensive musical medium to purchase and maintain."3 In physical and dollar terms it is rather like
comparing an ocean liner to a rowboat. 
A violin may require a new string or two, an oboe a reed.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  But Smith doesn't have funds in his
budget for a routine service call.

The instrument is also the victim of the pronounced secular
trend in policy decisions in the upper echelons of university administration.
In all but the few remaining traditional church-related liberal arts colleges
which enjoy a very close and continuing denominational affiliation, religious
beliefs are intellectually suspect in the quest for "truth" and
perhaps nothing is more "politically incorrect" on campus today than
organized religion. Religious faith and corporate worship are sometimes viewed
as a sign of personal weakness and dependency. Perhaps because the pipe organ
is so closely tied to the church in the layman's mind, it is perceived as an
antique or museum piece and is, therefore, irrelevant to the pursuit of
knowledge in our time, particularly in the frantic search for "hot
buttons" such as computer science and genetic engineering to generate
publicity and garner public and private financial support.

The declining fortunes of the pipe organ in academe are
also, without doubt, a reflection of the waning interest in high culture in the
baby boom generation. The prior generation, the war babies, were deeply
involved in cultural pursuits, as measured by attendance and financial support.
But their offspring, as surveys show, are two-career families who are often
pre-occupied with television, movies and pop culture, and who frequently spend
their limited time working out at the health club or surfing on the Internet.
Baby boomers' education levels, though higher than their parents, differed
significantly:  fewer chose liberal
arts degrees with the corresponding affinity for the arts; more chose business
and engineering. Judith Balfe, author of a forthcoming study comments:
"For their parents' generation, those who had higher education and higher
income, the arts were far more important to their understanding of themselves
and their civic responsibility." Today, audiences are segmented and
targeted by advertisers, and "the sense of a culture--at least a popular
culture--which transcended generations" is gone.4

In the economic and political exigencies of state
legislatures and often their private school counterparts as well, cost-benefit
analysis has emerged, in this era, as the overriding criterion for the
allocation of funds in higher education. Under these mandates, the pipe organ
is acutely vulnerable to changing patterns of student enrollment and facilities
use. One conspicuous development in this trend is the designation of professional schools as "stand alone" enterprises (the law school at the University of Virginia and the business school at Duke University are examples) with sole responsibility for their financial well-being. Presumably they can be funded adequately by tuition, alumni giving, endowments and continuing education fees, all a manifestation of the economic fortunes of these
professions in our society. In contrast, these sources of support are decidedly
limited for the arts.  It is
difficult to imagine that the income of a church musician would ever endow a
pipe organ let alone a music department or school.

We must emphasize that there are decided limits to the
market-driven mentality which so pervades our colleges today. An institution of
higher learning is not a consumer products business, like detergents or
toothpaste, in which products (curriculum) are changed to suit every whim of a
fickle public. It is not a middle eastern bazaar in which the travelers
(students) shop in passing for rugs and brass (courses). If a college or
university "sells out" to the marketplace and surrenders every
vestige of intellectual rigor and vitality, it risks becoming a trade school.
Over time, the application of cost-benefit analysis in the funding of state
supported schools erodes the distinction of an institution of higher learning
from any other state agency (prison, mental hospital, orphanage, etc.). The
resulting minimum level of funding substantially diminishes its unique and
time-honored function.  Can an
academic institution, let alone a pipe organ, survive in such an atmosphere?
The well-known social critic Thorstein Veblen  in his polemic The Higher Learning in America: A
Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men
style='font-style:normal'>, identified what we now term the market mentality;
the prevailing emphasis on "practical or useful" curricula as
measured by the payoff in the job market. If Veblen's acid critique was
premature in 1918, it couldn't have been more prophetic of the sad situation today.5

Auditoriums and Concert Halls

In the earlier decades of this century, the college
auditorium was customarily a focal point of the campus landscape, and often an
architectural masterpiece.  As a
convocation center it symbolized the collegial atmosphere of the institution.
No auditorium was complete without a large pipe organ, often a superb
instrument by a renowned builder such as George Hutchings or E. M. Skinner.
This was also a period in which the university organist enjoyed high visibility
and a prominent position in the faculty hierarchy beyond his appointment in the
music department, in part because, frequently, he had studied in Europe, a mark
of distinction and status in the professoriate of that era. Presiding at the
auditorium console, his heroic and inspiring music welcomed student and faculty
gatherings for convocations, and he accompanied the singing of the national
anthem and the alma mater. He played the processional and recessional for
commencement, and accompanied the glee club. The auditorium and the pipe organ
thus served as a unifying force in the undergraduate experience, contributing
to that vital sense of community, identity and the search for meaning so
tragically lacking in many schools today. No more! In our time campus speakers
are specialized and appeal only to certain disciplines and departments. Schools
have become too large for campus-wide convocations, and commencement has been
moved to the football field to accommodate the crowd. Moreover, in the
politicized atmosphere of a college campus today, there is too often no common
culture or purpose, no collective embrace of the universal values of an
institution of higher learning. Instead, each self-serving school or department
has become "privatized," looking out for its own interests and
grasping aggressively for its share of the diminishing public and private
funding. Whereas in earlier times the pipe organ was an integral part of the
auditorium and its function, now the instrument is too often underutilized and
dismissed as redundant. In the current use of the building it is merely in the
way, something to be ignored or cast aside.

The rebirth of the tracker organ in the 1950s, first with
widely-publicized European imports, and then with instruments by small domestic
builders, polarized the academic community and called into question the
efficacy of the American classic organ and its romantic and orchestral
ancestors. Music departments philosophically and functionally moved toward
earlier instruments, including the harpsichord. Large auditorium organs were
suddenly deemed out of date and expendable. This was also a time when budgets
allowed for obsolescence and replacement. But not today! Gone are the times
when instruments could be changed every generation in compliance with
nationwide fads and fashions, or to suit the demands of the teaching profession
who argued that a tracker instrument was necessary to attract students and who
were most likely expressing their desire to emulate their peers. Not that
obtaining a tracker was any assurance of protecting the status of the organ in
the school. True, they are smaller and require less space. But because of the
fundamental connection of the organ with church music, there is still the risk
of its being alienated by the deeply entrenched secular outlook on campus.

James Madison University

James Madison University, named for our fourth president, is
a school of 12,500 students in Harrisonburg, Virginia, southwest of Washington,
D.C. In 1937, the then Madison College, one of three teachers' colleges or
"normal schools" in the state, installed a landmark four-manual
fifty-two rank Möller pipe organ in Wilson Hall, scaled and voiced by the
legendary Richard O. Whitelegg. 
According to the late John Hose, Möller tonal director, this
instrument was one of the first four-manual Whitelegg Mollers.6 The dedicatory
recital was played by the nationally known keyboard artist Charlotte
Lockwood.  In a Möller
advertisement in the January, 1937 edition of The American Organist, the
builder stated that the instrument ". . . has already been adjudged as
definitely outstanding among the best organs in the East."7 This
pronouncement was validated by Senator Emerson Richards, who, reviewing the
instrument in the September edition of the same journal added: "Organ history has begun a new chapter and M. P. Möller Inc. is to be congratulated upon having written one of the first verses."8 Apart from its place in the resources of the university,  this instrument is an important milestone in the organ reform movement, and in the history of the Möller Company, for decades one of the premier companies in the American organ industry and now defunct. It is a signature instrument in the career of Whitelegg, an important figure in the twentieth-century legacy of the pipe organ in America. Yet tragically, these factors were overlooked when Wilson Hall was renovated in 1986. The stage was extended to accommodate a variety of venues, but no thought was given to the future of the organ. During remodeling the console was disconnected and stored in an unheated construction trailer which turned out to be its death sentence. As is well-known among organbuilders, a console stored under such conditions will deteriorate; in this case, it disintegrated. A local newspaper story soliciting community support to restore or replace the console of the now-forgotten organ fell on deaf ears. The university administration has made it known that campus investments in the arts will, at the present time, most likely depend upon private funding. In locked chambers today,  this majestic instrument stands mute, perhaps never to speak again.

The events at James Madison illustrate another common
problem in the academic fortunes of the pipe organ:  the conflict between the music and drama departments in
multi-purpose facilities. In 1968, the university built a fine arts center and
installed a three-manual Möller organ, a welcome sign that the
administration recognized music and the place of the organ in its concept of
the arts. However, as a result of poor space planning and failure to anticipate
overlap in facilities use, the music department soon tangled with the drama
department for use of the performance area. In due course, the music department
lost the turf battle and the Möller organ was taken out and sold to a
church in Ohio. A large four-story building to house the music department was
built in 1989, but budget limitations prevented the inclusion of a recital
hall, which precluded the addition of a pipe organ as an integral and visible
part of the resources of the facility. The only hint of a pipe organ on campus
today is the two practice instruments in the music building. The faculty uses
five instruments in town churches for teaching and student performances.

