My Concert at Northminster

This program was a light spring concert for the 50+Club at Northminster Church, Finneytown.  The instrument was a Moeller PIpe Organ of about 28-30 ranks which the church is very proud of.  For a program with lots of stop changes the challenge was 5 General Pistons, 4 Divisional Pistons for each manual, but full 16-8-4 Sub and Super Couplers.  I was able to set 5 Generals 1=Strings, 2=Cornet Solo with accompaniment, 3=Theatre Organ with trems, 4=Reeds, 5=Full Organ, then use the divisionals, the Crescendo Pedal a la “Bish”, and the manual adjustment of the couplers to get the wide variety of sounds I’m used to, and thus was enable to play a nice variety of sounds for my program.  I played Coronation March by Meyerbeer (Full Organ contrasted with Cornet), Happy Birthday to JSBach (March 21) with Awake Wintry Earth (Look up this poem-it’s amazing), an Irish Sing A-Long, Cantabile by Clokey, a Baseball Medley, the Chicken Dance, Handel’s Fireworks Suite, Suite from Carmen by Bizet and Great is thy Faithfulness (congregation singing) arrangement by Dan MIller. 

I think the “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” phenomenon was in effect.  These folks don’t hear orchestral organ on a regular basis, so some of the spectacular stop changes and effects I can get on a digital pipe combination organ that weren’t heard today probably weren’t missed.  I think the audience was totally engaged with the program and the variety of sounds they were hearing.  While I don’t think the average listener could discern the difference between a Bourdon and a Gedackt, I was able to achieve a credible variety of sound, and I took time to explain this to the audience and invite them to listen for specific color and style changes.

One of my hosts, Rich Reder announced our friendship from the late 70’s at College Hill Presbyterian Churh to my playing for his and Shirley’s Wedding Ceremony around 1983 or so.  The applause at the conclusion was warm and sincere from the audience of around 100 persons, which I’m told for this small group is double of the usual March crowd!

Interjecting the program with audience participation including the Irish Sing-A-Long, The Baseball Participatory Songs, the Chicken Dance, the clapping and the hymn singing each and all helped engage the audience and refresh them so they could listen even more intently to the more serious pieces.  It’s always a joy to take each organ I’m offered to play upon and find the best sounds and feature them to take the audience on a “tour” which they won’t forget!