Less than 30 audience in top rate organ recital

[David Pinnegar]

Incidentally, we also have to persuade the organ anoracs to tear themselves away from their computer organ simulations. All computer organ simulations have to be in some ways organs on steroids, or they would not be attractive enough to invest in. Whether it be the Hill at Hove, the Walker at Lindfield or the Holdich at Charlwood, or the Grant Degens and Bradbeer at Ardingly, were computer simulations to sound like that, we'd say the instruments were under powered and we wouldn't buy the software and samplesets to play them. Only hearing the real thing once in a while, in a real acoustic, can bring us back down to earth in reminding us what organs should really be sounding like. It's SO important to go to live concerts!

Hi!

Considering this further, I wonder whether one might contemplate this from a different angle. . . Perhaps what I should be saying is that in experiencing organ simulations in our front living rooms, as I'm told that many people do nowadays, we're likely to be tempted to be setting up the installation as an organ with mono-sodium-glutamate as we would like it to sound, rather than as the real thing sounds in its real place.

It's for that reason that attending live concerts is so very important.

Accordingly in setting up an electronic reproduction of any sort of organ, one should be starting out with the concept that one wishes to achieve.

One of the very special concert experiences one can enjoy is that of organ recitals at St George's Windsor http://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/worship-and-music/diary/concerts.html when one can have one of a dozen or so special seats upon the cancel screen next to the console and between the two organ cases. One has the direct sound of the detail of the instrument at close quarters with the acoustic of the building in the background - a prime combination for the real experience of the music. It's this approach that I have followed for the Hammerwood concert instrument, taking the basic starting point from the experience of the Open Diapason of the pipe organ in the same space. I hope that in providing such a concert facility, audiences will be keener to go to experience pipe organs in their natural habitats.

Best wishes

David P

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

Agreed!  We filled Bradford Cathedral (which is not the easiest place to get to, thanks to so-called redevelopment in the city centre) for Carlo Curley last February.  That took a LOT of publicity - at least 200 posters and I don't know how many handbills distributed around local churches, libraries, shops - and anywhere else we could get them.  Letters & news items to the local papers and radio & TV.  I did an interview with one of the local radio stations.  We even turned a (very) small profit on that one.

The other recital this year was far less well attended (in Septemeber).  The organist then was Jonathon Beilby, recently retired from Wakefield Cathedral.  We didn't even make double figures on that one, despite a fair amount of publicity.

Publicity is the key.

Incidentally, the first ever organ recital I attended was Fernando Germini at All Saints, Hove - must have been some time in the 1960's.

Every Blessing

Tony

[KB7DQH]

I agree publicity in these matters is essential.  A number of news announcements following the construction of a new organ have landed in my inbox, this being the latest...

http://lacrossetribune.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/article_bfd1b4a8-e928-11df-9535-001cc4c002e0.html

In the article Olivier Latry explains a few things, what intrigued me was his announcement he is "swapping places" with (name escapes me at the moment but it is in the article ???) and is teaching here in the USA at Oberlin College. 

It certainly would explain his ability to inaugurate so many new and restored instruments here...

And now to change the subject only slightly...  A local "liberal-arts" college has its own radio station with at least one 50KW transmitter on 88.1Mhz, and a translator or second transmitter nearly as strong here as their primary... at 88.5Mhz...

  The programming is primarily "classical jazz" along with selected NPR
news and other selections.  They also have a magnificent "German Baroque" pipe organ in their concert hall and regularly offer concerts... But don't promote their concert activities nearly as much as they should, if at all,  on THEIR OWN RADIO STATION...  Moreover they could, but choose not to, carry Michael Barone's NPR-distributed program, "Pipe Dreams"...  They could run it at 2AM on Sunday morning and it would  still make me happy as I can spin up some sort of automatic audio recorder and catch it when I am awake... 

The following are likely "bad examples" of what could be done to make the organ "fun"... ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDfmnga8Wk&feature=player_embedded

and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDfmnga8Wk&feature=player_embedded

Unfortunately those two clips tend to reinforce the "popular" stereotypes surrounding our beloved instrument... Not unlike all the "scary organ" Halloween concerts recently conlcuded ::) :o ;D

Eric
KB7DQH

[barniclecompton]

The organ is never going to get away from stereotypes. The word Organ automatically brings up thoughts of boring music in the church, or dracula, thats how the public see it.
Also remember the public like to hear music, and to be entertained, they dont go to listen to whats almost a lecture from the person whos playing. Carlo Curley done this in Ayr last year, and most of the audience got up and walked out by the interval.
They also want to hear music they know.

[drawstop]

I gave up attending organ recitals/concerts years ago as I will not go to an event where the organist does not give his intended programme in advance.
Currently I see that a virtuoso organist is to play at a church local to me; apart from the date and time that is all I am told. I have no intention of sitting in a not very comfortable and probably not very warm church or building to hear music that I do not wish to hear and where I probably cannot see the player. For me seeing the organist playing the instrument is ninety per cent of the interest. I can sit at home and listen to superb playing on my hi-fi or the internet with a cup of tea and in great comfort.
When our organists come down out of the clouds and stop thinking they are above ordinary mortals then audience numbers may increase.
On a slight change of subject - I went to a well-known cathedral not long ago where they were asking for money to rebuild the organ.  On my asking to see the console I was told that visitors were not allowed up to the organ and the organist was too busy to see me. So, for me, apart from the instrument in my church and and the electronic in my sitting-room, the organ does not exist.

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

As with many other things, organs and organists - and recitals - are a mixed bag!  Personally,, I don't get to many organ recitals, due to costs and lack of time.  I'm not too bothered about who's playing or what when I do go - although an all Messian programme or similar I might avoid!

Listening to a Hi-Fi is just not the same as hearing a real organ in a large (or small) building, no matter how good the Hi-Fi.

Recitals (perhaps better called concerts) are a potential way of raising the profile of the organ - bu the key is publicity.  Some organists do need to think more about presentation - others make sure that the audience can see - using CCTV if necessary (as at Bradford Cathedral) - and make short, relevant comments about the music (but not lectures please!).  Some church buildings are actually heated to a reasonable temperature - and sometimes even have chairs that are not too bad for comfort.

Every Blessing

Tony

[John]

Everything that Tony says is spot on.  Publicity is paramount but there are other things.   At the end of the last century (!!) I was in the happy situation of being able to commission a brand new organ at the church where I was then organist.  Kenneth Tickell built me a superb instrument on the west gallery of S. Paul's, Honiton. 

I then launched a series of four organ concerts a year given by some of the great and the good in the UK.   My brief to all the players was simple, give the general public (our audience) something they know, lots of contrasted music, nothing too long and at least one short item by a living composer.   What's more, we put chairs in the chancel so that people faced the organ (and hear much better) and I had the front panels of the gallery removable so that the audience got a good overall view as well.

For the five years I was in control it all worked extremely well.  I can't say that people flocked in droves to hear these programmes but an average of 60 to 70 was considered reasonable for a small market town.

.......... John

[John]

I should have added to the previous post that there were NO lectures by the player other than a brief introduction to the audience.  However, I did provide copious notes about the music to be played in the printed programme.

After the concerts some 'good' and plentiful refreshments were available - no just coffee and stale biscuits - when the players and audience mixed and met.   It turned the event into a social occasion.

As Mr Punch would have said  -  "that's the way to do it".