New England Conservatory

The sad situation in Jordan Hall at the New England
Conservatory of Music in Boston, is the result of discontinuities, conflicts
and budget priorities, beginning in many cases several decades ago, which are
seemingly endemic to the fate of concert hall instruments today. Built in 1902,
Jordan Hall featured a three-manual Hutchings organ which was a notable
addition to the cultural and musical resources of the city. It symbolized, no
doubt,  the importance of organ
study in the musical philosophy and mission of the Conservatory, as well as the
significance of a recital and instructional instrument in a concert hall.

Rebuilt and enlarged by Ernest M. Skinner in 1920, this
renowned instrument was widely used and well maintained, with a new console in
1928 and further work by Aeolian-Skinner in 1947. As tastes changed in the
1950s, the organ fell out of fashion and other demands for the hall took
precedence. In 1957, its status was seriously diminished when George Faxon, an
icon figure in the New England organ fraternity, left the Conservatory. His
successor, Donald Willing, ordered two European trackers (Metzler and Rieger)
to define the "new look" in pipe organs for the school. By the
mid-1960s, the Jordan Hall organ was passé and neglected; ten years
later it was was unplayable. In 1995, in an all too familiar policy decision,
the instrument was omitted from a $12 million renovation of Jordan Hall on the
grounds of expense and limited use--the busy hall schedule allows no time for
organ students.  One wonders if it
is only a matter of time until the instrument is sold. When an organ is both
unplayable and inaccessible, the chances of its survival are slim indeed.

University of South Dakota

At the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, the
twenty-eight rank, four-manual E. M. Skinner organ of 1928 was put in the dock
two years ago, a victim of deteriorating leather and wind leaks. The school
administration, under pressure to conform to enrollment and credit hours as the
overriding criteria for budgeting, and answering the call of the state
legislature to cut expenses, is uninterested in restoring the instrument. This
experience, common in publicly supported institutions, illustrates the fact
that there are seemingly no appropriations for maintenance, a situation which
is especially devastating for the pipe organ which requires scheduled routine
maintenance, as well as major expenses in the periodic renewal of chest
leather, and today in an electrical upgrade of the console. Today the "Why
do we need it?" reasoning asserts itself as well as the "Look what we
can do with the $100,000 (or more) required when only a few students play it
and hardly anybody listens to it."!

Western Washington University

The 1200-seat auditorium at Western Washington University in
Bellingham, houses a 1951 three-manual Möller organ, which fell into
disrepair and has been unplayable for twenty years. Campus politics have
dictated that the auditorium be used primarily for drama productions. Albert
Shaw, former music department chairman, estimates it would require $100,000 to
restore the instrument to its original condition, an outsized figure as
maintenance budgets go and a sum virtually impossible to justify given the
primary use of the building.

In 1978 Western Washington constructed a 700-seat concert
hall and installed a two- manual tracker instrument to complement three
practice organs. Then, in a familiar story, the theory professor who taught the
handful of organ students retired and was not replaced. Organ instruction was
then terminated only to be resumed after three years and then discontinued
again. Because a service call from Canada, two days at a minimum of $350-$500,
is prohibitive under current department budgets, neither the concert hall
tracker nor the three practice organs are maintained on a regular basis.

The University of Indianapolis

The University of Indianapolis, formerly Indiana Central
College, a United Methodist affiliated school, is yet another example of how
changing priorities and the economics of space use impact the fortunes of an
auditorium organ. It also illustrates the decision to consign the organs on
campus arbitrarily to a music facility and view them primarily as a teaching
and performance vehicle in a specialized and exclusive curriculum.

The recently-sold three-manual Möller organ was
installed in 1963 when the auditorium was used for convocations and chapel
services, campus-wide functions that were discontinued years ago. With the
auditorium now assigned to the drama department, the instrument was deemed
redundant and expendable.  The
possibility of enlarging and relocating the Möller was briefly considered
some years ago, but  the idea ended
when a new Fine Arts Center was built with a 500-seat recital hall to house a
new tracker instrument yet to be installed.

The evidence to date at James Madison University, the
University of South Dakota, the New England Conservatory, Western Washington
University, The University of Indianapolis and perhaps countless others,
strongly suggests that unless determined action is taken, auditorium pipe
organs may be doomed, especially if the building is the only performance
facility on campus.

The provision of a separate "Jewel Box" recital
hall for the pipe organ, as for example at the universities of Arizona and
Iowa, is viewed by some observers as a mixed blessing. On one hand, it would
appear to guarantee a permanent position for the instrument, insulating it from
the competition for space elsewhere in the building. On the other hand,
removing the organ from the mainstream of the music department, as well as the
rest of the campus, threatens to isolate it and erode the much-needed support
of the university community.

The greater use of off-campus organ resources by music
departments is an emerging trend that is viewed positively in certain quarters
of the teaching profession. At the University of Washington, Carole Terry
considers contractual arrangements with Seattle churches to be one of the
strengths of her program. These instruments, of various periods and tonal
design, complement the Paul Fritz tracker on campus, and afford the students a
much broader orientation to the pipe organ and to the spectrum and
interpretation of its literature. They also offer attractive teaching and
performance opportunities. 

This is the position of Frostburg State University in
Maryland which recently sold a 1970 Tellers organ, an instrument that had
suffered from a poor location and whose installation had never been
satisfactorily completed due to budget limitations. The faculty have long used
two excellent and recently updated Möller organs in Cumberland, within
walking distance of the campus, for teaching and performances. That this is
viewed as a permanent solution to the organ resource needs of the school is
reflected in the fact that the recital hall in the recently completed
multi-million dollar fine arts center omitted any space provision for a pipe
organ. A small, five-rank portable organ, to be used largely for accompaniment,
will be the only hint of a pipe organ on campus.

Arrangements between schools and local churches bodes well
for the pipe organ by reinforcing the linkage between the instrument and its
music in a liturgical setting. Yet it also suggests a lack of commitment to the
organ program in resource and curricular decisions of the school and a tragic
neglect of organ music as a foundation for a high quality education in music.
In the tenor of this paper, it ignores the place of a pipe organ in the broader
cultural dimensions of an institution of higher learning. A small portable
instrument to accompany other music offerings is indicative of a very minor and
largely supportive role for the instrument.  The absence of a recital instrument in a prominent campus
gathering place ignores the time-honored place of the pipe organ in the visible
(and in this case articulate) jewels of a college or university.

Practice and Studio Instruments

The sale of practice and studio organs by Concordia
(Nebraska), Cornell University, Frostburg State (Maryland), Kent State (Ohio),
Stevens Point (Wisconsin), Syracuse, and UCLA among others, with more to come
no doubt, is the final phase in the lockstep sequence of events that marks the
diminishing fortunes of the pipe organ in academe. Step one, declining
enrollment, began with economic forces impacting the organist profession in the
1970s. Wolfgang Rübsam of Northwestern University explains:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  "When it became generally known
that the poorly paid church organist market would no longer justify parental
tuition investment in an organ education, organ enrollment collapsed."9
This was especially true if the degree was to be financed by loans which could
never be repaid on a church organist's salary. Graduate degrees, frequently at
comparatively costly yet highly visible and quality private schools or conservatories, were likewise unattractive because the academic market had dried up.

Step two was idle instruments, and the emerging
"opportunity costs" of the space which clamored for other use.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Step three was to sell the instruments.
To appease penurious state legislatures, campus budget officers liquidated the
under utilized resources and converted the space to a current "hot
button" at the school, perhaps a computer lab.  With budget officials breathing down their necks, the music
department meekly acceded to the cuts, hoping to save what they could in a
campus-wide scramble for funds. Step four is to not replace the organ professor
when he retires (Corliss Arnold at Michigan State and Will Headlee at Syracuse
are examples). The final step in this sad progression is the
"outsourcing" of organ instruction; i.e, to contract with a local
organist to teach the few students on a per diem basis with no benefits.

Concordia College

Concordia College in Seward, Nebraska is one of numerous
Concordia schools in the Lutheran denomination, whose traditional purpose was
to train teachers for their parochial schools. The school master or his
associates were also expected to be the parish musician, a tradition dating
back to colonial times; for example, with Gottlieb Mittelberger in the 1750s in
Pennsylvania.10 The teaching-and-parish-musician position reflected, no doubt,
the influence of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, founder of Lutheranism in America
and an ardent champion of the pipe organ.11 Every student at Concordia was
automatically enrolled in organ lessons, which necessitated fifteen
instruments, most of them practice organs, to service a student body of 600. In
recent years, the number of students preparing for church vocations has fallen
to 40 percent of the enrollment, resulting in "excess capacity" in
pipe organ resources. The decision to sell five instruments was prompted in
part by the desire to convert one practice room into a piano studio and another
into a computer lab. This example is perhaps exceptional in view of the high
percentage of the student body using the instruments. Nevertheless, it
underscores the close relationship between enrollment and resource needs, and
how swiftly an adjustment occurs when need declines.

