Choir Man

It's very clever and interesting, but...

Released this week: John Challender's transcription of The Planets recorded at Salisbury. Good quality audio equipment a must. The cathedral chorister's contribution to Neptune is magical.

A further update from KTO TV:

St Sep's website says "Sadly the organ is currently out of action while awaiting repair, although there is an exceptional temporary Makin organ in temporary use."

Reinstallation of the organ is in progress and the instrument is making its first sounds.

This is what it looks like

As well as John Rutter's deserved knighthood acknowledged in another thread, four other organists have made the honours list: Donald Campbell: Professor, Musical Acoustics, Edinburgh University. For services to the Carlops Church and to the community in Tweeddale and Edinburgh Margaret Donaldson: Organist, Wardie Parish Church, Edinburgh. For services to the community in Edinburgh Edna Edmond: Voluntary Organist. For services to Skene Parish Church, Aberdeenshire Timothy Smith: Director of Music, St Mary's Church, Harrow on the Hill, London Borough of Harrow. For services to Music and to Education Congratulations to them al.

It should be borne in mind that Philip Lefebvre is now 75 years old and Jean-Pierre Leguay will shortly be 85. Both formally retired following the fire and have been appointed organist emeritus which is, at it seems to me, what would be expected. I'm sure both will have the opportunity to play following the re-opening of the cathedral. Johann Vexo now holds two teaching posts in Strasbourg as well as being Titulaire at Nancy. Perhaps he didn't want to return to Paris, we don't know. I'm not sure what the petitioners hope to acheive by asking for the clock to be wound back 5 years. Had the fire not happened, would we expect the same team that was at the cathedral in 2019 to be unchanged in 2024? Of course we don't know what the organists themselves think of the new appointments. The appointmnet of a young assistant organist with Thibault Fajoles, seems a sensible addition to the team, whatever the selection process may have been.

The organ is now in use for services as can be seen in this weekend's live-stream. There's a good shot of the organist 'in-action' at the new console at the end of the service: https://www.facebook.com/stjameskingstreet/videos/861730599326606 The church's facebook page has photos of the installation: https://www.facebook.com/stjameskingstreet/photos_by

The international Finnish organist Kalevi Kiviniemi died last week after suffering a heart attack. Although he didn't play any concerts in recent years, his exuberate style and improvisation skills won him many admirers. He also had over 200 titles in his discography and was the first to record the complete organ music of Jean Sibelius. He was awarded the Finnish State Prize for music in 2009. Fraser Gartshore, a long time friend of his, dedicated last Friday's organ programme on YouTube to him. Definitely worth a watch for the anecdotes and old photos as well as the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f687aa9X2jw My favourite YouTube clip of his is a spontaneous improvisation after an ambulance siren interrupted a recording session at St Ouen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gVVdj8hocA

How do you prepare to play a recital on an instrument you've never played before?

The organ is installed and is now undergoing voicing: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=879352160653483&set=a.531050782150291&locale=en_GB

I recall that a few weeks before Christmas they had to cancel their usual Sunday recital becasue of some problem between the console and the organ. Slightly tongue in cheek, but might the penchant for furiously fast improvisations cause the action to wear out faster?

I had similar issues in 2020 when I first started running a lockdown choir and was using Audacity to mix home recordings from different choir members. Playback quality was initailly awful! Following advice from the Audacity user community I made similar tweaks to Windows settings and acheived a significant improvement. However, when I realised that this venture was going to be a long term effort, I got an external sound module. The difference in quality was, and still is, phenomenal even compared against the tweaked settings. This is the case whether using Audacity, streaming YT vdeos from the better channels, or playing media stored on my PC. Without repeating Colin's excellent explanation, the small headphone socket on any computer and the drivers that sit behind it, are never going to deliver true HiFi quality. I agree that the problems aren't as bad with Macs, but fundamentally the problem will still be thre. If you are looking for HiFi quality you really need an external audio interface (or separate sound card if you have a desktop PC) with 'proper' audio output sockets.

I have come across Istanbul Pipe Organ's YouTube channel previously. They have a few videos featuring this and other organs in the city: https://www.youtube.com/@istanbulpipereedorgan/videos They also have a website with further details about the work they do and accompanying photo galleries: https://www.istanbulpipeorgan.com/