First Presbyterian Church of Kilgore, Texas has announced the fourth annual East Texas Pipe Organ Festival honoring the life and work of Roy Perry (1906–1978). This year’s festival will take place November 9–14 and will feature seven landmark Aeolian-Skinner pipe organs in the East Texas area designed and tonally finished by Mr. Perry and installed by the Williams Family of New Orleans. As Mr. Perry wrote in a 1952 promotional brochure, “None of these organs is extreme in any direction. They are alike only by way of family resemblance, but each in its way is a work of art. They provide a generous education in contemporary organ building, and are happily concentrated in a small geographical area.”
This year’s special guest performers include David Baskeyfield, George Bozeman, Charles Callahan, the Chenaults, Mark Dwyer, Richard Elliott, Jeremy Filsell, Jean Guillou, Stephen Hartman, Michael Kleinschmidt, Christopher Lynch, Larry Palmer, Walt Strony, and William Teague, with special presentations featuring this year’s guest of honor, Fred Swann. In addition to five organ recitals on Mr. Perry’s masterpiece at First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, there will be two full-length recitals on the 1959 Aeolian-Skinner at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Other highlights of the festival will include a special Dallas day, a choral and organ concert at First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, re-creating the famous 1956 LP recording made in Kilgore by Aeolian-Skinner, “The King of Instruments, Volume X: Music of the Church,” and a concert of music for harp and organ featuring Leo Sowerby’s rarely heard Harp Concerto.
For more information, visit www.EastTexasPipeOrganFestival.com or contact Lorenz Maycher at EastTexasPipeOrganFestival@yahoo.com or by mail at East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, P. O. Box 2069, Kilgore, TX 75663. On Facebook: East Texas Pipe Organ Festival.
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