Kent State University

Kent State University, a public institution in northeast
Ohio, with 22,000 students, including 300 enrolled in the music department, dropped organ instruction in the spring of 1981. The number of students in the combined degree program in sacred music and applied organ performance had dropped to six, far below the number needed to justify a tenured faculty position and to continue practice room space begging for other uses.  Ironically, the school had formerly counted as its organ instructors two of the most promising young keyboard artists and teachers in the country in John Ferguson, now at St. Olaf College, and Larry Smith, now at Indiana University. The enrollment collapse was the direct result of the dismal outlook for organ graduates in the marketplace. This was confirmed in an informal survey by Dr. Walter Watson, then head of the music department, which revealed that the number of full-time organ positions in the greater New York City area, had fallen from 600 in the 1950s to between 150 and 200 in the 1980s, a situation thought to prevail throughout the country.12

The absence of supporting curricula at Kent State in
philosophy and theology to augment the sacred music degree added to the
rationale for discontinuing the program. Two small practice organs were sold to
churches and some thought has been given to selling the 20-rank studio organ
and using the proceeds to update the auditorium instrument, now in need of
restoration. In recent years the financial fortunes of the school were severely
impacted by the statewide budget crunch, which forced the music department to
cancel the marching band temporarily, to remove telephones from faculty offices
and require faculty to pay for photocopying materials for their classes. A
small foundation stipend carried them over until budgets were restored but the
organ instruction situation has not changed. This may be an extreme example of
the financial indigence of music departments, but it is certainly not an
isolated one.

University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point

The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point is a striking
illustration of the predicament of public institutions which are acutely
sensitive to enrollment shifts and budget constraints.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  When organ enrollment collapsed and the
organist retired, the faculty position was eliminated and the decision made to
sell the four pipe organs and channel the diminishing resources elsewhere. The
plan now is to also sell the Ronald Wahl tracker instrument and use the
proceeds to rebuild the Steinway concert grand piano. Organ programs in the majority of schools in the state university system, not including the University at Madison, are reported to be severely curtailed or defunct.

Syracuse University

In view of its stellar position in postwar graduate organ
study, the experience of Syracuse University is revealing and particularly
significant.  The Syracuse program
rose to prominence under the leadership of Arthur Poister, a much-admired
teacher and an eloquent spokesman for the organist profession, together with
his colleagues and successors Will Headlee and Donald Sutherland.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  With the University of Michigan and the
Eastman School of Music, Syracuse shared the distinction of being three premier
graduate schools for organ study in the country. In the 1950s, the programs
benefited enormously from "degree inflation," as Headlee calls it,
which was then capturing the profession: the DMA supplanted the MMus as the
terminal degree in organ performance and became the "union card" for
an academic appointment.

The halcyon days at Syracuse were a manifestation of
promising academic job opportunities for organists, the attraction of the
trophy Holtkamp instruments in Crouse Auditorium and Hendricks Chapel, the
magnetism of Poister and his staff, and the all-important pipeline from Oberlin
to Syracuse where Poister had earlier taught. But Poister knew it couldn't
last. He often said to Headlee, "When will the bubble burst?"13 When
it did, in the late 1970s, the university moved swiftly to drastically curtail
the organ program.  Four of the six
Holtkamp "Martini" practice organs were sold.  When student credit hours plummeted to near zero, the administration elected not to replace Headlee upon his retirement and to outsource organ instruction with a part-time teacher, Katherine Pardee. She was the director of music at Hendricks Chapel whose funding is totally separate from the instructional budget of the school. The experience at Syracuse is an all-to-frequent example of how rapidly a once proud program that educated a generation of prominent teachers and performers can decline and virtually disappear.

The linkage between the initial investment and now
disinvestment decisions in pipe organs as a function of student enrollment
(demand) is an expression of the "imputation" theory of value
(zürechnung) propounded by the eminent Austrian economist Carl Menger
(1840-1921) wherein the demand (bedarf) for and value of an economic good
echoes backward into its resource base. In a market analogy, if the demand for
cigarettes falls, the demand and price for leaf tobacco declines and then the
need for and rent on tobacco growing land recedes.14

Within the music department curriculum and faculty, the
organ teacher is often odd man out. 
This sad situation is attributable to more than the decline in students
and credit hours. It is primarily a reflection of what Arthur Birkby of the
University of Wyoming calls the "softening" or "dumbing
down" of the pedagogical approach to music education.15 The contemporary
emphasis upon country, gospel, jazz and rock-based music means students have
decided that it is no longer necessary to be well-grounded in classical
precepts. Thus the core curriculum in theory, counterpoint, analysis and
composition, where the pipe organ and its music would be recognized, has been cast aside.16 Given this mindset, is it any wonder the organ is viewed today as a "fuddy duddy" instrument, as Birkby laments?  Rübsam adds that with organs and pianos being pushed into the corner in churches in favor of of electronic keyboards and all manner of audio-mixing devices, a career in church music is no longer attractive to the serious musician.

A Call to Action

In the foregoing analysis we have demonstrated how
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  economic and political realities in
higher education together with the indifference of campus leaders and state
legislatures, with their slide-rule mentality (and without shame), have
resulted in a tragic loss of recognition of the pipe organ's time-honored place
in academe. These examples of the liquidation of pipe organs are perhaps logical
and defensible in view of the vice-grip economics overshadowing our
institutions of higher learning today. Yet the impression lingers that the
decisions are based primarily on expediency and without proper recognition of
the place of the instrument among the "untouchables" which would
certainly be true of other campus jewels. One cannot imagine, for example, that
if enrollment in astronomy courses declined, the school would sell-off the
telescope and turn the observatory into a laboratory for genetic engineering.

The following are suggestions that can and must be
implemented to stem the tide of indifference, neglect and abandonment, and to
protect and promote the King of Instruments in institutional settings.

The first step is an awareness of the urgency of the problem
and the need to take determined action. Pipe organ aficionados--professors,
alumni, organists and concerned laymen--must be ready to "lie down in
front of the bulldozer" (so to speak) to stop the carnage. This begins
with periodic inquiries on the status of the organs on campus and expressions
of ongoing interest in their well-being. The "Friends of the Northrop
Organ" at the University of Minnesota, described by Charles Hendrickson in
an article in the March, 1996 edition of The Diapason, is a fine example of the
type of organization that should be established at every school.17

The organ professor must be visible, articulate, and
proactive in promoting the instrument. 
In short, he or she must become an evangelist with fire in the belly, or
as one observer said:  "The
organist has got to come out of his hole, and fight!" They must interact
more frequently with the faculty and campus at large, and use every opportunity
to make sure the organ and its music are included in applicable courses. For
example, to advance the organ as an intellectual and cultural resource to the
larger campus community the organist, in cooperation with professional
organizations, could develop a slide lecture for presentation to classes in
history (western civilization), philosophy (aesthetics), architecture,
engineering and others.

The organist should solicit a firm commitment from the
university administration to recognize and maintain the instruments on campus.
To protect the fine Holtkamp organs at Syracuse, Will Headlee orchestrated a
celebration of the Centennial of Crouse Auditorium. The Organ Historical
Society citation for "an instrument of historic merit worthy of
preservation" was read to the gathering which included the chancellor on
the platform. In responding the chancellor gave assurances that the organ was
recognized and would continue to be honored. Headlee cautions that every time
there is a changing of the guard one has to go in and sell the situation all
over again.

Yale University, under the inspired leadership of Thomas
Murray, university organist, and Nicholas Thompson-Allen and Joseph Dzeda, the
two associate organ curators, has reached out to various constituents on
campus. In a well-conceived effort to promote high visibility and awareness of the pipe organs at Yale, these men have encouraged music students, technology
classes, and other university organizations to schedule tours and
demonstrations of the instruments. Undergraduates expressing an interest in the
pipe organs and occasionally using them as a topic for a class term paper are
welcomed and given full co-operation.

During Alumni Reunion Weekend each Spring, Friday morning
and afternoon tours are conducted of the trophy Hutchings-Steere-Skinner organ
in Woolsey Hall for alumni and their families. Murray demonstrates and plays
the instrument and then the curators guide the visitors on a brief walk through
the chambers. This creates in the alumni a sense of "pride of
ownership" in the instrument and they recognize it and the other fine pipe
organs on campus as an integral part of the heart and soul of Yale University.
This effort was rewarded two years ago when an alumnus, who had joined the
group, was moved to finance the restoration of a rank of pipes which had been
taken out of the organ more than sixty years ago. 

