Organ at Noon

The Heinz Chapel, part of the University of Pittsburgh, boasts a Reuter organ built in 1995. Its more than 4,000 pipes are arranged at the front, right, left, back, and even on the ceiling, creating a kind of surround-sound effect depending on the instrument’s registration. The instrument also features electronic samples because some French works in particular go down into bass ranges that would require 32-foot pipes, which could not be accommodated spatially in the chapel.

Organist Pamela Shaw, who studied at the Lübeck Academy of Music with Walter Kraft and is currently assistant organist at St. Paul’s, played an interesting program spanning from the Baroque to the modern era:

• Grand Choeur in B-flat major by Théodore Dubois,
• Dialogue sur les grands Jeux (Veni Creator Spiritus) by Nicolas de Grigny,
• Concerto No. 2 in A minor (after Vivaldi, BWV 593) by Johann Sebastian Bach,
• Aria from Leoni Variations by John S. Dixon,
• Deo Gracias by Joseph Willcox Jenkins.

Thirty minutes of organ recital at noontime—a great idea that should become a tradition.