2008 Woodie Awards
Hughes will perform on unique organ
Sinead Devlin Staff Writer
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It looks like a relic of the seventeenth century. With hundreds of pipes and four keyboards, it has all the splendor of the organs that would have filled a Renaissance church with music from powerful hymns to melodic odes. But the college's organ, as if somehow thrown forward in time, is just 23 years old.
"When I'm playing I think about what the musician wrote and how it sounded years ago," says Professor of Music Sarah Mahler Hughes, who serves as the college's organist.
"[The organ] is definitely a certain kind and was intended for certain kinds of music," she says.
Hughes says the organ is particularly well suited for playing music of the Baroque period, but
she will play some contemporary pieces as well in a recital March 6.
But Hughes says that the organ isn't just a replica of an ancient piece, instead it's a blending of classical design and modern technology.
"It's not a historic instrument," Hughes says. "It's a pipe organ, but it's got electric magnets and switches."
That distinctive combination resulted from the work of two former music staff: Assistant Professor of Music Donald Spies and former Instructor of Music Mildred Theil.
Spies, who served the college in the late 1970's, lobbied for
the college to replace its existing organ with a substantially bigger organ that was historically accurate.
Spies' dream came to reality with a donation from Theil, who graduated from Ripon in 1925 and later served as an instructor of music at the college.
The organ, which was named for Theil, has four keyboards, called "manuals" in music jargon, and a full pedal board played with the feet.
"Just playing pedal lines alone takes coordination," says senior Austin Wenker, who played the organ last semester for his senior recital.
"It gets particularly challenging when you combine that with the manuals, because then you're adding a whole other layer of complexity."