MADISON, Wis. — Attending this week’s Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Overture organ live performance taught me one thing distinctive about classical music as leisure.
Visitor artist Christopher Houlihan performed brilliantly. He’s the Distinguished Chair of Chapel Music at Trinity School in Hartford, Conn., and is likely one of the most distinguished organists on the planet.
The viewers was appreciative — even enthusiastic — in response and but, the live performance didn’t have the household ambiance we usually affiliate with the Overture organ collection.
It took me some time, however I believe I found out why.
Most organists are invisible. They have an inclination to play in church buildings the place they’re both tucked away in balconies or hidden behind huge counsels.
The Overture Live performance Organ in Madison is a singular instrument. Nobody ever sees it. These pipes in the back of the auditorium stage are only a façade The counsel is wheeled out to the center of the stage for a live performance – and the musician performs together with his again to the viewers.
No different performer does that. Violinists, singers, trumpeters, and even tuba gamers, face the viewers. So, in the event you’re at a live performance, you’re interacting with each the music and the performer.
That heat, household ambiance we affiliate with native organ live shows isn’t a lot the results of musical virtuosity as it’s of the showmanship of MSO organist Greg Zelek.
Zelek is a superb musician. However he’s additionally an entertainer. He jokes round with the viewers, introduces the monetary sponsors of the night efficiency, introduces his mom, who lives in Miami however is right here continuously, talks about his fiancé, and pokes enjoyable at himself.
So, when he performs, although his again is to the viewers, his spirit isn’t.
To me, a minimum of, that’s an attention-grabbing distinction.
Houlihan, who was a pal of Zelek’s at Julliard (I’m fairly positive that each classical musician of notice within the final 20 years was a pal of Zelek’s at Julliard), is a superb musician, however he isn’t by nature an entertainer. He’s a professor.
Skilled organists, as I prompt earlier, should not educated to be entertainers as a result of the venue of their devices forces them to be heard however not seen.
The brilliance of the Overture Live performance Organ — and, I’d guess, of Nice Frautschi who paid for it — is that the musician is each seen and heard.
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