In response to Playing It Forward Daddy, the organist at MDPC sent me the comment below and asked me to post it for her. It's longer than the usual blog comment and gives a contestant's viewpoint of my father's pipe organ contest, so I decided to make it a separate blog post. Many thanks, Kathryn, for sharing this with me!
"I am the organist at QG's church. I have many stomach turning remembrances of the "San Antonio contest," as we called it at UT. I can remember pacing the halls in First Presbyterian Church as I awaited my turn to play. The organ is a Holtkamp, which has a setterboard. You can not change pistons at the organ console. You have to walk around the pipes in the balcony and get to this contraption on the wall, and set all of your pistons. I did not like the setterboard! Holtkamp Organ Co. finally stopped making the setterboards!
QG is right about sightreading the hymns. You were given a list of a dozen hymns to practice, and you didn't know which one they would ask you to play. I still think of the "San Antonio contest" everytime I play "All Creatures of Our God and King."
Another thing is they gave you a Bach prelude and fugue to learn. One for undergraduates and one for graduates. The big Bach prelude and fugue for my Junior and Senior degree recitals were the pieces assigned by the San Antonio contest organizers.
Thanks for Mr. Hall and to QG for the vision and energy to maintain such a wonderful contest and for encouraging organ students!"
After reading the comments in the first entry, I was reminded of how lucky we are in our church to have a music director described as follows: "She earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees (Organ Performance) from the ---Conservatory of Music, and she also holds the American Guild of Organists’ highest honors, the Fellowship and Choirmaster certificates." To which I would add, she brings our congregation a wealth of music from around the world, from all time periods and repetoires. Thanks to her, we all know lots of Iona music and our children find their own gifts of music and presence from an early age.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how far-reaching the gift of music is, within and extending far out from a particular church congregation. Yay to you, your dad, and your organist for all that you have shared.
When I grew up, the organist and music director of the church was an organist for Radio City Music Hall in NYC. He had written lots of his own arrangements and he could play ANYTHING.
ReplyDeleteOf course, that same church pays solo voices (one for each part) who tend to be singers at the Met. It's nice to be close to NYC.
This is not my current church - we only pay soloists for the men's parts because we are short-handed and they are church members.
how wonderful, thank you for sharing this :-)
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