The music department should work closely with other
departments to establish maintenance funding in the budgetary process and
encourage the administration to persuade the state legislature of the
legitimacy and necessity of maintenance allocations. At the University of
Washington, the organ professor, Carole Terry, can submit a requisition for
tuning or repairs but bureaucratic guidelines have thus far ruled out a service
contract. In an effort to confront the realities of the budgetary process and
yet find a way to work within the system, Larry Schou, at the University of
South Dakota, is attempting to consign the Skinner auditorium organ to the
music instruments museum budget to promote its restoration.

Pipe organs should be given maximum coverage in campus
publicity. This includes descriptions and photos in promotional material and
catalogs, post cards for sale in the bookstore (now at University of Wyoming),
and descriptions and comments in campus tours for visitors and prospective
students. The campus radio station could be requested to play classical organ
music every week.

The instruments can be promoted to non-music students
throughout the campus, encouraging them to sign up for lessons, perhaps by
student teachers, and practice 
time. This might include "open console," periods when
students, under the supervision of the faculty, can reserve time to play at
their leisure. Who knows, perhaps some engineering student who elects to relax
at the organ a couple of hours a week, will come back in twenty years, having
made a fortune in computers or genetics, and endow the whole department!

Given the realities of diminished funding, organ teachers
may well have to perform routine maintenance, primarily tuning but perhaps also
minor repairs. In their devotion to the instrument, they must do everything
possible to keep it playing.  When
a pipe organ is no longer playable, it is half way out the door.

As a last resort, schools may come to rely on volunteers to
keep organs playing. This has worked successfully at the University of
Minnesota where the devoted service of Gordon Schultz is well recognized.
Professional organ technicians throw up their hands at this prospect, but it
may be the only re-course. The American Theater Organ Society has been notably
successful in harnessing the skills and energies of enthusiasts. Many of their
members play a major role in the restoration and preservation of these period
instruments.

Workers and community leaders now speak of themselves as
"stakeholders" in the fortunes of the businesses and community where
they work and live, with a vested interest that transcends the exigencies of
competition and profit. Perhaps this concept should be applied in a college
setting with professors, students and alumni viewed as stakeholders in the
cultural jewels of the campus.

In a followup article the author will explore promising
developments in the academic fortunes of the pipe organ.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Research for this paper has disclosed
several situations where institutional recognition is encouraging, endowments
are forthcoming and student enrollment is growing. Readers who know of such
illustrations are encouraged to reply to the author on his e-mail:
[email protected]                

For research input and critical comments on earlier drafts
of this paper, the author gratefully acknowledges: Corliss Arnold, Nelson
Barden, Jack Bethards, Dean Billmeyer, Arthur Birkby, Joan DeVee Dixon, Joanne
Domb, Joseph Dzeda, John Ferguson, Laura Gayle Green, Yuko Hayashi, Will
Headlee, Herbert Huestis, Dale Jensen, the late Stephen Long, Richard
McPherson, Charles McManis, John Near, Albert Neutel, Charles Orr, Katherine
Pardee, Robert Rosen, Wolfgang Rübsam, Larry Schou, Steve Shoemaker, Albert
Smith, Larry Smith, John Chappell Stowe, Carole Terry, and Walter Watson.

Notes

                  1.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Campbell-Kelly, Martin ed., Charles Babbage: Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994, Introduction and Chapter V and VII.

                  2.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Telephone interview with Will Headlee, July 9, 1996.

                  3.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Telephone interview with Albert C. Shaw, October 1, 1996.

                  4.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Proffitt, Steve, Interview with Judith Balfe,  "Is Support for the Arts Literally Dying Off?", Los Angeles Times, February 23, 1996, p. M-3.

                  5.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Veblen,
Thorstein, The Higher Learning in America:  A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business
Men,  New York:
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  B. W. Huebsch, 1918.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  See also Joseph Dorfman, Thorstein
Veblen and His America, Seventh Edition, Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley,
1972, pp. 234, 395-410.

                  6.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Interview
with John Hose and Adolph Zajic, 1964. Another was the four-manual sixty-rank
instrument for Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania with a stoplist
designed by Virgil Fox. The famous Whitelegg diapason chorus on the erecting
room floor in Hagerstown was purchased by Trinity Methodist Church in
Youngstown, Ohio in 1942, and later incorporated in the great division of the
four-manual eighty-nine rank instrument completed in 1947. Whitelegg died in
1944. See The Diapason, August, 1937, p. 1, June, 1943, p. 22, August, 1947, p.
1.

Marcia Van Oyen earned master’s and doctoral degrees in organ and church music at the University of Michigan, where she studied organ with Robert Glasgow. She is associate director of music/organist at Plymouth First United Methodist Church in Plymouth, Michigan. She is on the steering committee for the 2006 national AGO convention and serves on two national AGO committees. More information is available online at .

Organ conferences centered on repertoire, performance practice, and history rather than purely practical matters are few and far between. Outside of the American Guild of Organists conventions and pedagogy conferences, or single-topic workshops given by other entities, the annual University of Michigan Organ Conference stands out for its breadth and depth. The conference’s three days, packed with presentations by local, national and international experts, offer a terrific opportunity to delve into academic topics and re-engage with the details of the organ and its history. In addition, the conference is a bonus for Michigan students, exposing them to topics, lecturers and performances beyond the tutelage of the excellent Michigan faculty.
The annual organ conference is the brainchild of Dr. Marilyn Mason. When asked how long she has been involved with the conference, she replied:
Yes, I have been responsible for all of them!! I began the first conference in 1961 because my manager, Lillian Murtagh, had written that Anton Heiller would be coming to the USA. Right then I said we wanted him in October, and we signed him for the first Conference on Organ Music. Through the years I have had assistance from both James Kibbie and Michele Johns, but I have been responsible (with a conference committee) for the program and presenters.
All of the conference events this year, except for one lecture and one concert, were held at Hill Auditorium, home of the Frieze Memorial Organ. Having survived several tonal re-workings, water damage two decades ago, and gloriously emerging following an extensive renovation of the auditorium completed in late 2004, the organ is in fine shape. In expert hands and played with clarity, this instrument is quite versatile. The deepened color scheme of the auditorium and the organ’s newly gold front pipes lend an aura of warmth and ambiance previously lacking, and in this environment the organ’s smoky-sounding strings, full-bodied principals, and high-pressure reeds shine. Conference lectures took place in a pleasant, light-filled meeting room on the mezzanine level of the facility, allowing easy access to the auditorium downstairs and the array of colorful restaurants in Ann Arbor’s downtown area. Anticipation was in the air as the first lecturer, Christoph Wolff, the world’s foremost Bach scholar, took the podium.
Christoph Wolff, born and educated in Germany, is Adams University Professor at Harvard University. He has published widely on the history of music from the 15th to the 20th centuries; recent books include Bach: Essays on His Life and Music, The New Bach Reader, and Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. Wolff is simultaneously erudite and engaging, bringing the listener into his research process, sharing how he has arrived at connections and conclusions. He is an articulate speaker, and conference attendees were privileged to hear him present four lectures on J. S. Bach and his music.

