Scott Montgomery playing live in concert at Church of the Gesu in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. September 9, 2014.

Gustav Holst- Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity,  From the Planets

Composer: George Thalben Ball. Played on the 22 Rk Casavant Freres organ of St Andrew's Church, Thorold Ontario.  20 Sept 2014.  Organist:  Robert Watson.

Elegy

The second piece from Suite for Christmas No. 2, based on the hymn tune "Christmas."

Introit (While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Night)

Using a bunch of tools in Audacity, I slowed down and remixed a 1920s ragtime track called JaDa. The result is a nearly 60 minute long soundscape that feels almost like dark ambient to me. I like that I created this by using a song that was in the public domain and an OpenSource software tool.

JaDaDaJa

Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, New York City
Dr. Gerre Hancock, Organist and Master of Choristers

Festal Eucharist, 1 June 2003
Seventh Sunday of Easter

Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise - Llanfair

Todd Wilson plays Johann Sebastian Bach: Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582

I remember as a 10-year-old borrowing an LP recording from the Brooklyn Public Library that featured Helmut Walcha’s performances on the Schnitger pipe organ in Cappel. I was a thrill to hear it live. The organ was brought here in 1816, purchased second-hand by proud villagers for their church, a real bargain for them. The sound of the organ is fresh and crystal-clear. Sergej Tcherepanov was a very good sport about being forced to  play Bach’s St. Anne Prelude for me, as this brought back memories of first hearing that piece played on LP by Helmut Walcha. The dialog of him resisting playing something he had not prepared was pretty funny. Thank you Sergej Tcherepanov! 

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Bach: St. Ann Prelude played on 1680 Schnitger organ at Saints Peter & Paul in Cappel

Born and raised in  Woodstock, Ontario, Canada, I started organ lessons at around age 10 (who can remember that far back) with a spinet organ (I can't remember the brand). After a few years, my family bought a new Johannus Opus organ and I began taking private lessons with an organist in my neighbourhood. 

I was organist at Long's Run Presbyterian Church in  Calcutta, Ohio and have played in services in various churches through the years in both the United States and Canada, on pipe organs, electronic and digital organs. I now reside in  Port Orange, Florida. 

Over the years I dabbled in composing my own works with varying success. I also developed a love of the traditional Dutch hymn improvisation from the likes of Feike Asma, Jan Zwart, and Teke Bijlsma, to name a few. My hymn arrangements are very much in the style of these organists, though I have kept the difficulty down to a level that I, myself can manage. As I go forward, I have plans for two more Christmas Suites and am contemplating a similar Easter Suite and various standalone arrangments of some of my favourite hymns. 

I am currently using MusicTime Deluxe version 4.0.4 to write and publish the sheet music to PDF with the help of  CutePDF. The MP3s are created by exporting a midi file of the music from MusicTime and having Hauptwerk (free version) play the midi file and record it to a WAV file. I then use MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab 16 to add reverb and master the track for export to MP3. The YouTube videos are made using Microsoft Expression Encoder (for screen capture and encoding to a video file) and Windows Movie Maker to add titles and transistions.

Introit (While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Night)

Gary Vander Ploeg