The organ recital series at the First Congregational Church of Marion will continue on Sunday, May 21 at 5:00 pm with a program of music specially selected to show off the church’s historic 1883 George S. Hutchings mechanical-action organ.
Soloist Robert Jan August was educated in the Netherlands and the United States. He has toured and recorded in Europe and the United States and is currently director of music at Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, Connecticut. While pursuing his doctoral degree at the New England Conservatory of Music, he served as assistant university organist at Memorial Church at Harvard University. In 2010, his doctoral thesis, An Old Look at Schumann’s Organ Works, was published in the United States and Europe, celebrating the composer’s 200th birthday.
In addition to works by Robert Schumann, J.S. Bach, and J.C.H. Rinck, Mr. August has chosen music by two towering musical figures with connections to Marion: Charles-Marie Widor and Carl Ruggles.
Widor, who was a leader in the revival of French sacred music in the late-19th century, taught harmony in the 1920s to Mary Parker Converse, later known as “Capt. Mary” after becoming an officer in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Her musical notebook in Widor’s hand was donated in 2015 to the prestigious Sibley Music Library at Eastman School of Music by Marion pianist Sheila Converse.
A direct descendant of the Rev. Timothy Ruggles, the church’s third minister, Ruggles was born on his grandfather’s farm in East Marion, now the golf course at The Kittansett Club. As a boy, he played violin in violin-piano duets with President Grover Cleveland’s young wife Frances, when she was a summer visitor. Often linked with Charles Ives as “an American original,” Ruggles wrote uncompromising but often beautiful and dynamic music. His evocative Angels will be played as part of “Three People in New England,” a suite that includes works by Charles Ives and John Knowles Paine.
The First Congregational Church in Marion was built in 1841. In early 1884, a new organ by noted builder George S. Hutchings was installed with the help of a gift from local philanthropist Elizabeth Taber. Since 2015, the church has presented recitals on this organ by outstanding organists, including Christa Rakich, Stephen Young, Carson Cooman, and Jeremy Bruns.
Tickets for the recitals are $10 and may be purchased at The Bookstall on Front Street in Marion and at the door. For more information and reservations, call 508-748-1053. The First Congregational Church, located at 28 Main Street at the corner of Front and Main in Marion, is handicapped accessible.