Bach lectures by Christoph Wolff

Wolff’s first lecture, “J. S. Bach and His Circle,” offered insight into the societal and musical influences surrounding the great master. The circle, as defined by Wolff, consisted of musicians of the Bach family, influential musicians outside the family, students of Bach, and patrons of Bach. The historical depth of his musical family is unique to Bach. The combination of profundity and expressivity in the music his relatives composed is fundamental to understanding Bach’s work. The young Bach was immersed in this music, full of innovative practices.
One of the prominent musicians influencing the young J. S. Bach was family friend Johann Pachelbel, who trained keyboardists with a mixed repertoire of Italian, French and German music. Central Germany was a colorful cultural scene, with many small political entities, and this was reflected in its music. German composers took the best of what existed from eclectic sources and combined it in a new way, creating a cosmopolitan style. Pachelbel was an important transmitter of this mixed style.
As a teacher, Bach allowed his students to develop along their own path, according to their own tastes and pace, and nurtured their best individual qualities. His students worked with him all day every day, and those with professional ambitions became his assistants.
The query “Did Bach write concertos for organ and orchestra?” provided the motivation for Wolff’s second lecture. His conclusion is that the bulk of Bach’s harpsichord concertos originated as organ concertos that were later reworked into cantata movements. He guided listeners along the trail that led to this thesis. Some of the signposts along the trail included these facts: The bulk of the orchestral repertoire is from the Leipzig period. The Brandenburg Concerti, though dedicated in 1721, are actually pre-Cöthen and have a relationship to the Weimar cantatas; these works could not have been written in Cöthen for political reasons. Idiomatic writing in the E-major harpsichord concerto and its keys, range, and style point to organ performance. Wolff plans to present an edition of concertos using the right hand parts Bach typically wrote out (he improvised the left hand) and the full harpsichord part.
Wolff’s third lecture was “Bach and the Silbermann Connection.” Johann Sebastian Bach and organbuilder Gottfried Silbermann met in 1724 when Bach played a concert in Dresden on the new organ at the church of St. Sofia. Bach was a technical expert, able to converse at Silbermann’s level, and frequently examined the structure, mechanics, and acoustics of new organs. Another important meeting occurred in 1736 when Bach played the dedication of a new Silbermann organ at the Frauenkirche. When Silbermann was experimenting with building a fortepiano, he called on Bach to examine the prototype. The two were also known to have examined a new organ in Naumburg in 1746, the largest instrument built by Hildebrandt.
Wolff’s final lecture was on the Clavierübung Part III. Both Kuhnau and Lübeck had published volumes titled “Clavierübung” to train performers and composers, and Bach selected this title in order to accommodate several volumes of his work. At the St. Thomas School and Leipzig University, Bach was surrounded by colleagues who were publishing. Bach was at a disadvantage because he had no academic degree, but needed to establish that he had the credentials to teach. He wanted to publish a series that would show he was a very experienced, innovative, scholarly musician, highly qualified to serve as music director and cantor at St. Thomas. In 1723, Bach added a title page to the Orgelbüchlein (composed in Weimar), doing the same for the Inventions and Sinfonias and the Well-Tempered Clavier in order to document his teaching method.
While Part IV of the Clavierübung, the Goldberg Variations, portrayed Bach as a keyboard master, it was Part III that identified him as an organist, confirming his public reputation. Such a collection of organ music was unprecedented, including works at the upper limits of organ technique, testing Bach’s ability as a composer as well. At the time, there were probably only twelve organists with the ability to play the large chorales in the collection, so as a marketing strategy, Bach added the smaller chorales and duets, which could be played on the harpsichord or clavichord. In addition, the pieces are a musical catechism to be studied daily, using teachings of the Lutheran faith and hymns of the Mass. The title page of the Part III includes the phrase “for the recreation and education of the soul,” and is the only volume of the four that refers to education. In addition, it is the most comprehensively thought out and profound of all Bach’s collections, standing at the threshold of Bach’s late works.
The Clavierübung was a systematically developed project, composed in the second half of the 1730s, and published in 1739. Part III is an ideal organ concert as Bach would have conceived it, beginning with a prelude, ending with a fugue, with chorales in between; he may have played the large pieces for the dedication of the Silbermann organ in the Frauenkirche in Dresden in 1736. On the heels of Wolff’s lecture on Part III, doctoral students of Marilyn Mason (David Saunders, Andrew Meagher, Marcia Heirman, Kirsten Hellman, Monica Sparzak, and Kim Manz) played the complete work on the Fisk organ in Blanche Anderson Moore Hall at the School of Music. Wolff gave a brief description and guide for listening to each piece.
Typically, the chorales or the prelude and fugue are excerpted for concert use, but hearing the collection as a whole brings to light Bach’s carefully planned compositional architecture and enhances the beauty of the works. By the time the final fugue is played, no introduction or explanatory note is necessary—the work is heard as a natural conclusion to what has come before. Hearing the pieces in one sitting is demanding for the listener, weighty stuff even for the organ crowd, but it is a very satisfying experience.
Dr. Mason’s students played the demanding pieces very ably, handling the sensitive action of the Fisk organ well. This organ is an important historical teaching tool, and its tonal palette and unequal temperament provided the requisite colors to elucidate Bach’s works.

The Global Bach Community

Following the Bach concert, conference attendees were invited to join a lunch-time discussion with leaders of the Global Bach Community: president Samuel Swansen, vice president Marilyn Mason, secretary Toni Vogel Carey, and advisory board member Christoph Wolff. The community was founded in 2000 with the following mission: to recognize and foster the common spirit that exists universally among lovers of Bach’s music, to facilitate Bach-centered projects worldwide—artistic, educational, social and spiritual, to help the Bach community flourish, in part through the ability to raise funds not normally available to individual Bach organizations. In cooperation with The Bach Festival of Philadelphia’s website, the Global Bach Community has emerged as the central resource for Bach organizations worldwide (www.bach-net.org).

Lectures—Innig, Hamilton, and Barone

Rudolf Innig has concertized throughout the world and made numerous recordings for radio broadcast as well as commercial sale, including the complete works of Messiaen. His organ teachers include Gaston Litaize and Michael Schneider. He won the competition of the Conservatories of the Federal Republic of Germany in the organ category in 1975. His current project is recording the complete organ works of Rheinberger on 12 CDs, and he lectured on this music. The soft-spoken Innig confessed his initial skepticism about recording Rheinberger, but having become fond of Rheinberger’s music, then told the audience, “I want not only to inform, but to convince.” Compared to his contemporaries Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Liszt, Rheinberger’s life and education at the Munich conservatory were unremarkable. He wrote music simply to express joy, his style was provincial rather than cosmopolitan, and his music is not innovative. Innig asserted that Rheinberger’s music has receded into history due to these factors. By the time he began to write organ sonatas late in life, Rheinberger had already composed numerous symphonies, operas and songs. It is in the organ sonatas that he truly developed his personal style, composing at least one large organ work per year 1875–1894. Innig hopes to garner attention for these works with his recording series.
Stephen Hamilton is minister of music at the historic Church of the Holy Trinity (Episcopal) in New York City and has recorded Marcel Dupré’s La Chemin de la Croix to great acclaim. He studied with Marie-Claire Alain, had the opportunity to play L’Ascension for Messiaen, and has an extensive collection of correspondence between Marcel Dupré and both Arthur Poister and Robert Shepfer. During his lecture, “The French Connection,” he shared anecdotes, recounting his experiences with various teachers, including Russell Saunders (who taught the fourth-grade Hamilton), as well as personal reflections. The bulk of his presentation dealt with the life of Marcel Dupré and his value as a pedagogue. He distributed a complete listing of Dupré’s organ works, encouraging the performance of the extensive oeuvre beyond the six or seven typically played works.
Michael Barone, host of the radio program “Pipedreams,” and self-proclaimed master of playing CDs rather than playing the organ, is clearly more comfortable when fiddling with the knobs and controls of hi-fi equipment rather than giving a formal lecture. He has the self-confidence and sense to let the music speak for itself, rather than interrupting or pre-empting it with unnecessary chatter. He reminded the audience that the art of recording the pipe organ is relatively new, coming into its own after the invention of electricity in the 1920s. His presentation was an enjoyable musical survey of playing styles entitled, “They Did It That Way?!”
Drawing from his vast library of recordings, Barone made his point by juxtaposing Widor’s performance of his Toccata at age 80 with a lightning-fast rendition played by G. D. Cunningham, Dupré’s whirlwind take on his own G-minor Prelude and Fugue in his youth and a much older Dupré playing one of the Preludes and Fugues from Opus 36. He offered a “kaleidoscope of interpretive possibilities” by playing several contrasting renditions of Bach’s first Trio Sonata and injected some levity with an outlandish performance of Bach’s D-minor Toccata. Most interesting was a performance of Franck’s B-minor Choral played on the piano by Vladimir Viardo of the University of North Texas. (If you play or are fond of this piece, this is a must-have recording, available from .)
Every so often, Barone would punctuate the music with a subtly humorous facial expression and a cryptic comment—vintage Barone. At the end of the session, he offered this thought, demonstrating his own openness to and fascination with the variety present in the pipe organ world: “There is never any one way any more than there is any one player.” He closed with one more recording: the Toccata from Boëllmann’s Suite Gothique played by an accordion band. “It’s the ultimate in flexible wind,” Barone quipped.

