Going "Organic" in Portland

Going “Organic”
Two Concerts Close Out the Kotzchmar Organ's Summer Series

In its 99th year, the country's oldest working municipal pipe organ, Portland's Kotzchmar Organ housed in Merrill Auditorium offers two concerts to close out its Summer Series in upcoming weeks. Ray Cornils, the man with the true “keys” to the city (sorry, I couldn't resist)--Portland's designated municipal organist since 1990—will conclude the series on Tuesday, August 30th. But first, California native and world-renowned organist and composer, 27-year old Chelsea Chen will grace the Kotzchmar solo this upcoming Tuesday with a diverse program ranging from early music organ standards to contemporary pieces.

Chen will open the concert with J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, probably THE pinnacle piece for organ. You know those notes you hear on horror films or on Scooby Doo, when the creaky door to the haunted mansion is first opened? Those are the initial notes of Bach's toccata. Expect this composition to return to Kotzchmar programs at Halloween time.

Chen will play her own arrangements also, Three Taiwanese Songs, from her Taiwan Tableaux-- a tribute to her Chinese father completed in 2007 after residing in Taiwan on a Fulbright Fellowship. The piece is based on Taiwanese folk songs from the 1930's and 1940's. Chen will treat us to her renditions of Four Seasons, The Cradle Song, and Song of the Country Farmer.

And then there is something for the children, the video gamers and jazzers. The program that Chen has planned has an impressive range of appeal—it's no wonder she was alluded to as “a harbinger of the generation on the horizon” by the Journal of American Organbuilders. Claude Debussy's Children's Corner and Rod Gorby's Three Jazz Standards (arrangements of pieces by Duke Ellington, Ben Bernie and George Gershwin) will be performed, but the highlight of entertainment will likely be Chen's arrangement of Koji Kondo's Super Mario Fantasia. With her masterfully placed imitations of Mario jumping over turtles and collecting coins interjected into Kondo's melodies, Chen brings the organ full circle and back to relevance for all of us that spent hundreds (ahem, thousands) of hours gaming in front of the television in the 1990's—something unheard of in 1912 when the Kotzchmar was first installed.

This brings us back home to Cornils, one of only a handful of municipal organists nationwide. Cornil's performance will include his own arrangements of selections not originally composed for organ—William Walton's royal coronation composition Crown Imperial March (to be performed with the Kotzchmar Festival Brass) and Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio. The Brass will accompany Cornils for pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli and Pyotr Tchaikovsky and for those who need their fix of traditional early music organ works, a requisite solo piece by Bach, the undisputed organ-master of all time, will be performed.

The showcase of this concert however, could very well be the performance of a work by a living artist, Toccata by Denis Bédard who is perhaps Canada's premier composer for organ. Toccata is a festive, very “20th Century” composition rich in sixteenth note passages and a finale so full in octaval depth that it should knock your tube socks off—a grand piece to close out the concert and the series with.

History may indeed hold the keys to the present, but Chen and Cornil demonstrate this month that the Koztchmar is not just a relic of the past, a museum so to speak. Owned and maintained by the people of Portland, it continues to serve as a vehicle for modern creative expression with contemporary relevance while simultaneously serving as a symbol of artistic heritage and pride.

Now that's something worth piping up about.

At MERRILL AUDITORIUM:

August 23, 2011, 7 30 PM Chelsea Chen
August 30, 2011, 7 30 PM Ray Cornils with Kotzschmar Festival Brass