Laura Edman, who teaches the organ at UW-River Falls, will be among the performers at a February 24 organ concert at UW-River Falls. Pat Deninger/UWRF photo.

 

RESCHEDULED for Friday, April 21

 

Concert to showcase pipe organ along with musicians performing

Performance of virtuoso organist is part of coffee concert series
 

Feb. 16, 2023 - A concert featuring multiple styles of organ music at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls is intended not only for audience enjoyment but also to raise money to restore the pipe organ musicians will play during the performance. 

The concert, “Laura Edman and Friends,” is at noon on Friday, Feb. 24, in Abbott Concert Hall in the Kleinpell Fine Arts building on campus. It is part of the Frances Cohler Coffee Concert Series. The concert is free and open to the public.

The concert is the third since April showcasing organ performances designed in part to solicit funds to restore the musical instrument, installed in 1974 by Charles Hendrickson who built numerous pipe organs throughout the Midwest. The organ is outdated, and a $130,000 fundraising effort to make improvements to it has been undertaken. Donations can be made at https://www.uwrf.edu/Give/Organ-Restoration-Fund.cfm 

“I’ve tried to put together a concert that shows what you can do with an organ, that it really is a versatile musical instrument,” said Laura Edman, who teaches organ at UW-River Falls and who designed the concert. “And I’m trying to tell the story about how we need to raise money to restore this organ.” 

Renowned organist Aaron David Miller, known for his improvisational playing style, will be among the musicians to play the organ at the concert. He will be the event’s last performer, said Edman.  

“It’s a very special occasion for us to have a world-class improviser, someone of his caliber, performing as part of our concert,” Edman said of Miller, who has won numerous international awards and has had his orchestral works performed by major symphonies.

Among other concert performers is Scott Hyslop, music minister at Zion Lutheran Church and School in Dallas, Texas. Hyslop, a graduate of the UW-River Falls Music Department, will play virtually from Dallas as part of the concert. Edman said she is honored to showcase a former UWRF student as part of the concert.  

Edman will also be a part of the concert, playing “Shade in a Parched Land” on the organ with two percussion players and a narrator. The song is inspired by the poetry of Tom Gillaspy who wrote about his experiences after making mission trips to Kenya through First Presbyterian Church in Stillwater, Minn. 

Miller was commissioned to write a music composition reflecting those poems, and Edman and others will perform that work. The poems for “Shade in a Parched Land” will be narrated by Kathryn Lien, who will also play the organ. Other concert performers include Craig Hara and Joel Bolen.