Organ concerts—Hamilton, Disselhorst and Innig

Three artists presented evening concerts in Hill Auditorium: Stephen Hamilton, Delbert Disselhorst, and Rudolph Innig. Hamilton’s selection of repertoire, labeled “Alain and His Circle,” included L’Ascension by Messiaen, the Te Deum by Langlais, Trois Mouvements pour orgue et flute by Jehan Alain, and Prelude and Fugue in B major by Dupré. Hamilton’s playing is fluid and virtuosic, and he knows how to coax the loveliest sounds from the Hill organ. He is expressive with his physical movement at the console, even “conducting” with a free arm at times. His performance of the sustained prayer in L’Ascension didn’t seem static, but felt alive, moving forward. He attributes this feeling of forward motion to a year spent accompanying for Robert Shaw: subdivide always. Flautist Donald Fischel joined Hamilton for Alain’s Trois Mouvements for organ and flute, a work that deserves to be heard far more often. Particularly in the second and third movements, the organ and flute blend seamlessly with beautiful effect. The Dupré B-major began brilliantly, but spun out of control due to a glitch with the piston sequencer. Despite an accelerated tempo, Hamilton held the piece together to finish with success. Hamilton returned for an encore—Alain’s Litanies—played with a frantic, exciting, if blurry, rush of virtuosity.
Delbert Disselhorst, professor of organ at the University of Iowa and graduate of Michigan, is an organ conference regular, performing every few years. His memorized program was ambitious, opening with the Prelude and Fugue in G minor by Brahms, negotiated with seamless manual changes, perfectly under control. Following the chorale prelude and fugue on Meine Seele by Bach, he launched into another tour de force, a Passacaglia by Swiss composer Otto Barblan. This Brahmsian work includes rhythms reminiscent of the Bach C-minor Passacaglia dressed in weighty, dense harmonic clothing. After intermission, Disselhorst offered a solid rendition of Mendelssohn’s Sonata III, followed by Bach’s Sonata III, played with an unfussy neutral touch. The Theme with Variations by Johann Friedrich Ludwig Thiele, a virtuosic torrent of notes, closed the program with moto perpetuo pedal and a cadenza for the manuals. Disselhorst delivered an heroic performance with a pleasing variety of texture and drama in the repertoire selected.
Rudolph Innig has clearly developed a passion for Rheinberger’s organ music. He approached the console and took command immediately with expressive, dramatic playing. His program consisted of three sonatas, including the F major, op. 20, the last sonata Rheinberger composed (1899). This sonata is subtitled “Zur Friedensfeier”—for the ceremony of peace, and celebrates the confidence in Germany at the time that a world war in the near future would be avoided. Rheinberger’s sonata forms are irregular, but the movements are often related to one another with common themes and intervals. Sequential writing, as in the D-minor Sonata, op. 148, often lends shape to the movements. The works are rhythmically energetic, akin to Mendelssohn but with denser writing, although they are not dissonant or highly chromatic. Innig’s registration consisted of foundation stops with reeds at various volume levels for the most part.
Following Innig’s concert, university carilloneur Stephen Ball and his students hosted a candlelit reception in Burton Tower, home of the Baird memorial carillon. Guests had the opportunity to view the massive bells and try out the carillon’s keyboards. Recently, Michigan has recently become home to a second carillon, located in a modernistic tower on the north campus.

Student recitals

Three doctoral recitals by students of Marilyn Mason afforded the performers a larger audience than they otherwise would have had and a nice opportunity to play for professional colleagues. Seth Nelson played the complete Widor First Symphony, whose fifth movement is the famous “Marche Pontificale.” Performing gargantuan works such as this from memory happens only in the rarefied atmosphere of intense study and focus, a feat always eliciting admiration from an audience. Doctoral candidates Shin-Ae Chun and Alan Knight also performed dissertation recitals, Ms. Chun particularly shining in her rendition of the Liszt Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H. Joseph Balistreri, Michael Stefanek, Elizabeth Claar, Matthew Bogart, students of James Kibbie, played a concert at Hill Auditorium on Tuesday afternoon, each giving a commendable performance.

Church music at the conference

For a number of years, the conference has opened with a worship service or hymn festival, and has included a lecture or two on a worship-related topic. The inclusion of church music elements in an otherwise scholarly conference acknowledges the importance of service-playing skills for organists, gives a good opportunity for the local AGO chapter to participate, and provides another event to which the public can be invited. This year, the Ann Arbor AGO chapter organized a choral festival, dedicated to the late Donald Williams, and Herman Taylor gave a lecture entitled “The Joys and Sorrows of Contemporary Church Music.”
At the choral festival, Ann Arbor AGO Dean Edward Maki-Schramm gave opening remarks, pointing out that this effort relies upon the copious hours of dedication and practice of many volunteers. He illustrated his point by attempting to tabulate the cumulative number of practice hours for all involved in the service, which featured a choir comprising volunteer singers from the AGO board members’ churches. The choir sang two anthems by Vaughan Williams and Mendelssohn tentatively, but seemed to relax and enjoy singing Moses Hogan’s Music Down in My Soul. Dr. Schramm confidently accompanied the choir, and David Hufford played the prelude, a solo within the service, and a solid performance of the Toccata from Duruflé’s Suite for the postlude.
The festival service included the singing of several hymns as well, capably led by Dr. Schramm at the console, among them Sing a New Song to God, with its athletic but very singable tune composed by Kevin Bylsma. Unfortunately, for all its charms, Hill Auditorium is not conducive to worship, and is deadly for congregational singing, especially when the “congregation” is spread out among the padded seats. Future planners of the conference’s worship event would do well to choose one of the nearby churches as the venue rather than the 4000-seat auditorium.
One highlight of the choral festival was the homily given by the Reverend JoAnn Kennedy Slater, J.D., Ann Arbor AGO chaplain. “Music,” she said, “is one of the more visceral, organic thresholds to God. Because of God’s incredible trust and vulnerability we each then have a share in that divinity and that joy and wonder; and music is one way to create and sustain such a sacred space in our bodies, mind, and souls, in the sacred spaces of our places of worship as well as in the secular world of music as entertainment.” Her remarks were heartfelt and sincere, descriptive rather than didactic, displaying an understanding of the ephemeral art of music.
On a more practical note, Herman Taylor presented a lecture/demonstration he dubbed “The Joys and Sorrows of Contemporary Church Music.” Having retired from teaching at Eastern Illinois University, he now serves as organist at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Charleston, Illinois. He earned his master’s and doctoral degrees at Michigan, and is a presenter or performer at the conference every few years.
For Taylor, the sorrow is that contemporary (read: pop style) church music in its raw state is overly simplistic, devoid of through-composition, modified strophic forms, or creative harmonization. Recognizing quality in many of the “contemporary” melodies and texts, however, Taylor finds joy in enhancing the songs with more sophisticated harmony. He realizes that many composers of contemporary songs simply lack the musical training to harmonize their melodies with any complexity. He has contacted them about modifying and elaborating on the harmony of their songs, receiving positive responses. Taylor’s harmonic alterations are subtle but do add richness to the songs, which he invited the audience to sing while he demonstrated his techniques. His wife, Vivian Hicks Taylor, served as cantor. Dr. Taylor also addressed “gospelizing” hymns, a practice that includes adding rhythm and passing tones to create a Gospel feel.

A tribute to Robert Glasgow

Professor Robert Glasgow has formally retired from teaching, and as a tribute, nine of his former students played a concert at Hill Auditorium. Thomas Bara, Monte Thomas, Charles Kennedy, Christopher Lees, Ronald Krebs, Joel Hastings, Deborah Friauff, Douglas Reed, and Jeremy David Tarrant demonstrated the Glasgow legacy with excellent performances of a wide variety of repertoire. Tom Bara’s taut, compelling rendition of Mendelssohn’s Allegro, Chorale and Fugue was particularly noteworthy, and Charles Kennedy played the Brahms Chorale and Fugue on “O Traurigkeit” with understated elegance. Joel Hastings played Vierne’s Naïades to perfection, the fountain of notes bubbling effortlessly and unaffectedly, and Jeremy David Tarrant negotiated the mammoth Prelude, Andante and Toccata by Fleury with ease. Douglas Reed lent a touch of humor to the program by choosing to play two movements from De Spiritum by William Albright, a work requiring two assistants. Following the program, guests mingled at a reception on the stage, offering their greetings and congratulations to Dr. Glasgow. One was struck by the legacy Glasgow leaves in the form of his many fine students. He taught as much by the example of his own playing as he ever did with words. Observing his quiet and elegant technique, coupled with masterful and expressive interpretations, was a year’s worth of lessons in itself.
Marilyn Mason’s considerable energy, enthusiasm, and extensive connections in the organ world make the Michigan organ conference a high quality event, serving both current Michigan students and dozens of attendees from out of town. She has done yeoman service by offering a conference brimming with serious academic content over a wide a range of topics, sustaining her efforts for nearly half a century to present a valuable, educational opportunity each autumn. Kudos to you, Dr. Mason.
 

