Public radio’s ‘Pipedreams’ to air music on Goshen College’s new organ this weekend

GOSHEN, Ind. – Opus 41 – Goshen College’s new organ – will be one of three featured instruments on American Public Media’s “Pipedreams” radio show, a 30-minute program, airing the week of April 24. Regionally, WBNI 89.1-FM in Fort Wayne will air the show on Sunday, April 30 at 7 p.m.

The program will feature several pieces by Bach, performed by Bradley Lehman, a 1986 Goshen College graduate and Goshen native, and Chris Thögersen, an assistant professor of music at Goshen College, as well as an arrangement of Karl Gläser’s “O for a thousand tongues to sing” presented by the St. Joseph Valley Camerata and accompanied by Christine Larson Seitz, assistant professor of music at Goshen College.

This specific program will also feature other “neighboring” pipe organs – all new – including those in St. Chrysostom’s Church in Chicago and Notre Dame University in South Bend, Ind.

Opus 41 was designed by Taylor and Boody Organbuilders of Staunton, Va., and is based upon 18th century North German organbuilding principles. It features more than 1,600 pipes, and a case of carved solid white oak. The key and stop action are mechanical (tracker), with two manuals and a flat pedalboard. The temperament is Johann Sebastian Bach's preferred system, as specified on the title page of the “Well-Tempered Clavier,” 1722. This tuning method was re-discovered by Lehman, a 1986 Goshen College graduate, in 2004 and published in the February and May 2005 issues of “Early Music” magazine. Opus 41 is the first organ since the 18th century to employ Bach's previously lost tuning in its construction. The organ was dedicated in a series of concerts and events May 1 through May 8, 2005.

For a preview of the show, visit: pipedreams.publicradio.org/listings/0617 . For a full listing of the stations that offer “Pipedreams,” visit: pipedreams.publicradio.org/stations/list.php.

Editors: For more information about this release, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a four-year residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S.News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.