East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, November 14-17, 2011

[KB7DQH]

http://www.kilgorenewsherald.com/news/2011-07-30/Front_Page/Awesome.html

Awesome
2011-07-30 / Front Page

Upcoming festival celebrates church's unique instrument
By JAMES DRAPER
news1@kilgorenewsherald.com

AT FIRST, HE IS AT A LOSS FOR WORDS.

Staring at the towering metal pipes of First Presbyterian Church's pipe organ, Lorenz Maycher can't begin to describe the instrument that is a part of the building itself.

He knows the personal history of Aeolian-Skinner's Opus 1173. He knows each lever on the three cascading keyboards. He knows the toggles, the couplers, the swells, the bellows and the pedals with the precise, intimate knowledge of a craftsman and devoted musician.

But his own voice, so often muted in the roar of the machine or reduced to whisper by its soaring notes, is struck silent when he tries to name the awe it still inspires in him.

When the words come, they fall in a rush.

"Just the awesomeness. The intensity. It's intangible – you can't touch it. It's like God – it's so overwhelming. The depth. How profound it is. It can touch the soul, and you don't know why it's touching you. It's unexplainable, just like a lot of god is. It touches every emotion. It can bring joy. Comfort.

"Majesty."

There is the church. And there is its organ.

"They always say that next to the church building, the pipe organ is the largest asset a church can have," says Maycher, interim director of music at First Presbyterian. "It actually becomes part of the building. It really brings the building to life."

Opus 1173 includes more than 4,000 pipes, more than a million parts. An electro-pneumatic organ, there are more than a dozen reservoirs hidden under the floor of the church – controlled by impulses from the keyboard, fueled by air. Hidden ducts funnel wind from the instrument's massive lungs to shining collections of tubes and trompettes and into four side rooms, each the size of a master bedroom, with louvers restricting the sound or allowing it to swell, surge and soar through the sanctuary in resonant, rumbling basses and piercing highs.

Each key controls a pipe. Each sound, or stop, may sing through up to 73 pipes. The largest is 32-feet long and produces a sound like an earthquake; the smallest is no wider or longer than a pencil, its music lost on some ears that can't reach into the register.

Used in combination, the organ – built in 1949 – can recreate a 75-piece orchestra or create the illusion of single, lilting flute.

"There's really an endless amount of variety on the pipe organ," Maycher says. "It is like a candy store. You can just come in here and be creative and inventive and never get bored with what's possible on the organ."

It's not pride that fills Maycher's voice when he talks about the organ. It's respect.
"It's a major work art," he says. "Roy Perry, who designed it, was a genius – just like Van Gogh was a genius. He oversaw the organ's design for 40 years. It bears his personal stamp."

Other organs throughout the south also carry Perry's mark. St. Luke's First Methodist – just down Main Street from First Presbyterian – holds another instrument Perry built while working for G. Donald Harrison's Aeolian Skinner Organ Company. There are more at First Baptist Church in Longview, First Baptist Church in Nacogdoches and St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Shreveport, La.; Southern Methodist University in Dallas has two; First Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tenn. houses one as does Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville, Virginia.

Perry, who passed away in 1978, also supervised the threeyear renovation of the Great Organ in Washington Cathedral and built organs elsewhere in Mississippi and Oklahoma.

"They are considered by many to be the finest the company ever built," Maycher explains. "The one here in Kilgore happens to be one of the most famous they ever built – it was made famous from a series of recordings that were made here in Kilgore and released throughout the United States."

Each organ is designed specifically for the building that surrounds it. Certainly, it is possible to transplant an organ from one building to another, but it would require an equally masterful ear to adjust the tonality.

First Presbyterian's instrument would be deafening at St. Luke's, Maycher explains. It would sound muted in the larger sanctuary of First Baptist in Longview.

"In here, it sounds just right. I don't think there's a bad seat in the church to hear the organ."

Listening to each of Perry's constructions, Maycher says, most people would never know the same man designed them all. Prof essional tuners and organ inspectors say the same.

"They're all different – that's the mark of a genius." The midcentury recordings which feature Opus 1173 have gone round the world, one carrying a picture of First Presbyterian Church's towering stain-glass window, the outstretched trompette of the pipe organ 1173 beneath it.

"Whenever someone sees that trompette they immediately know you're talking about the Kilgore organ. It was the first trompette installed in the United States."

Maycher remembers his own childlike fascination with the pipe organ in the auditorium of the Oklahoma State School for the Blind, where his mother worked. Her best friend, an organ teacher, promised the boy he could learn the instrument as soon as his feet could reach the pedals.

The day finally came around age 10. Soon after, Maycher's teacher gave him a copy of one of the albums featuring Perry's Opus 1173.

"I knew then this was the kind of organ that I wanted to play. The music on that album was the kind of music that I wanted to play," he says. "I never dreamed that I would be lucky enough to play it regularly, as I am now."

Needless to stay, Maycher is still in awe of the instrument.

"It's awesome. I never get a good night's sleep on Saturday for worrying about doing the organ justice. It's such a great work of art, this organ is, and I want to do this organ justice. It always gets to me. I'm always nervous. But always thrilled at the same time."

Maycher has transferred some of his passion for Opus 1173 and his admiration of its creator into the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, set Nov. 14-17. First Presbyterian will serve as home base during a week full of excursions to Perry's other local Aeolian Skinner organs.

As on the recordings, First Presbyterian's instrument has already been featured in other festivals but not as the centerpiece.