125 years of music at Michigan
1880–2005

Organists loom large in the establishment of the School of Music, perhaps none more prominently than classics scholar Henry Simmons Frieze. Music, though his avocation, was his passion. Known for his deep religious faith and keyboard skill, Frieze had supported himself as a church organist and music director prior to launching his academic career. It was Frieze, then professor and acting university president, who instigated the formation of a Messiah Club involving four Ann Arbor churches in 1879, formalizing a collaboration that had been active since 1860. The Club was soon reorganized as the Choral Union.
The following year, the University Musical Society was founded, bringing together the Choral Union and the student orchestra, with Leipzig-trained Calvin B. Cady as director. At Frieze’s suggestion, Cady was also hired as instructor of music in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Cady started the Ann Arbor School of Music, precursor of the Michigan School of Music, in 1880 with four teachers. Cady taught piano, organ, harmony and composition.
Following half a century of European artists holding sway in the realm of serious music-making in the United States, after about 1850 Americans began to establish their own institutions for musical training. In 1862, Harvard University appointed an instructor of music, and within the next two decades a number of colleges and universities had followed suit, including Michigan. Conservatories also began to be established in the East, Peabody in Baltimore the first of these.
Cady’s successor, Albert A. Stanley, a composer and organist from Providence, Rhode Island, also had studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and gave frequent organ recitals to establish his authority as a performer. In 1888, he was hired as professor in the university as well as director of the Ann Arbor School of Music, with 248 students enrolled. By 1889 the Ann Arbor School of Music was floundering, and Stanley resigned as director.
In 1892, the Ann Arbor School of Music was reorganized as the University School of Music, with Albert Stanley as director. Lacking a decent instrument, the University Musical Society acquired the Columbian Exposition organ in 1893, an instrument built by Farrand & Votey of Detroit for the occasion. This organ had been heard by thousands in Chicago during 1893, and its installation in University Hall in Ann Arbor sparked interest in organ playing. Stanley played the dedication concert before a packed house, including the governor of Michigan. The organ was designated the Frieze Memorial Organ in tribute to Henry Simmons Frieze, who had died in 1889. In 1913, the organ was moved to the newly constructed Hill Auditorium, which has been its home ever since.
When the time came to appoint a new director for the School of Music, Archibald T. Davison of Harvard and Gustav Holst were considered, but it was organist Earl V. Moore who was appointed professor of music in the University, director of the Choral Union, and musical director of the School of Music in 1923. Moore had come to the university in 1908, completing his B.A. in 1912. He was appointed head of the organ department in 1913, and became university organist in 1914. Moore was made Dean of the School of Music in 1946, a post he held for thirty-seven years. The present School of Music building, designed by Eero Saarinen and built in 1964, was named the Earl V. Moore building in 1975. Palmer Christian had succeeded Moore as university organist in 1924, holding the position until 1947, and he in turn has been succeeded by only two others: Robert Noehren (1949–1976) and Marilyn Mason (1976–).
Several noteworthy facts offer insight into the development of the Michigan School of Music. In 1929, the School of Music was accepted into the University of Michigan, giving faculty members academic rank in the university. The master’s degree was also created at this time. In 1940, the School of Music was made an autonomous unit of the University of Michigan, with professors on salary rather than relying on student fees, and in 1941 the School of Music began to provide summer programs at Interlochen. In 1945, the school offered a Ph.D. in musicology and music education, and less than a decade later in 1953 the D.M.A. in composition and performance was created to certify teachers for new college positions.
The Michigan School of Music, one of the oldest and largest such schools in the country, celebrates its 125th anniversary this academic year. Musicology professor Mark Clague cites the following hallmarks of the music school’s history: excellence in performance and scholarship, entrepreneurial spirit, service to the university and community, balance of openness and tradition, and sensitivity to race and gender. A fine example of these hallmarks is William Bolcom’s epic Songs of Innocence and Experience, which has received three Grammy awards, including Best Classical Album. In the vein of entrepreneurial spirit, the School of Music has recently launched Block M Records, giving Michigan students and faculty the opportunity to record, produce and distribute original material without having to go through an outside company. This venture affords students hands-on experience with recording and production, and allows University-based musicians to receive greater benefit from recording sales. All recordings are distributed via the Internet at , which is a particular boon for avant-garde artists seeking an audience.

Spreckels Outdoor Organ at 100 years

In summer 2001, I had just finished my doctorate at the Manhattan School of Music and was living in New York City when I read about an open position in San Diego as civic organist. I applied along with a hundred other organists. I love all kinds of music and just knew this was the job for me because that is just what the Spreckels Organ venue is about: music for all people of the world.

I was appointed Civic Organist and Artistic Director of the Spreckels Organ Society in October 2001. This venue demands a versatile music program every Sunday or the seats become empty. Little did I know that I was in for a roller-coaster ride of hard work. I soon found my footing as a self-appointed ambassador of the Spreckels Organ. As a concertizing organist, I encourage people to engage in the salubrious sounds of the pipe organ, and in doing so, hopefully gain a larger audience. We have always been blessed with appreciation and support from the people of San Diego and all those that visit from around the world.

As the seventh civic organist of San Diego, another position I hold is to work with the Spreckels Organ Society in producing their International Summer Organ Festival each year from June through September. Since this organ was given to San Diego under the condition that they cannot charge admission, the Spreckels Organ Society was formed to preserve, promote, and program this organ. The society has transformed this civic organ with their volunteer efforts, raising money for a new console, additional ranks, and the continued maintenance; the organ has become a world-class instrument.

With the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the organ, I wish to inform the reader of what has happened with the instrument and people who surround this venue.

When I began my tenure, I decided to have printed programs for every Sunday’s concert. The programs are always posted on the website the week before each performance, at www.spreckelsorgan.org. 

I truly believe that when this instrument was given by the Spreckels brothers, they intended to enrich the community—not just through organ concerts, but also by using the great organ to help others. On these lines, I decided a series of benefit concerts would be a worthy way to give back to the community.

With my love of animals, I started “Bark in Balboa Park,” and all the donations for that Sunday concert have gone to the Humane Society of San Diego. They always bring animals and boutique items and this has turned into a family event. In 2015 we will have our tenth anniversary of this event.

Every January 1—whatever day of the week it falls on—we do an extra 2 p.m. concert, and this event will benefit a worthy charity in the San Diego area.

This year, I will do my second 12-hour organ marathon to raise money for our wounded vets. All donations will go to CAF’s Operation Rebound—a fantastic organization in San Diego. 

We are now live streaming the Sunday and Monday concerts. This was a dream I had a while ago, and I must thank the Spreckels team for making this happen.

If you have never visited this venue, then may I suggest you add the place to your “bucket list?” San Diego is a beautiful city and Balboa Park is the heart of the environment.

I have made wonderful friends with my predecessors. Here are some thoughts from key people around the organ.

Dr. Carol Williams, melcot.com 

San Diego Civic Organist 

Artistic Director, Spreckels Organ Society 

A history of the venue and its people

The Spreckels Outdoor Organ and Pavilion was a most remarkable gift to the City of San Diego. It was a daring and courageous concept to think that a pipe organ could sound into the open air and that programs could be played throughout the year. That it is in outstanding use and condition for a full one hundred years is truly extraordinary. Seven Official Civic Organists (the correct title for the post) have served in all kinds of weather and performed all kinds of music, transcriptions, classical, and theatrical, and given to the general public the joy of a municipal organ. This writer has heard all seven of these musicians play and would like to express a few thoughts on each of these fine persons.

Humphrey John Stewart came to play as the 1915 Panama-California Exposition Organist, and then again in 1916 when the Exposition became International, and continued as the Official City Organist until his death on the 28th of December 1932. During the more than nine thousand concerts played almost daily by Dr. Stewart, he used colorful registrations and often concluded with a grand improvisation. The writer’s mother took her son to his programs! 

Royal Albert Brown had assisted Dr. Stewart and was appointed as the “Civic” organist in 1933. Except during the years of the Second World War, he played four times each week and all public holidays until his passing on October 28, 1954. 

Charles Rollin Shatto served from fall 1954 until late summer of 1957 and introduced many contemporary French organ composers. 

Douglas Ian Duncan had grown up hearing the park organ; when faced with its possible closure, he returned the programming to a lighter fare in the style of Mr. Brown. 

Jared Jacobsen became the Fifth Official Civic Organist in 1978 and is remembered for his brilliant playing and insightful historic comments. He served until 1984. 

Robert Plimpton became the sixth to serve the post, playing for well over sixteen years. His extensive musical background, having served in very important church positions, brought to Balboa Park a most extensive repertory. 

The seventh and current artist is Carol Anne Williams, the first woman to serve as a municipal organist. She has built on the past devotion of those who served before her and has carried the concerts to new heights.

The gift of John D. and Adolph B. Spreckels resounds loud and clear, in rain and cold, fair and warm days, giving its hometown a rich century of musical enjoyment and treasure. 

Douglas Ian Duncan 

Fourth Official Civic Organist

(1957–78, Retired)

Reflections on the Spreckels Organ, 1978–1984

My first encounter with the remarkable outdoor organ in the heart of Balboa Park was early in 1978. I had moved to San Diego eighteen months earlier, fresh out of graduate school, to serve an Episcopal parish in La Jolla that had just installed a new and very nice Austin organ; its curator, Lyle Blackinton, also took care of the 1915 Spreckels instrument. When it became apparent that the civic organist position might be opening up there, Lyle arranged for me to have some hands-on time.

