1964 Möller - 2001 Goulding & Wood organ at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC

a profound reflection upon the saga of Christ’s crucifixion, a progression through fourteen poems by Paul Claudel with originally-improvised musical commentary by Marcel Dupré.

Trumpet fanfares and other bracing measures spice up this week’s broadcast as we celebrate spring with improvisations and anthems dedicated to the festival of rebirth. Marilyn Keiser plays a Festal Flourish, Kevin Bowyer borrows from Bach’s Little Organ Book, James Culp asks a pointed question, Craig Philips contributes a song for a special morning awakening, and everywhere sons and daughters sing. With instruments in Texas, Italy, and our nation’s capitol, and choirs from Beverly Hills and Britain, we offer Music for an Easter Uprising.

It’s not your usual sort of seasonal surprise on this weeks Pipedreams program. To prove the universality of the Christmas theme, we’ve conducted a global search and it has uncovered some extraordinary jewels, including a French Noel, variations from The Netherlands and South Africa, and settings of familiar tunes from Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, Lebanon and the United States.

She was the first American to record the Schoenberg Variations and has been a life-long advocate of new music for her instrument. On the next Pipedreams program, we visit with Dr. Marilyn Mason who has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan for more than half a century. She’s one of a kind, and her boundless energy continues to inspire through her teaching, her recitals, and the study-tours she leads to historic instruments abroad. She’ll reflect on her career, share some sage advice for living a good life, and play just a few of the many pieces in her expansive repertoire. At Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall, the National Shrine in Washington, and at the Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, we’ll celebrate The Art of Marilyn Mason. She blows her own horn, but that’s OK since she has plenty of which to be proud a long list of commissioned works and premiere performances, several hundred successful students from her University of Michigan studio, and a life-time of achievement and personal satisfaction. We celebrate The Art of Marilyn Mason this week on Pipedreams.

The work of African-American organ composers is a powerfully compelling story in music and on our next Pipedreams broadcast we’ll explore its diverse nature. With performer and commentator Mickey Thomas Terry, we’ll visit the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Saint Patrick’s Church, and the National Presbyterian Church, all located in Washington, DC. Here we’ll listen to largely unknown creations by Thomas Kerr, William Cooper, Noel DaCosta, George Walker and Eugene Hancock. We’re highlighting music for organ with African percussion, and organ solo settings of African-American spirituals, music for church services, and pieces for the concert hall. It’s a multi-faceted discovery, spelled out In Black and White the African-American organ art, this week on Pipedreams.

His music is dramatic and challenging, and he’s one of the most promising talents on the international organ scene. This week on Pipedreams, we visit with Naji Hakim, who talks about his childhood in Lebanon and his youthful dream of becoming an organist. He’s realized this dream and proves it with performances recorded at the Parisian Sacred Heart Basilica, and in recital at Our Lady of Grace Church in Edina, Minnesota. Music of Bach, Franck, Dupré, and Langlais, plus a cameo appearance by Naji’s equally talented wife Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet. A young lion of the organ, it’s Naji Hakim of Paris, this week on Pipedreams.

The pipe organ offers a player a rainbow of sonorous hues from which to draw, and while our next Pipedreams program exploits such opportunity, we also deal with a different facet of color. During the past century, composers such as William Grant Still, Thomas Kerr, Ulysses Kay, and Florence Price have made sizeable, if sometimes unheralded, contributions to the concert repertoire of the king of instruments. Whether in abstract visions or classical forms, responding to main-stream themes or spiritual influences, theirs is an important voice, as you’ll discover listening to a dozen remarkable works recorded by James Abbington, David Oliver, Mark Miller, Lucius Weathersby, Mickey Thomas Terry, and friends. Color me intrigued by the richness and variety of music for pipe organ by African American composers. Is it a paradox that we experience the full range of color In Black and White? The African American impulse, this week on Pipedreams.

