OGCMA Announces Free Organ Recitals On The Great Auditorium Pipe Organ All Summer

There's nothing like the sound of a thundering or lilting organ to shake you to your emotional, musical core - and there's nothing like the massive pipe organ in the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA)'s Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove. As it has for many years - and this year, OGCMA's 150th anniversary is no different - OGCMA will present a summer series of magnificent FREE ORGAN RECITALS. The Great Auditorium is located at Pilgrim and Ocean Pathways in Ocean Grove, NJ. All facilities are handicapped-accessible.

SCHEDULE

Wed July 3 - 7:30pm - "Pipes and Stripes"

Celebrating Independence Day, Resident Organist Gordon Turk will perform music by 18th, 19th and 20th Century American and British composers, including marches, nostalgic & 'mellow' tunes, familiar and novel "sounds," plus a rip-roaring patriotic finale.

Wed July 10 - 7:30pm - Guest Organist Dr. David Briggs (bio and program below)

Wednesdays July 17, 24, & August 7, 28 - 7:30pm and

Saturdays July 13, 20, 27, & August 3, 10, 17 and 24 - 12-noon - Gordon Turk

Wednesday, August 14 - 7:30pm - Guest Organist Dr. Bradley Hunter Welch (bio and program below)

Monday September 2 - 7:30pm - "Holiday Encores" with Hugh Sung (piano), Monica Zigler (soprano) and Gordon Turk.

ABOUT THE ORGAN

The Great Auditorium Pipe Organ is among the largest working pipe organs in the world, and is the heart-beat of OGCMA's Christian, Victorian seaside resort. This historic 13,000+ pipe instrument was built and installed in 1908 with original design innovations that became standard elements still extant in modern organ construction. It is made of over 40,000 feet of California No. 1 Sugar Pine and weighs 20-25 tons. In its illustrious 108-year-history, this remarkable instrument has been played by numerous distinguished organists, including Will C. MacFarlane, Clarence Kohlman, Josephine Eddowes, Harold Fix, Clarence Reynolds, Beverly Davis, Jon Quinn, and Robert Carwithin.

ABOUT THE ORGANISTS

Dr. Gordon Turk - is OGCMA's Organist-&-Artist-in-Residence, responsible for The Great Auditorium's enormous pipe organ. During the summer concert season he plays twice-weekly recitals and works as Artistic Director of the Summer Stars Classical Series. He is also Organist & Choirmaster of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Wayne, PA, where he directs two choirs, a professional vocal ensemble and instrumentalists. Dr. Turk is also Professor of Organ at Rowan University, NJ, where he combines his enthusiasm for teaching and historical research with his passion for making music a living, communicating art. He tours extensively here and abroad and has recorded several CDs of organ music and is now preparing for new ones. Dr. Turk is a graduate of the famed Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied organ with the legendary Alexander McCurdy and piano with Vladimir Sokoloff. He continued his organ and composition studies with McNeil Robinson, and harpsichord with Eugenia Earle, receiving masters and doctorate degrees, with honors, from the Manhattan School of Music in NYC. As a consultant for the construction of new pipe organs and restorations of historic organs, Gordon Turk is often selected to perform the dedicatory recitals of many new pipe organs. He was one of five national organists selected to perform in the opening concerts of the new organ in Philadelphia's Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center (2006).

David Briggs, an organist and composer, is Artist in Residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Briggs has built a worldwide reputation for making organ music exciting, inspiring, and accessible to a broad and diverse range of listeners, helping ensure that present and future generations will appreciate, be moved and even changed by, this supreme instrument. He plays about 65 concerts annually, worldwide. Recent engagements include the Royal Albert Hall, London; Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris; National Concert Hall, Madrid; and Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA. Further details at www.david-briggs.org.

Program:

Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542 - J S Bach (1685-1750)

Three Pieces for Musical Clocks - Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Variations on Greensleeves (2004) - David Briggs (1962-)

Pièce Héroique - Cesar Franck (1822-1890)

Poème Symphonique: L'apprenti sorcier - Paul Dukas (1865-1935)

Improvisation: Symphony in Four Movements - on themes submitted by the audience

Dr. Bradley Hunter Welch has been hailed as a world-class virtuoso and an expert at defining darks, lights, shadows and colors as a worldclass organist and is widely in demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and collaborative artist. He is the Resident Organist and holder of the Lay Family Chair by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, where he performs with the DSO and oversees the Meyerson Symphony Center's Lay Family Concert Organ. Welch also serves as Artist-in-Residence at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas. He has taught at Southern Methodist University and Baylor University and was Director of Music & Arts at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, TX from 2009-2014. Dr. Welch holds several graduate music degrees, including from Yale University and Baylor University He has released two organ music CDs.

Program:

Toccata in B Minor - Eugène Gigout (1844-1925)

Variations on O laufet, ihr Hirten ("O Run, You Shepherds!") - Max Drischner (1891-1971)

Jig for the Feet ("Totentanz") from Organbook III - William Albright (1944-1998)

Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 532 - Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Final - César Franck (1822-1890)

Aria on a Chaconne (1994) - Joel Martinson (1960-)

Trumpet Tune (1991) - Frederick Swann (1931-)

Nimrod from Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Opus 36 - Edward Elgar (1857-1934),

arr. W. H. Harris/Welch

Finale from Symphony No. 3 in C Minor ("Organ") (1886) - Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

trans. Jonathan Scott