Many people have asked me to record an organ piece. I
recorded J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor (“The Cathedral”) in
June on E. & G.G. Hook’s Opus 288 at St. John’s Catholic Church in
Bangor. Listen here:
The St. John’s Organ Society Summer Concert series is off to a
wonderful start featuring outstanding organ music performed by artists from
Europe, Asia, and North America. This summer four of our six
concerts feature two performers.
On July 24, Rudolf Innig from Bielefeld, Germany started the
series performing music of J.S. Bach, Horatio Parker, Felix Mendelssohn, and
Josef Rheinberger. My two daughters and two granddaughters were
visiting us in Maine and they enjoyed the concert.
On July 31, we heard the husband and wife team of Naomi Shiga and
Jonathan Wohlers from Tacoma Washington, play music of Adolph Friedrich Hesse,
Johannes Brahms, J. S. Bach, Johann Christian Bach, and Jean Sibelius. They
played three duets and each of them played three individual pieces. The
audience particularly enjoyed a transcription for organ duet of Sibelius’
famous Finlandia, Opus 26, no.7.
For more information about the upcoming four St. John’s Organ
Society concerts: http://hookopus288.org/ or https://www.facebook.com/hookopus288. St. John's Organ Society is a nonprofit organization committed to the
preservation and appreciation of the historic E. & G. G. Hook pipe organ,
Opus 288, located at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor. I am the
Secretary of the Board of the St. John's Organ Society, and I write the
publicity materials for these organ concerts.
St. Saviour Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor, Maine, also has a
summer organ concert series on their 1976 Visser-Rowland organ (Opus 6). On
August 1, I attended a concert performed by Dr. Kevin Birch, who is my teacher,
the Director of Music at St. John’s, and the Director of the St. John’s Organ
Society. Kevin expertly played 16th and 17th-century
organ music by Bernardo Pasquini, an anonymous English composer, Jan
Pieterszoon Sweelinck, and Nicolaus Bruhns.
Next week (August 11-15) I will be in Syracuse, New York attending
the convention of the Organ Historical Society. I look forward to
spending time with many friends and to hearing historic organs played by
skilled organists.
It is hard to believe that school starts in less than a
month! The fall semester at the University of Maine begins on
September 2.
