Thanks to one of the message boards I frequent, I followed a link posted by Rob Ridgell, the assistant organist at Trinity Church (Episcopal) on Wall Street, New York City. Whether or not he would have gotten away with this in a Catholic parish is yet to be seen, but this organ improv, a tribute to the late James Brown and the late Gerald Ford requested by Mr. Ridgell's clergy, is very impressive.
The organ is the Epiphany Opus 1 by Marshall and Ogletree. Their sister company, Marshall Ogletree and Associates is the New England regional dealer for both Rodgers and Fratelli Ruffati organs.
Here's another impressive video on the Opus 1 - Cameron Carpenter gives probably THE most animated rendition of Tocatta and Fugue in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach that I have ever heard. This is definitely a must-listen (and a must-watch)!
UPDATE: I had just learned by going deeper into the Trinity web site that the "virtual pipe organ" (the Epiphany Organ) is the interim replacement for a pipe organ that was damaged by the ashes of the infamous 9/11/01 attacks.
Peace,
BMP
2 comments:
No, I don't think using tall candles and lots of incense would be gotten away with at a typical Catholic parish :P The music of course, would be "in the spirit of Vatican II".
Seriously, that's something I've always wanted to do is improvise on some pop music or something. When I was at a Lutheran college, I'd occasionally play "Long Live the Pope" for a postlude, and once (you have to understand that us organists hated him) when the college prez preached, I played a prelude on "O God Look Down from Heaven" (look at the text, you'll get it) and for a postlude a tribute to the president: Hail, Holy Queen. That's about as far as I've gone, though.
that hymn: http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/doc/religion/christian/NJB/text/wittenberg/hymns/lookdown.txt
When I was a teen growing up, we had one young organist in this parish that had a Lowrey (piece of crap) organ - for his postlude he went into this thingie in D minor. It took a few rounds to realize that he was really improvising on "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues.
BMP
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