Pipe Organ How Great Thou Art Played by Stephen Buzard
Published Apr 30, 2015 at 12:09 PM EDT
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Courtesy Allen J. Hill, Gress-Miles Organ Photograph Drove
By 2013, there was only one organ major enrolled at the school.
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The University of Hartford'due south Hartt School will graduate its final organ major in May. Once a robust program, Hartt made the tough decision to abandon the organ program two years agone. Alumni of the organ program will gather this weekend to say goodbye to the school's pipe organ, which has been sold to a church on Long Island.
The Gress-Miles organ was inaugurated in 1970 with a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach'south "Wir glauben all' an einen Gott." The organ resides in room 21, as well known as the organ studio.
Hundreds of organ majors through the decades have vied for precious practice fourth dimension on the Gress-Miles.
"I spent many hours in [room 21] practicing. It'due south a very nice musical instrument. It's big plenty that you can annals a broad diverseness of repertoire on it," said Hartt organ alum Stephen Scarlato. "I remember lots of early mornings, because a lot of people practice at night. You go at that place at 11:00 pm, and someone is practicing, and so I'll go at six -- no one will be there and so, and I ordinarily had good luck with that."
Scarlato received his organ performance caste in 2003. He said that at one time, during the 1970s, the organ program was i of the bigger majors at Hartt.
"John Holtz was really the man who put it all together, quite some time ago, and I think at some point there would be 23, 25 organ majors at a fourth dimension," Scarlato said. "When I came in 1999, in that location were eight majors." The program continued to compress through the 2000s. By 2013, there was only one organ major enrolled at the school.
At the same time, the University of Hartford was taking a critical look at the viability of certain majors university-wide, an initiative called "Foundations For the Future."
Two programs at the Hartt School were targeted for closure: the classical guitar department and the organ section. Hartt managed to relieve the classical guitar department, merely made the tough decision to shut the organ department.
"Unfortunately, the organ programme hasn't highly enrolled, and we didn't see a great futurity fifty-fifty if wanted to put some immediate resources into information technology," said T. Clarke Saunders, Acting Dean of the Hartt School. "Information technology was a very hard and painful thing to do, still I remember it was something that the university needed to do, considering you can't do everything at all times, and the market changes, and then we had to think that way."
"It's disappointing," said James Thomashower, executive director of the American Guild of Organists. "It's never good news to hear that a music schoolhouse is giving upwards its organ programme. Information technology'southward only going to hurt the churches, when they find they need new organists every bit this current generation of organists retire, who is going to sit on the organ bench? Who'south going to make music for services? It'southward going to be a problem."
Hartt'due south last organ major, Mary Pan, graduates in 2 weeks. The Gress-Miles organ in room 21 will be dismantled at the cease of the semester and sold to a United Methodist Church in Babylon, New York. The room will be re-purposed as a rehearsal and performance space for small ensembles. But earlier that happens, alumni of Hartt'due south organ department will squeeze into room 21 for ane terminal recital.
The last piece on the programme Sabbatum night will exist the aforementioned piece that was played on the first recital in 1970: Bach's "Wir glauben all' an einen Gott."
Source: https://www.ctpublic.org/arts-and-culture/2015-04-30/hartt-school-winds-down-organ-program-sells-pipe-organ
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