I distinctly remember the hiss of sprinklers nourishing morning-sun-dappled grass as I parked my car behind the organ pavilion that first time (a sound that has welcomed me back every time in the ensuing thirty-six years). From the moment I sat at the Spreckels console, I felt at home there, and just a few months later, after an extensive audition process, I was named the Fifth Civic Organist of the City of San Diego, a post I was privileged to hold for the next seven years. It was my, and our city’s, great good fortune that my predecessor Douglas Ian Duncan had stubbornly refused to allow both the instrument and civic position to fade away during an especially stressful time in its history, enabling me to continue his stewardship and to continue building attendance and enthusiasm.

Shortly after I began my tenure two major arson fires were set within a month of each other, in the Aerospace Museum and the historic Old Globe Theatre, both near the Organ Pavilion. In the aftermath of these fires great interest began building to assess and then preserve the unique heritage of all of the buildings from the world’s fair for which the park was created in 1915. (Only the Spreckels Organ Pavilion and the nearby Museum of Man were originally intended to be permanent; San Diego’s benign climate had assisted in preserving all of the rest.) A citizens’ group called The Committee of 100 stepped forward with the intention of preserving this heritage, and one of their first projects was the refurbishment of the Organ Pavilion, including the replacement of the existing organ console which, while not quite “at death’s door,” was nonetheless showing its age. The Austin firm was commissioned to build this replacement, which then served us ably until 2010. After much lively discussion, Lyle Blackinton and I seized the opportunity to make preparations on the 1980 console for some judicious tonal additions—not to alter the original grand sound of the instrument, but to enhance its tonal palette. These additions were eventually realized through the efforts of the Spreckels Organ Society, a grass-roots enthusiast group chartered in 1987 to support the original vision of the Spreckels brothers in ways unable to be accomplished by the City of San Diego.

So what is it like to play the Spreckels Organ? Playing a vast variety of organ literature while directly enjoying San Diego’s renowned year-round climate is fantastic. And the occasional frustration of presenting music with no traditional supporting acoustic is more than balanced by the daily opportunity to bring new listeners to the pipe organ. (Balboa Park is a vast public space in the center of a great metropolitan area; every time you fire up the organ, even in the wee hours of the morning, a hundred listeners will materialize out of the trees to cheer you on!) The core instrument from 1915 retains its original visceral thrill, with the oh-so-carefully-chosen later additions lending extra purr and growl, whimsy and fireworks as desired. After 99-plus years, the unique and historic Spreckels Outdoor Organ continues to be a favorite venue for all who encounter it.

Jared Jacobsen

Fifth Official Civic Organist (1978–84)

The formation of the Spreckels Organ Society

I began my relationship with the Spreckels organ in June 1984 when Civic Organist Jared Jacobsen resigned to take a church music position in the San Francisco Bay area. As an east coast classical organist, I admit to being not much interested in a 1915 outdoor orchestral organ designed to entertain Sunday audiences in a city park. But I reluctantly agreed to fill in as interim while the city sought a successor.

The civic organist was an independent contractor with a purchase order from the city for 52 Sunday concerts. I had barely begun when curator Lyle Blackinton mentioned that there was a tradition of not having Sunday concerts in February and using those on four Monday evenings in August. My second full month in the job found me playing eight totally different programs on four Sunday afternoons and four Monday evenings. The difference between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening was huge: Monday evening audiences were much more intentional; a greater dynamic range of the organ could be used in the cooler evening air, inviting more serious repertoire.

Jared Jacobsen had built a loyal following of organ fans who began asking why we couldn’t do “more.” The City of San Diego offers a special use permit to organizations to develop programming for the benefit of the public, using the city facilities without charge. It was obvious that such an organization was needed to expand the use of the Spreckels Organ. I phoned the people who expressed an interest in the organ and invited long-time friend Vivian Evenson to chair the effort. We met in February 1988, adopting the name Spreckels Organ Society, naming Vivian Evenson Founding President and the others Founding Trustees. We immediately wrote our bylaws and established ourselves as a non-profit charity with the IRS and the State of California. We were an official arm of the San Diego Park and Recreation Department. 

Our initial projects were to expand the number of summer Monday evening concerts, restore the February Sunday afternoon concerts, design publicity cards to be distributed in hotel tourist racks, work with the San Diego public schools to present a 45-minute concert every Friday to fifth-graders participating in a week-long Balboa Park program, establish a membership base, and actively recruit financial support. We defined our mission: “to preserve, program and promote the Spreckels Organ as a world-treasure for all people.”

In the beginning we barely paid more than the city’s budgeted $100 per concert. As support grew we were gradually able to pay better fees and enhance the position of Civic Organist/Artistic Director. Within a few years our International Summer Organ Festival became a major part of San Diego’s cultural life, attracting audiences of 2,000 or more each week. Performers and repertoire were chosen to represent the widest possible cultural diversity. We commissioned new music and collaborated with other performing arts groups. I am honored to have had a small part in fulfilling the vision of the donor John D. Spreckels, who gave this organ “for the free use and enjoyment…of the people of all the world.” I thank all who have worked to expand this vision.

Robert Plimpton

Sixth Official Civic Organist (1984–2000) 

From the Curator

The Spreckels Organ has played an important part in my life, as it was this instrument that captured my interest in the “King of Instruments” when I first heard it as an eleven-year-old in 1948. I began working as an apprentice to the previous curator Leonard Dowling in 1954 and took over the position in 1974. 

During these past sixty years I have had the privilege to hear all of the civic organists, except for the first, Humphrey Stuart. Each of these artists played an important part in the organ reaching its centennial year.

The City of San Diego also must be commended for its one hundred years of support for the position of Civic Organist and for the on-going maintenance of the organ and pavilion. Many municipalities have let famous instruments slip into disrepair and have ultimately been abandoned. 

The organ has also benefited from the generosity of local support groups such as The Committee of 100 and the Spreckels Organ Society who have partnered with the City to preserve and program this great instrument.

During my tenure as curator, it has been my goal to preserve the historic integrity of the original symphonic organ and also ensure that the subsequent additions made be done in a seamless manner that enhances this grand instrument. As the Spreckels Organ celebrates its centennial anniversary, it seems appropriate that after forty years as the curator of the organ that it is now time pass the position to my long-time associate, Dale Sorenson, who also shares a great passion for the instrument.

Lyle Blackinton

Curator, Spreckels Organ, 1974–2014

The Spreckels Organ Society comes of age in time for the Centennial Celebration.

The great Spreckels Organ and Pavilion have been at the heart of Balboa Park and San Diego, California, ever since brothers John D. and Adolph Spreckels gave the “citizens of San Diego and the world” this wonderful gift on December 31, 1914. The organ has been in almost continuous use since that time. Its programming and maintenance were entirely the responsibility of the City of San Diego until 1988, when the civic organist, Robert Plimpton, and a small group of enthusiastic supporters of the organ organized the Spreckels Organ Society (SOS), “to preserve, program and promote the Spreckels Organ.”

SOS started with a small, dedicated Board of Trustees, some basic bylaws, and a big vision. We wanted more and more people to hear the organ, appreciate its vast capacity to produce a broad range of sonic experiences, and educate our children on the joys of music in general and the sounds achievable through the unamplified workings of this fabulous instrument. Our first summer, in addition to the regular Sunday afternoon free concerts, we programmed four Monday evening free concerts—showcasing artists from outside San Diego, with national and international reputations.

Through the years since 1988, SOS has grown steadily, in membership, budget, and in outreach. The International Summer Organ Festival features at least ten separate concerts, and the very best organists from around the world take the stage under the warm skies of Balboa Park every summer and thrill our ever growing audiences. The Spreckels Organ itself has grown with the addition of new ranks and new percussion. Our beloved civic organist, Dr. Carol Williams, performs, composes, and supervises the programming. The Centennial Celebration Concert was a once-in-a-lifetime event recalling our rich history and celebrating a revitalized, expanded organ, soon to be the World’s Largest Outdoor Pipe Organ once again.

As the Spreckels Organ turns 100, the Spreckels Organ Society reaches a new level of maturity. Through steady support of our trustees, our patrons, our volunteers, and our generous audience members, SOS is able to hire a full-time Executive Director, who has the happy task, with an enthusiastic Board of Trustees, of guiding SOS into the second 100 years. As we like to say, “Together we made it happen.”

George Hardy 

President, Spreckels Organ Society

Cover photo: Representing the Spreckels Organ Society is George Hardy, president of the Spreckels Organ Society, and representing the City of San Diego is San Diego Civic Organist Carol Williams (photo credit: Robert E. Lang, Spreckels Organ Society).

Article arranged and compiled by Kerry Bell.