Making the pipes speak for four decades
Ron Pearson was a young boy growing up in a northern Minnesota farming community when he heard his first real organ. Its notes sounded on his parents’ phonograph, from a recording of an organ that Bach himself had played.
He marveled at the instrument’s voice — the power of it, the dynamic range of it, the way its nine octaves could fill a cathedral with thunderous shouts or ride the air as lightly as a whisper.
“There was something about the sound that intrigued me,” Pearson says. “And I was fascinated by how it worked. How is it that you can play a key and somewhere, way up in the ceiling, there’s a pipe that speaks?”
Pearson has been coaxing the pipes to speak for 50 years, 40 of those as the organist at First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa. On Oct. 12 at 4 p.m., he will present his 41st organ concert at the church. On Nov. 21, members of the congregation are invited to join Pearson in the Great Hall for a dinner celebrating his 40-year milestone.
Even Pearson is amazed that four decades have passed since he first took his place at the console of the sanctuary’s mighty Austin organ as a 24-year-old graduate student.
“There’s that saying that time flies when you’re having fun,” he says. “It’s truly been a lot of fun. There are always challenges, of course. But I’m very blessed to be where I am, and it’s been a wonderful ride so far. The congregation has been extremely generous and kind to me and my family, and I’m very grateful for that.”
Pearson’s mother started teaching him piano at age four. When he was a young teen, the Lutheran church his family faithfully attended needed an organist. His mother volunteered him. The departing organist – a college-bound high school senior – told him how to turn the instrument on and push a few buttons, and then young Pearson was on his own.
His mother sought out more advanced instruction 30 miles away in Grand Forks, N.D. His lessons took place, ironically, at First Presbyterian Church there. He recalls how his father took off work to drive him to his lesson and then napped on the back pew.
When he was 17 years old, his home church, Our Savior’s Lutheran in Warren, installed a small pipe organ. Pearson spent every spare moment watching the workmen, asking lots of questions, and learning as much as he could about the basics of organ design and construction. It was valuable training for what was to come.
Pearson studied organ as both an undergraduate and graduate student. As he was finishing his master’s degree at the University of Michigan, an instructor who was from Oklahoma told him about an opening in Tulsa.
Pearson held his first concert just six weeks into his new job at First Church. He knew he was lucky.
The relationship between an organist and the organ is much like that between a ship and its captain, he says. Pearson found himself at the helm of a magnificent instrument, the Austin organ purchased in 1967 by the Sharp family.
He knows every one of its 6,642 pipes by name. He describes it as a complex and delicate tool.
“It’s kind of like a highly tuned sports car that’s got to run on all cylinders at the same time,” he says. “You sort of become one with it.”
But 47 years of collected dirt, including the dust kicked up by the sanctuary’s renovation, and normal wear and tear eventually took a toll on the organ. Last year, work began on rehabilitating the instrument, including professional cleaning of every pipe and a much-needed update to the console.
Barring unforeseen delays, all the pipes are expected to be back in place by Christmas services, he says.
This means his annual organ concert will take place using the small console in the choir loft and the 1,100 pipes in the rear gallery of the sanctuary. Along with classical works by Bach, Mendelssohn and Cesar Franck, the concert will include arrangements of hymn tunes, and a set of variations on the “Star Spangled Banner” by the American composer Dudley Buck, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of our national anthem.
Pearson says he carefully selected each piece to suit the organ’s currently limited capacity, which he likens to a chamber orchestra.
“If you don’t have the equivalent to a 100-piece orchestra, you don’t pick music that requires a 100-piece orchestra,” he explains. “You pick music that will sound good on a smaller set of pipes.”
Each concert requires months of planning and hours upon hours of practice. Even 40 years aren’t enough to quell the nerves that Pearson expects at showtime.
“Your stomach turns. Your fingers sweat. Every year, I say `Why do I do this?’” he says, laughing.
His favorite moments on the bench are likely the ones shared by the congregation: the singing of “Silent Night” by candlelight on Christmas Eve, Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” and Widor’s palm-shaking “Toccata” on Easter morning.
Pearson diligently practices hymns, even though he’s played them again and again. It is the responsibly of the organ and the organist, he says, to be the musical proclaimer of the message on Sunday morning.
“If you don’t get that, you don’t belong on the bench,” he says. “There would be something missing in the interpretation of the hymns. You have to be in tune with the message and trying every Sunday to help deliver the mail, so to speak.”
No two organs are alike. Each is designed to fit a particular space. Perhaps, organists are like that too.
Before Pearson, First Presbyterian Church went through five organists in six years. He came as a young man, met his wife, Joanne, here and raised three daughters.
“I landed in the right place,” he says. “It was a good fit.”