Marie Bernadette Dufourcet has delighted audiences with her spectacular playing and proves herself to be yet another shining star in the galaxy of famous French organists. On our next Pipedreams program, she steps beyond the shadow of her equally talented husband, Naji Hakim, to demonstrate her own gifts as interpretor, improvisor and composer. In recordings made in Washington DC and Saint Paul, Minnesota, and a few done at her church, Notre-Dame-des-Champs in Paris where she is titulaire, Ms. Dufourcet establishes herself as not just your average wife and mother, sharing a cross-section of music from the past century. She is a supremely assurred player and composer, as demonstrated through recital recordings and perceptive commentary. Celebrate Marie Bernadette Dufourcet-Hakim, our special guest, who makes you want to shout Viva la France!, which we do, this week on Pipedreams.

Spiritual mystery and intellectual clarity may seem incompatible concepts, but for composer Olivier Messiaen, probing them was his life and his art. On our next Pipedreams program, we explore his music that many consider to be the most important written for the organ since Bach: his vivid tonal visions of the Eternal Church, his aural pageants descriptive of Christmas scenes, Pentecostal zeal, and Trinitarian principals. The composer himself, eight of his students and disciples, plus one determined and talented youth who is playing the entire cycle in 9-hour marathon concerts, honor his memory ten years after his death. Pentecostal Tongues and Serene Alleluias sound in praise of a higher power while a remarkable man sees colors in sound and reveals his profound faith in art. Enter a surprisingly satisfying world. We are Attuned to Messiaen…this week on Pipedreams.

Old world resonances come together in new world experiences on this week’s show, it’s a discovery of colorful and unusual works on African-American themes. Noel DaCosta adapts Nigerian tunes in his Ukom Memory Songs for organ and percussion, Dezsö Antalffy transforms Black spirituals in a splendid solo fantasy from the 1930s, and Pulitzer Prize-winner George Walker evokes images of craggy heights in his new solo titled Spires. Mickey Thomas Terry provides personal glimpses to repertoire which juxtaposes light and shade with vivid result. Duke Ellington’s urbanaty, southern spirituals and Nigerian funeral chants all figure in our program of music on African American themes. We’re blending Black and White together, with colorful results, this week’s broadcast.

Tune in and celebrate contributions made to the art of the organ by African-American composers and performers.

A colorful collection both from and inspired by the pipe organ’s earliest known repertoire.

Embellished by the pipe organ’s many colors, these compositions were inspired by African and Afro-American themes.

…a further foray into some home-grown repertoire from the 20th century for the ‘king of instruments’.

…some recently released CDs featuring organs, composers and performers from these United States.

…the canny British-born recitalist, musician-in-residence at Washington National Cathedral, has made an international reputation with his recordings, arrangements, and compelling performances.

…one of the world's most exciting virtuosos plays a mostly-Bach program (with a twist) on the great organ at Royal Albert Hall.

…to celebrate his sesquicentennial, we go beyond the famous Gothic Suite to reveal other facets of this intriguing French composer, Leon Boëllmann (1862-1897).

…in anticipation of our thoroughly American holiday, these works by some thoroughly American composers.

…unique concert performances of diverse works by American composers, primarily from the Pipedreams archive.

…even when conflict seems unavoidably omnipresent, music can take us to a better place.

a collection of unusual repertoire featuring Canadian composers and performers.

A coast-to-coast collection of memorable and mesmerizing manipulations of seasonal songs.

Think of them as sweets for the ears. We unwrap a bundle of seasonal cheer and a coast-to-coast collection of talent on the next Pipedreams broadcast. Organists play in solo and duo at Saint John’s Cathedral, Milwaukee, Spivey Hall in Morrow, Georgia, and the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre, while choirs sing at Riverside Church, New York, Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, and All Saints Lutheran in Kansas City. In 13 different venues, our carols and fantasies all feature artists and instruments from around the United States. Wherever you are, we’ll all be right at home this week with An American Organist’s Christmas, hosted by Michael Barone.