UNITY MORAVIAN CHURCH DEDICATION CONCERT

 I enjoyed a three day journey to Lewisville, NC (Winston-Salem area) to play the new Rodgers 351T Organ recently placed at Unity Moravian Church.  After several ZOOM meetings with church leaders to help plan the occasion, I felt right at home on arrival meeting folks and settling in for piston setting and warm-ups.  Saturday gave time to sit with musicians from Unity to review sounds and features of the instrument.  With the four levels of “voice pallete” stops, plus the pipe organ library stops, plus the orchestral voice library stops, Rodgers has created an instrument with tonal resources way beyond what is immediately observed looking at the console.  With the control system, the organist has amazing flexibility to combine any stop with any other stop and store this to a personal combination piston for unlimited tonal access!  I love playing these instruments! 

As I usually do for a dedication, I demonstrated these tonal resources with this flexibility, by choosing several hymns from the Moravian Hymnal, pieces from various schools, including German Baroque and American Orchestral, and music selections from the “Church Year” including Advent, Christmas, Lent, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter. 

A very receptive audience responded to the organ with their approval through applause and kind comments following!  My appreciation to the Leadership of Unity Moravian in choosing me to present the instrument to the congregation, and to Al Murrell from RA Daffer Organs for another opportunity to play one of their fine installations!   I’m working on getting the concert posted to my YouTube Site and hopefully a couple of clips to Media Sites, so check RodneyBarbour Youtube along with  RodneyBarbourOrganConcerts Facebook Page for updates!