MONROE — Midday Masterworks, a quarterly organ mini-recital series, will present “Mostly Manuals — II” from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, April 24 at the United Methodist Church, 2227 4th St., Monroe, and repeated the same day from 5:15 to 5:45 p.m. at St. Victor Catholic Church (St. Clare of Assisi Parish), 1760 14th Street, Monroe.
The program, played by Monroe organist Deborah Krauss Smith, will feature organ music specifically written for only the keyboards for the hands, which are called manuals. This is the second Midday Masterworks program featuring this genre, with the first one having been presented in 2018. In past centuries, many small church or chamber organs had no keys for the feet, known as pedals. Likewise, 19th century and early 20th century house organs, some of which were reed organs or harmoniums, had only keyboards for the hands. With a bit of renewed interest in chamber organs, even some 21st century organ composers have written pieces specifically for organ without pedals. One of the pieces, written in 2017 by Dutch organist/composer Margaretha de Jong, will be included along with compositions by well-known composers like J.S. Bach, Camille Saint-Saëns, John Stanley and others.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, the organist has a double applied major in both organ and voice, having begun organ studies in Monroe with the late Merruth Seaton, continuing with Jerry Evenrud and David O. Parsons while at UW-EC, and then for many years with the now late Lawrence G. Kelliher, former longtime organist/music director of Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison. She has served congregations of various denominations as a church musician in Monroe, Eau Claire and Madison for over 40 years. In 2012 and 2014, she led Madison Symphony Orchestra-sponsored hymn sings, playing the Klais organ in the Overture Hall of the Overture Center for the Arts in downtown Madison. A member of the American Guild of Organists, she is past president/AGO chapter dean of the Madison-based Association of Church Musicians. The granddaughter of Swiss and German immigrants to Green County, she has also directed the Monroe Swiss Singers mixed choir since 1985.
Midday Masterworks began in 2002 as a quarterly Wednesday noon-hour organ mini-recital series featuring the new 3-manual (keyboards), 39-rank (different sets of pipes/sounds) Berghaus pipe organ of the United Methodist Church of Monroe. In 2008, a repeat later in the day of the noontime program was added, featuring the newly-built hybrid combination of a 1968 Möller pipe organ with a three-manual Rodgers digital organ at St. Victor Catholic Church. The half-hour programs are themed and include quality music for organ that is enjoyable by general audiences of all ages.
Both churches are handicapped-accessible. A free-will donation is accepted, all of which goes to the maintenance fund for each church’s instrument.
More detailed information is available at http://coldspringsroad.com/middaymasterworks.html.
