MONROE — Midday Masterworks, a quarterly organ mini-recital series, will present a program titled “Moon Music: A Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing” from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, July 24 at the United Methodist Church, 2227 4th St., Monroe. The performance will be 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 pieces written or transcribed for organ that have some connection to the moon. Included is a transcription of the first movement of Beethoven’s famous “Moonlight Sonata,” an arrangement of Glenn Miller’s signature “Moonlight Serenade,” and a setting of the Canadian Huron Christmas carol, “’Twas in the Moon of Wintertime.” One of the original pieces for organ to be performed, Edwin Lemare’s “Andantino in D-flat,” written in 1888, became well-known as “Moonlight and Roses” when two American songwriters under the pseudonym Neil Moret added words, without permission, to Lemare’s melody in 1921.
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 had the privilege of leading 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 currently vice president/AGO chapter sub 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.
