1993 C.B. Fisk organ, Opus 101, at Caruth Auditorium, SMU, Dallas, Texas

To play the organ is a challenge under any circumstance. Manipulating all of those keyboards and pedals and buttons really keeps you on the edge. Can you imagine what must it be like to play the organ in competition? Well, that’s more pressure than I could tolerate, but on our next Pipedreams program you’ll hear nine young artists put it on the line, for prizes of up to $30,000, and hardly bat an eye. From the delicate tracery of a Bach Trio to the plangent passion of a contemporary toccata, young musicians go for the gold at the world’s most beneficent battle for organists. From the Caruth Auditorium and the Meyerson Symphony Center, it’s the Dallas International Organ Competition 2000, Part One, this week on Pipedreams.

The nine competitors have been thinned to three with the ultimate challenge just on the horizon. On our next Pipedreams broadcast, we take you to the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas where three young artists vie for the gold prizes on a Texas scale totaling over $50,000 in cash and awards! Bach prevails in the company of Brahms, Bill Bolcom and Max Reger, while Gunther Rost, Bradley Hunter Welch and James Diaz pull out all the stops in this most prestigious of American contests for young masters of the king of instruments. Tune in and hear the exciting conclusion of the finals of the Dallas International Organ Competition 2000, this week on Pipedreams.

He lives in the countryside just down the road from Valparaiso University, he’s got a recording studio and a barber shop in the barn out back, and spends considerable time teaching in Saarebruecken, Germany, and Appleton, Wisconsin. And when he plays, his imagination works overtime. We visit with the ever stimulating and always iconoclastic Wolfgang Rübsam to understand why amidst all the other distractions organ music continues to feed his soul and, through him, ours. As a former pilot, a barber, recording engineer, teacher, and recitalist, he’s totally fearless, and willing even to risk a Bach Trio Sonata in concert. Wolfgang Rübsam reflects on his career and accomplishments, and shares some great and timeless music, From the Wolf’s Den, this week on Pipedreams.

It is as simple as Bach’s instructions, “Push the right key and the right time and the organ plays itself.” With that in mind, we’ll discover just how much diversity there is behind that seemingly obvious instruction. Listen to six American soloists on as many American instruments will treat us to Preludes and Fantasies, melodious chorale-settings and vibrant fugues. In a cross-country survey, from churches in South Dakota, Georgia, Michigan and Utah and university halls in Arizona and Texas, we celebrate Baroque organ music at its best and show Johann Sebastian the American way. It’s the United States of Bach.

With more than $50,000 in prize-money, the Dallas International Organ Competition attracts top-grade talent. This week, we’ll listen to three superb finalists, each with musicianship worthy of international exposure. Jeremy Bruns hails from Muleshoe, Texas, but now directs the music program at All Saints Church-Ashmont near Boston. Sarah Baldock, from England, is the assistant at Winchester Cathedral and is also on the Calgary Academy Faculty in Canada. Bradley Hunter Welch is the organist at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas. On the Fisk organs at Southern Methodist Unversity and the Meyerson Symphony Center they perform pieces from the French repertoire, plus works by Reger, Bolcom and Bach. Enjoy young artists in award-winning performances From the Dallas Competition.

Or Woman Composers for the Organ, a survey of some interesting works by some interesting people.

…composer William Bolcom provides glimpses into the creation of these beguiling re-imaginings of familiar American tunes.

…on the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth, we enjoy some intriguing scores that Robert Schumann composed in 1845…originally not for the pipe organ!

…bigger-than-life performances on notable pipe organs in and around the Lone Star State.

Recital performances by faculty, students and alumni on another exceptional instrument at Caruth Auditorium of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Performances by and conversations with entrants in the prestigeous and lucrative 1997 Dallas International Organ Competition, recorded on the C.B. Fisk pipe organs of Southern Methodist University and the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Proof that the creative spirit was alive when Marcel Dupré improvised in Paris eighty years ago. On August 15, 1919, while substituting for an ailing Louis Vierne, 33-year-old Marcel Dupré improvised for an afternoon service at Notre Dame Cathedral. In the audience, totally by chance, was Claude Johnson, head of Rolls-Royce. He was so moved by the music that he encouraged Dupré to write down his improvisations, guaranteed their publication and sponsored Dupré’s subsequent London debut recital which marked the beginning of this artist’s astounding international career.