Date: Fri 09-Oct-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: JAN

Quick Words:

schools-Trinity-organ-Sambach

Full Text:

Pied Piper Of The Organ

(with cuts)

BY JAN HOWARD

Beautiful music, bits of humor and lots of information were interwoven last

week in a cultural experience for some local school children.

Fourth and fifth graders, teachers and parents from St Rose School were

treated to a pipe organ "informance" October 2 at Trinity Episcopal Church by

concert artist Cj Sambach of New Jersey.

Mr Sambach's program is aimed at promoting an understanding of and

appreciation for the organ. His goal is to make music and the organ fun for

all ages. He is especially dedicated to reaching children and youth, and has

been declared by many as a modern day Pied Piper of the pipe organ.

During the hour-long program, Mr Sambach alternated between using large visual

aids to explain the workings of an organ, giving out t-shirts for correct

answers to questions, and climbing the stairs to the organ loft to perform

examples of organ music and the various sounds the organ can produce.

Mr Sambach's humor and explanations about how the pipe organ works and how its

sounds are produced were highlighted by his performance on the organ that

showed its full range of sounds, from soft pastoral flute and string sounds to

those so full and resounding they seemed to fill the whole building and rise

to the heavens.

Before playing, Mr Sambach would pivot around on the organ seat, lean forward,

describe a particular sound or technique, and then play it.

The program was an obvious success as students waved their hands

enthusiastically to answer questions, applauded their appreciation following

Mr Sambach's musical interludes, and listened intently to his descriptions of

the parts of the organ responsible for its various sounds.

Mr Sambach told the youngsters his interest in the organ began when he was in

third grade when he attended his first church choir practice that was

accompanied by the organ.

"I was amazed that there was more than one keyboard," he told the appreciative

audience. "I said that was the instrument I want to play."

However, he said, the organ is an adult instrument.

"You have to be tall enough to reach everything," he said. In seventh grade,

he traded his piano lessons for organ lessons.

Mr Sambach is an organ performance graduate of Westminster Choir College in

Princeton, N.J.