Proposed Organ

Such a deal; an evening of entertainment at the Gold Canyon United Methodist Church listening to an organist who is “becoming recognized as one of North America’s most virtuosic younger generation of organists”. And all this for the price of only one can of diced tomatoes; the entrance price of at least one non-perishable food item per person.

Isabelle Demers was the featured organist. Born in Montreal, Canada, she began piano at age six, then she studied at the Montreal Conservatory of Music, the Ecole Normale de Paris-Alfred Cortot in Paris, and received her Master’s degree from the Julliard School in New York. Tonight all of this schooling was to come forth in one magnificent concert.

The church organ is a 3-manual Rodgers Trillium 967 Organ w/MIDI, for those of you who know of such things. To me it is just one colossal electronic digital organ. Part of the reason for this concert is to collect funding for the addition of 12 ranks of true, windblown pipes from Fratelli Ruffatti of Padua, Italy. That my friends will be a sweet day for Gold Canyon.

Isabelle’s first piece was Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548, The “Wedge” by J. S. Bach. The organ is magnificent, with four levels of keyboards, banks of buttons and stops on both sides, and a full array of foot pedals. I think that Bach utilized most all of the keys, buttons and pedals on this one piece.

Edward Elgar and his Allegro Maestoso; now here was a real piece of work which required all that the organist could provide. Isabelle would be playing so softly that you could almost imagine a soft wind gently blowing through the wheat fields, using the “pencil” pipes to bring out the sound of songbirds in the trees. Within two stanzas, all stops were out, both hands and feet were playing which would extract a sound from the organ that would part your hair. It was magnificent. At times her hand would rise, and fall so gently that barely a sound would come forth. Then the pace would pick up until you could only discern a blur as her hands flew across the keys, followed equally as fast, by her feet as they danced from one pedal to the next, erupting into such furry and strength of sound as to vibrate my glasses right down to the tip of my nose.

She would be playing the middle keyboard, and then switch to the upper keyboard, with only the slightest difference of expression between the two. The same melody would then be extracted by the foot pedals, resulting in a sound which you could literally feel through the bench you were sitting on.

One of my favorite pieces was by Max Reger. He was asked to write a piece which would be impossible to play. What’s the point? It was rumored that Max would compose for a while, and then he would take a two hour break and go down to the local pub for a six-pack of beer and a steak. As the piece went on, it became very evident as to just when he had finished the beer and the steak. Nonetheless, Isabelle won the contest, with her hands and body flowing ever so rhythmically across the keyboard during the sober moments, and then erupting into a flurry of key pounding, stop pulling, and peddle dancing, during the pub portions.

Because it was an electronic digital organ, there were speakers located both in front of, and behind the audience. During Sergei Prokofiev’s excerpts from Romeo and Juliet, the sounds of Romeo would come from the speakers located in the front of the chapel and then ever so softly they would be answered by the sounds of Juliet emanating from the speakers in the rear of the chapel.

For an encore Isabelle performed a piece which used the organs foot pedals only, and it was a real crowd pleaser. Her feet were dancing on the pedals like Sammy Davis Jr. doing one of his famous tap dance routines. Then as she really got into it, her feet were flying around so fast that she would literally have to hang on to the bench to keep her stability.

What a performance; what talent, what dedication. Isabelle never once used a sheet of music; every piece was memorized and performed flawlessly. And to think that after just one or two operas my grandkids say that they will no longer come to visit if I was going to take them to another opera. How sad. Who is going to teach them?

Well, after a performance like that, I think that was the best can of diced tomatoes I ever spent.



Gary Hyde