"This is the first time that there's ever been a convention per se in this part of Texas, featuring these organs," Maycher said. "This is the first time it's all been focused right here and focused on the life of Roy Perry."

Originally a self-taught musician, Perry was playing the organ at a movie theater in Lufkin when he caught the notice of Knox Lamb and the Crim family. Lou Della Crim, Maycher recalls, became Perry's patron just as she was for the church's series of organs since 1932.

"She was very generous with her money, as her sons were, as her grandchildren are," Maycher says.

The Crim family funded construction of several of the church's massive instruments. Just under 10 years after the present building was completed in October 1939, First Presbyterian signed a contract with the Boston-based Aeolian- Skinner Company, funded by the Crims, designed by the company's chief, G. Donald Harrison, and Perry.

Lou Della Crim also sponsored the organist and choirmaster in his education at North Texas State University and in New York.

"They really took him on as a family member. Actually, he is buried in their family plot," Maycher says. "Without the Crim family, this organ wouldn't exist."

The coming pipe organ festival will feature about 15 organist, Maycher explains, including Jimmy Culp, who spent 30 years as First Presbyterian's organist and choirmaster – "He's one of the finest organists in the United States."

Albert Russell, a contemporary of Perry, is also set to attend and perform – "It's going to be thrilling to have him come back after all these years" – as is one of Perry's students.

Others are on the roster, including Richard Elliot, principal organist for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Brett Valiant, who will give a live performance of his original accompaniment to the silent film, "Safety Last," to be shown at the festival, an homage to Perry's early days.

Pipe organs have gone through countless iterations since they were pioneered in Greece some 2,000 years ago, Maycher says. He's confident this latest foray, set in Kilgore, will be a step forward, just as Perry's instrument was a major leap.

"This organ can do anything. I've never found it lacking," he says. "Mercifully this organ has always been cared for beautifully since it was built in 1949."

Pipe organs may be a dying breed, Maycher admits, but he is hoping to inspire new interest through the festival. He keeps the bench and keyboards open to interested players.

"It always comes back into style, just like everything else does. It's so inspiring, I would hate to prevent anyone from the joy of playing this organ."

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

More about this event...

http://www.news-journal.com/features/entertainment/east-texas-pipe-organ-organ-festival-to-highlight-east-texas/article_1ab755e6-6437-5158-a29b-2432df6d1252.html

By Glenn Evans gevans@news-journal.com | 0 comments

The coming week brings a great time to get organ-ized, and this is a perfect region for it.

That's what the organists for churches in Longview, Kilgore, Nacogdoches and Shreveport decided when they envisioned the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival. The four-day tour of sound, Monday through Thursday, honors the life and work of a musician who designed each of the impressive instruments that will sound off for the first-time regional collaboration.

"It's amazing that there are so many of them concentrated in such an area of the South," Kilgore First Presbyterian Church organist Lorenz Maycher said of the American-born, Aeolian-Skinner pipe organs residing in each participating church.

The Aeolian-Skinner was created in Boston by G. Donald Harrison, who in 1948 heard and hired Kilgore First Presbyterian organist and choirmaster Roy Perry as his Texas representative.

"Aeolian-Skinner really set the standard," said Maycher, organizer of the festival. "Each country really had its own language, musical language. It was really his goal that the pipe organ should be able to play all the music. It's called, American classic organ building."

With Harrison's invention, an organ could be adjusted to handle French baroque, German somber and the romanticism popularized in American halls from 1900 to 1930.

Seated at the massive pipe organ at Longview First Baptist Church, Maycher demonstrated its range while describing its physical scope. That instrument, which bears Harrison's signature at bottom-right of four keyboard tiers, has more than 5,000 pipes from 1 to 32 feet long.

"It's essentially housed in what would be a five-bedroom house," Maycher said, nodding toward the tall, polished beams that conceal those pipes at the rear of the sanctuary like warriors in the woods.

It was designed, by Perry, for that massive sanctuary.

"And each one is tailor-made for the church it was built for," Maycher said. "So, the people sitting in the back row are hearing the same thing as the people in the front row. ... I've heard it said that the pipe organ is the largest musical instrument that there is. It has the most volume — it can go from a whisper up to louder than a full symphony orchestra."

Guest musicians are joining the Perry tribute festival because they know his legacy in East Texas, Maycher said. That includes Mormon Tabernacle Principal Organist Richard Elliott, who closes the festival with a recital Thursday at Kilgore First Presbyterian.

Maycher recalled Elliott's response to the festival invitation.

"He wrote back, practically in tears, and said he'd always wanted to play that organ," Maycher said of Elliott.

Earlier in the week, First Presbyterian hosts a fun tribute to Perry's movie house days with organist Brett Valliant providing a soundtrack to the Harold Lloyd silent film, "Safety Last." That free show is 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Performance times vary during the event, with recitals scattered daily amid lectures and dinners. Kilgore performances are 7 p.m. Monday, then 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday plus the final recital at 8:30 p.m. Thursday. A recital at Longview First Baptist is set for 3:30 p.m. Thursday. All performances are free, Maycher said.

He added that no one ever masters the instrument Harrison created and Perry made a staple in East Texas.

"There's so much I don't know, either, and the funny thing about it is each organ is different and each organist is different," Maycher said. "And that's one thing I am really looking forward to about the festival, is hearing the different organists."

Eric
KB7DQH