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New beat for organ program

Paper disco ball sale is first step in effort to raise funding

by Jennifer Brzowski
The Daily Cougar

Pipe organs and disco balls may seem to be an unusual combination, but it's one the organ department at the Moores School of Music recently decided to put to good use.

The department has begun a fund-raising campaign urging people to "buy a disco ball and support the organ department" -- the disco balls in this case are paper and are hung in the foyer of the Organ Recital Hall. It's an unusual campaign with an unusual origin.

"The disco ball fund-raiser was actually done by my nephew's preschool in Austin," Nancy Ebanks, a former organ student, said. 

Ebanks is president of the recently founded Moores School Partnership for Organ Performance, an organization to raise funding and awareness for the organ department, which has been part of UH for more than 36 years.

The disco ball fund-raiser is the first step in solving a big problem: the nearly total ruin of UH's organs by Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.

"We have a major problem with our organs," said Carol Ready, director of development for the theater and music schools. "The insurance that the University has did some repair to them, but unfortunately, the dampness you just can't get out of a big pipe organ -- it's everywhere."

The University's insurance will no longer cover repairs to the organs, Ready said. Of five practice organs at UH, "about four of them are working -- barely," she said.

The instruments were not the only things in the organ department that sustained damaged from Allison, associate music professor and organ instructor Robert Bates said. 

"The rooms are very, very moldy," Bates said "One practice organ just stopped working altogether this semester. The others are worth absolutely nothing, and are not worthy of our program -- or, for that matter, of virtually any serious program."

Repairing the organs is not only a matter of tradition, but also of demand.

"We happen to have one of the very few growing organ programs in the entire country," Ready said. "(The organ) is a difficult instrument to play. It requires a lot of mental skill and a lot of dexterity, but also a lot of physical skill."

There's a shortage of organists in the United States; even large churches with large budgets are having trouble finding them, Ready said. But the organ is extremely important to our music, she said.

"In the history of Western music, organ music really is the music that started everything -- it's the basis of all (Western) music, including rock 'n' roll," Ready said.

The paper disco balls, each representing a $20 donation, will only make a small dent in the funds needed. Officials hope to raise $2,000 in donations, but the program needs five new practice organs at about $120,000 each -- a total of at least $600,000. The practice organs would last about 40 years, Bates said.

He added that seven doctoral students are now majoring in organ performance, so the department also needs money for academic enrichment, including guest lecturers and improvisation lessons.

"The organ forms a crucially important part of our musical heritage, and that is a strong reason to support it," Moores School of Music Director David Ashley White said. "It is also as viable today as it was 1,000 years ago."

The Moores School Partnership for Organ Performance is beginning its fund-raising efforts in earnest, and has begun mailing out letters to potential donors providing them with the opportunity to give one-time donations or become lifetime members. The program is inviting 350 potential donors to an April 19 champagne reception, where William Porter of the Eastman School of Music will offer a free performance.

"(The disco ball program) was really something just to start right away," Ebanks said. "I think the students got a kick out of this."

Anyone interested in being added to the mailing list for future organ concerts can e-mail Ebanks at jnebanks@aol.com.

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