Organ Recital

Ben McCartney & Michael Bennett
The Edward Augustus Ross Memorial Organ
at St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette, Indiana
I must applaud my son Ben for his prowess at the keyboard; piano or organ -- either one -- I could listen to him play for hours. A splendid opportunity occurred earlier this summer when he concluded seven years of lessons under Michael's tutelage with an astounding, resounding Senior Organ Recital.

Click to Hear Program

(click once on photo to enlarge for reading)
One of Gerry's and my proudest moments had to be hearing Ben play Widor's Toccata, in the same church, on the same organ, as played by organist Jarrett Follette for our wedding recessional twenty - three years ago. We were also proud to hear Michael say that although Ben's degree was in math not music, he had still prepared a concert at same level of difficulty as an organ major.

Ben has now moved on to graduate school at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Luckily for him, Duke is famous for, among other things, the three magnificent organs in its University Chapel. Who knows, even as a finance student, maybe the opportunity for him to try out one of these impressive instruments will present itself somewhere along the way.

Left to right: the Brombaugh, the Flentrop,the Aeolian.

Gerry & Ben admiring the Flentrop
Over the summer, several friends visited Philadelphia and sent back news of the Wanamaker Organ:

Jarrett wrote: "Watching Peter Conte demonstrate, with Michael J. Bennett at
Macy's - Center City Philadelphia"

Michael wrote: "Hearing the world's largest playing pipe organ at the
Wanamaker Building, Philadelphia"

and "Hanging out with an incredibly cool dude on a miserably hot night in Philadelphia" -- that would be Tom Whittemore, organist and choir director from Ben & Sam's choral scholar days at St. Peter's, Philadelphia.

Lee wrote: "Walking from the convention center back to my hotel in down town Philadelphia I decided to stop in Macy's. As I was browsing, organ music filled the place. I walked around the corner and saw this. Apparently we are not up to date in Kansas City. We do not have pipe organs in any of our Macy's stores. I did not buy anything but had a great shopping experience. Can't wait for this trend to hit the Midwest. I would certainly go to Macy's more often."

Thanks to Richard L. Seifert for keeping me up to date!
See previous Wanamaker Organ post