Love Shine a Light, the spring concert of Plateau Women’s Chorus and Young Singers children’s community chorus, will feature highly trained organists playing the “king of instruments,” the pipe organ.
“The organ’s power and resonance creates a complex and varied soundscape that has the unique ability to evoke strong emotions in listeners,” said Margie Hartfiel with Plateau Women’s Chorus’ marketing and communications.
Georgiana Upshaw will play the organ at Crossville First Methodist Church at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 5. She has been the church’s organist since February 1984, and she studied organ at at the University of Tennessee from 1990-95.
“I am a pianist by choice and an organist by necessity, but now I love playing the organ,” Upshaw said.
She will be playing a 14 -ank pipe organ, 752 individual pipes, designed by builder Karl Wilhelm from Quebec.
Having 14 ranks allows for a greater variety of tones and voicings, from delicate and subtle to powerful and resonant.
Upshaw will play the 5th movement of Fifteen Pieces Founded on Antiphons, titled “Antiphon 5: How Fair and Pleasant Art Thou.” Based on texts from the Song of Solomon, the romantically styled composition was written by French organist and composer Marcel Dupre’.
Mary Hirst will play the organ at Fairfield Glade Community Church at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 6. A piano student starting at age 5, she got her first taste of organ during her junior year in high school, when she learned on a Wurlitzer pipe organ in the school gymnasium.
“My playing to that point was quite wooden as I was instructed to play exactly what was on the page,” Hirst said.
She followed this up with one semester of organ at university – the rest has been trial and error for over 60 years.
Hirst will share her own arrangement titled, “A Love Medley,“ which features snippets of old-timey love songs.
The organ at Fairfield Glade Community Church is not a pipe organ but a Rogers Trillium 927 with a Korg synthesizer connected to the keyboard to bring in additional digital sounds. A Rodgers Trillium 927 organ is a hybrid organ, known for its remarkable ability to capture the nuances of pipe organ acoustics utilizing a digital voice to create the expression of wind through pipes.
“Plateau Women’s Chorus is excited to add these majestic instruments to their spring concert series,” Hartfiel said. “The concerts are free, and the public is invited.”