On January 10, James Welch returned to the University of California, Santa Barbara, for a performance on the Flentrop organ. Welch was university organist at UCSB from 1977–1993; since that time he has been at Santa Clara University. The program, the first formal recital presented on the instrument since Welch’s departure from UCSB in 1993, was a dual commemoration: first, for the four decades of the 18-rank Flentrop organ, installed in 1972; and second, for the 40th anniversary of the death of musicologist Karl Geiringer, who taught at UCSB.
In honor of Dr. Geiringer, the first half of the program was music of Bach; the second half focused on California composers, including Emma Lou Diemer, emerita faculty member of the UCSB music department, who was represented with her composition Declarations, written in 1973 for the newly installed Flentrop, and her setting of the traditional Mormon pioneer hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” Also performed were hymn preludes from Interstellar Diocese by UCSB composer and organist Jeremy Haladyna, works by Richard Purvis, Dale Wood, and even “Swinging Bach,” Porter Heaps’s Hammond-inspired setting of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The program was co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara AGO Chapter, Charles Talmadge, Dean.
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