Grinding it out

The organists come to Maine

By Doug Hubley

As organists from around New England gather in Portland this weekend for a guild convention, let’s consider these musicians and their peculiar Faust’s bargain.

What they gain, like Goethe’s Faust, is power — the command of a world of sound. With its stops, its pedals, and its multiple keyboards, the pipe organ can whisper or roar, mimic an orchestra, paint the landscapes of heaven and hell.

“You have so many sounds at your disposal, and putting those combinations of sounds together to try to make something beautiful is exciting,” says Gil Peterson, organist for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brunswick and a school administrator in Lisbon.

Unlike Faust, though, organists trade away not their souls but musical companionship. Where a symphony violinist, say, always performs in a group of peers, an organist is usually the only professional musician in the church — and most organists work in churches, because that’s where most pipe organs are.

The American Guild of Organists, whose Region one meets here Sunday through Wednesday, exists in part to provide that sense of professional community. For the public, the AGO convention offers a convocation and eight concerts in Portland, Brunswick, and Lewiston. But, behind the scenes, some 200 organists will be enjoying workshops, master classes, and opportunities to simply sit and talk. “This is a great time to do that,” says Ray Cornils, one of Maine’s most prominent organists. “Not just at the workshops but over lunch or at the cash bar after the concerts.”

Performers in the public events include Cornils, who is Portland’s municipal organist and music director at Brunswick’s First Parish Church; and Harold Stover, music director at Woodfords Congregational Church. Atop a slate of visiting musicians is Jane Parker-Smith, one of the world’s premier concert organists, who tames Merrill Auditorium’s Kotzschmar Organ at 7:30 p.m. July 10. Parker-Smith is praised as much for her humor and individuality as her technique, considerable achievements on an instrument as complex as the organ. “She sets music ablaze,” Cornils says.

The opening convocation takes place at 8 p.m. Sunday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Featured are the Choral Art Society and organist Stover; there’s also a hymn sing that Cornils is particularly excited about. “When you get a couple of hundred excellent musicians singing in a convocation, it’s hair-raising,” he says — in a good way. “It’s really quite wonderful.”

On July 9, a frenzy of organ activity sweeps through three towns. At 3 p.m. Cornils plays in the Bowdoin College Chapel on an instrument given by Cyrus Curtis, donor of the mighty Kotzschmar. An hour earlier, at Portland’s First Parish Church, Harvard University Professor Murray Somerville offers music by 19th-century Portland native John Knowles Paine. And at the Bates College Chapel at 8 p.m., Lynn Edwards dedicates a program to 17th-century composer Dietrich Buxtehude. (See Phoenix listings for more concert information.)

AGO membership is open to anyone interested in the organ and in choral music. Local chapters hold regular meetings that include recitals and workshops. “It’s a chance to discuss issues that come up with churches and organists, a chance to know what other people are doing, a chance to grow musically and professionally,” says Peterson, a past dean of the Portland chapter.

Maine’s two AGO chapters are based in Portland, with 105 members, and Bangor, with 26. AGO Region one, representing the New England states, has 2,200 members. About a tenth of the regional membership is expected to attend the convention. (In a hands-across-the-water kind of spirit, Region I also represents Argentina, whose two members are not expected to attend.)

All told, there are about 20,000 members. Founded in 1896, the national organization publishes a magazine, runs job listings, promulgates salary and professional-conduct guidelines, runs a certification program, and even supports members in labor disputes. Its focus is players who play the pipe organ, as opposed to a Farfisa or Hammond. While many of those organists teach, and a handful are theater or concert organists, the vast majority work for churches, playing for services or directing entire musical programs.

The church connection is an intriguing facet of the profession. It’s one of the last vital links in the once-close relationship between the arts and religion. Moreover, because so many organists are church musical directors, it mandates musical abilities unrelated to the organ — leading a handbell group, for example, or choral conducting.

And it introduces personal complications that confront other musicians only rarely, if at all — as suggested by one convention workshop titled, “The State of the Profession: Musicians Working in Religious Institutions.” Where else is faith something a musician must consider in seeking work? And how comfortable are the compromises that organists of strong conviction make to get work and ready access to a good instrument?

“It’s like virtually any job,” says Lois Toeppner, an organist in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and the regional councilor for the AGO’s New England group. You embrace the commonalities and try to live with the differences. “If you can subscribe to the basic philosophy and can support the product the company is selling,” she says, you can find a way to make it work. And hopefully without Faustian consequences.

Doug Hubley can be reached at doug.hubley@worldnet.att.net.