Pipes & vodka: performing organ recitals in Russia

This is the original text written for Organ Canada that appeared in Spring 2008. It is describing my experiences performing at the Perm Organ Festival, Russia, the position of the organ in Russian musical life and thoughts on how this might inform the future of the organ in Canada.

This past October I was invited to Perm, Russia to perform an organ recital and an improvised accompaniment for a Russian silent-movie. I had no idea what to expect for the fact I was told to drink the vodka they offer me and that I had to travel far – very far.

1400 kilometers east of Moscow

Perm, Russia. November 2007.

When even hardy northern souls start making vacation plans to escape the upcoming winter, I did the exact opposite. I flew right into it – a northern Russian-style winter, 1400 kilometers east of Moscow. Perm is the most eastern city of Europe, the 6th largest in Russia and the second largest in the Urals. Located along the mighty Kama River, the 4th longest in Europe, the city and the Perm region is a main transportation hub and gateway between Europe and Asia. It is one of Russia’s fastest growing cities thanks to an abundance of minerals, oil and timber in the region. During the Cold War, a huge military industry was located here to build rockets, engines for MiG jets, artillery and ballistic rocket launching systems, all so clandestine that the city did not even appear on Soviet-made maps. Though it is now accessible to all, Perm’s distance from Moscow and St. Petersburg has allowed it to remain quintessentially Russian in daily life, tradition and architecture. Although located so far from what we consider “the West”, Perm region was the birthplace of such artistic luminaries as Tchaikovsky, Dyaghilev and Pasternak and is second only to Moscow and St. Petersburg as a centre for ballet, opera and theatre.

An Organ festival is born

Perm also has an “Organ Recital Hall” in the centre of the city, and that’s where the story gets really interesting. The city council decided to convert this former Communist Party meeting hall into an organ recital venue, then purchased an excellent Austrian tracker organ in 2003, installed four hundred comfortable armchairs, bought two Steinway concert grand pianos, refinished the hall in gorgeous maple, added chandeliers and theatre lighting, put artwork in the spacious lobby, and hired a dynamo concert pianist to run the facility under the direction of the Perm Philharmonic Society. Out of this was born the Perm International Organ Festival in 2006. The festival’s main sponsor is Lufthansa Airlines, which does a brisk business as the carrier of choice between Western Europe and the region.

A new (and young!) audience

Bill O'Meara improvising on organ at the Perm Organ festival, November 2007.

To the Russians, the organ has no connotations with church whatsoever. It is simply a marvellous concert instrument deserving of a place in the musical pantheon. The 2007 festival comprised six concerts from October 28 to November 4. Most concerts were sold out with most attendees in the 30 to 50 age group but also lots of people in their twenties, and some families with young kids. The local television station broadcast snippets of each concert and journalists were on hand after the concerts to interview the artists. The festival line-up included Russians, Germans, an Austrian and a Serbian in concerts featuring organ solo, organ & trumpet, organ & orchestra, and organ & choir. My contribution on November 1 was an organ recital and an improvised accompaniment for a Russian avant-garde art film from 1929 by Dziga Vertov, Man With A Movie Camera, or as it is known in Russian, Человек с киноаппаратом. The recital portion of my program included works by Bach, Tournemire, Cumin, Mulet and Canadian composers Kenins and Letendre.

A model for Canada?

But this article isn’t just about my trip to Russia, it’s about issues that have been nagging me for years and which led me, along with colleague Gordon Mansell, to create ORGANIX, the Toronto-based organ festival held annually in May (www.organixconcerts.ca). When I was in Russia, I couldn’t help thinking that what I was seeing might be what the future holds for the organ in Canada if we, as organists, play our cards right.

Consider Toronto as a bellweather for Canada’s artistic future. Theatre, opera, ballet, and symphony orchestras have had to re-examine their repertoire and marketing in a city where half the population is foreign-born and largely from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Indian sub-continent. When the Toronto Symphony almost went bankrupt a few years ago, the local press wondered whether the public’s relative silence reflected a disinterest in culture, perhaps not understanding that the disinterest partly reflected a marginalization of western art music in a highly diverse city.

Art is an amalgam of influences. It can be, particularly in such a diverse country as ours, a dynamic example of inclusiveness. The more I perform outside of North America, the more convinced I become that our totally chaotic and unique mish-mash of cultural influences is creating a distinctive popular and high-art culture that is unique to Canada and valued internationally.

Organ + violin = Muslim-Jewish duo!

So, what has this to do with the pipe organ and Russia? The concert on October 30 was performed by Rubin Abdullin, a professor of organ at Kazan Conservatory. In the second half, he was joined by Michael Gantvarg, a violinist from St. Petersburg. Abdullin is Muslim, Gantvarg is Jewish. How many Muslim-Jewish organ and violin duos have you heard before? Their collaboration had me reflecting on the diversity of Canadians and where the next generation of Canadian organists might come from, and how diverse cultural backgrounds might reinvent or rebrand the organ in fascinating, creative and unpredictable ways. When a young Muslim or Hindu or unchurched boy or girl goes to a concert that includes the organ at Winspear Centre in Edmonton or Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto or Jack Singer Hall in Calgary or to any concert featuring the organ, when they are mesmerized by the sounds and by the athletics required to play it, when they say, “THAT is the instrument I want to learn”, then what?

A future for the organ

Fortunately technology now offers some solutions to the practical problem of access to an instrument. The price of electronic practise organs for home use has come down as much as the quality has gone up. Classic Organs offers the Hauptwerk system that you can hook up to your computer. There will be one on display at ORGANIX this year for the public to see and try. Anyone can make, send or download MP3 files of standard or unusual repertoire. The fusion of digital and pipe is a prescription for play and creativity for the musically adventurous. In short, technology is making it possible for anyone to learn how to play the organ in his or her own home for the same cost as an acoustic piano. It could very well be that the future of the pipe organ will depend on small and affordable digital organs. Think of it as re-inventing the organ for a secular society.

Let’s all become ambassadors for the organ

From a cultural perspective, your guess is as good as mine as to how things will work out a generation from now, but it could be fascinating. ORGANIX in the Toronto area is but one attempt among many to get the public on board through programming that places a special emphasis on collaborations between organists and young musicians, as well as music by Canadian composers. Every organist in Canada who takes the time to prepare, promote and present an interesting concert can be proud of their role as an ambassador for the organ, knowing that, as I saw in Perm, it is an instrument worthy of the public’s attention.