Life & Work

The organ brings back rich sound of church music

This week’s visit to Kenya by Pope Francis has been the perfect opportunity to shine the spotlight on the church organ, an instrument that has all but disappeared in churches in Kenya. The papal Mass choir was led by conductor and music director Wafula Mukasa who was accompanied by Austrian organist Michael Koenig.

It is well known that the Pope prefers the music of the church organ when celebrating outdoor mass just as he did during his visit to the US in September this year because it is the closest sound you could get to a magnificent pipe organ in a cathedral. The church organ captures the tradition and grandeur of a papal Mass.

“A pipe organ takes up to one month to install, it is twice the size of a room where we are seated. It’s like building a house,” explains Koenig as he stretches his hands as if to illustrate the size of an organ.

Currently, pipe organs are extremely rare in Kenyan churches with the exception of St Andrews PCEA in Nairobi and All Saints Cathedral whose organ was installed in 1934 and cannot be moved because it is built into the floor.

Other pipe organs can be found at St Stephen’s Jogoo Road, St Peter Claver’s, Alliance High School, St Christopher’s Nakuru and the Anglican Cathedral in Eldoret.

A Rodgers organ (Artist Series 579) like the one played by Koenig at the papal Mass in Nairobi emulates the centuries-old instrument by digitally recording the sound from actual pipes and storing this sound in memory so that it mirrors that of the pipe organ.

“A digital organ has all sounds that you would get from a pipe organ; it doesn’t require any maintenance and all you have to do is protect the instrument from a power surge,” says Koenig.

A pipe organ, on the other hand, has to be maintained twice a year for two or three days of service at a time, a bit like a car, according to the organist. There are only two people who are qualified to service a pipe organ like the one at All Saints Cathedral or at St Andrews.

With 2,000 pipes all hand-made from lead, a pipe organ is still the ideal model and these are still found in many churches around the world.

“I was asked to play the organ in a specific way that may not be too familiar to the congregation and I have been so glad to share the experience of what an organ may sound like in a European cathedral,” says Koenig.

Organ ambassador

Last December, Koenig, who is an international concert organist, was invited to Kenya to perform at a Christmas concert at the New Apostolic Church in South C. A member of that church, Harald Birk, is the Kenyan representative for Rodgers, the American instrument manufacturer that has installed 20,000 organs around the world since 1958.

Koenig has been connected to Rodgers for about 10 years as an international ambassador for the organ and since that first trip to Kenya, he has been back four times for various performances culminating in the papal Mass this week.

“I have shuttled between Lagos, Nairobi and other towns in Kenya in the last one month,” says Koenig. “I was in Kitale for a church music festival, left for Nigeria and then returned to Nairobi to rehearse with the choir that performed for the Pope this week.”

When the music director and conductor Mukasa first met Koenig in June this year, they discussed the national choir festival organised by the Catholic Church in Kitale and Koenig immediately contacted Rodgers in the US seeking support for the event.

“Michael is sensitive towards helping other people develop their musical acumen, especially church music. When he heard about the music festival, it reminded him about a similar concept in Europe that brings multitudes of people together,” says Wafula.

Koenig was eager to get on board and listen to the choirs so that he could contribute to the event and eventually became the official organist for the festival. Meanwhile, Rodgers shipped the organ to Mombasa from where the instrument was transported to Kitale in time for the October 31 event.

It is this organ that Koenig played to accompany some of the choirs that took part in the festival in Kitale – an event that featured 130 church choirs and 5,000 singers competing in four categories.

“In Kitale, there was no chance to rehearse with the choirs and so the conductors just used universal signs to communicate, which is proof that music is an international language,” says Koenig.

After the Kitale concert, Koenig travelled to Nigeria to perform at a concert for the Musical Society of Nigeria. Earlier in October, he also played the organ during the National Catholic Eucharistic Congress at the National Shrine of Mary in Subukia.

“I was assisting a local organist and played some parts of the festal service myself. This was the first time many of the 20,000 people in attendance were hearing an organ.”

Most church music in Kenya is now played on the keyboard and the organ has all but disappeared.

“The keyboard provides the harmonies and instrumentation but whenever it is played in church, the music sounds distinctly pop and not Christian,” says Wafula.

Koenig’s view is that while the church has to serve the tastes of modern times, it is also important that the legacy of the solemn, sober sound of Christian music is maintained.

The Kenyan Conference of Catholic Bishops aims to reintroduce organ music in the church and has set up a body known as the Catholic Liturgical Music Association of Kenya that brings together all the musicians of the church to promote church music through annual festivals.

“The organ is like an orchestra with many different sounds, unlike a piano which has just one sound. My mission is to expose good church music especially because the church still plays such an important role in people’s lives in Kenya.”

The music for the Papal Mass performed by 360 singers from 12 different choirs from four different dioceses (Nairobi, Machakos, Ngong, military and the universities) consisted of traditional Kenyan songs and European style hymns, performed to the accompaniment of the organ.

The choir actually prepared more than 80 pieces of music including a Latin rendition of the Lord’s Prayer in the form of Gregorian chants sang just before Holy Communion. Mukasa has been a member of various choirs since 1986, including the one that performed during the papal visit to Kenya in 1995.

The conductor, who is also a music tutor at Technical University of Kenya, explains that the selected songs for this visit were sent out to the different choirs in August to rehearse on their own and then all the singers got together in November with the director and the organist.

Music education

Koenig started playing the organ at the age of 12, and then studied music at university (organ performance) for five years, and another eight years to attain his Master’s degree in church music and orchestral and choir conducting. He also trained in music education and production of classical music and is currently working with Rodgers to develop affordable and high quality organ education.

“Rodgers are not just interested in getting a market for their instruments; the objective is to have organists in Kenya who are well-trained and can develop an organ music culture in the country.”

The company donated the movable organ free of charge, paid for its shipment to Kenya and has sponsored Koenig’s trip to the country.

In June, a group of 15 church organists met at the United Kenya Club in Nairobi, and Koenig says that bringing musicians from different denominations, from Catholic to Apostolic, for a rare networking session resulted in extraordinary creative energy.

The plan is to start by providing small, high quality instruments for training piano teachers on the organ early next year and at the same time launch the Kenyan chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Affiliation to this respected professional body for organists in the world will create opportunities for inter-denominational level workshops, concerts and networking with peers around the world.

“Every time I touch the keys of the organ, I am overwhelmed by the beauty of its sound even though I have played the instrument for more than 30 years now. It’s such a joy every time I am playing the organ,” says Koenig.

A Rodgers Infinity 361 organ, the second biggest model built by the American company, has just been installed at the newly constructed St. Francis Church in Karen. Koenig has spent long hours at the church in the last few weeks during the installation of the instrument and ensuring that the balance of the sound conforms to the acoustics of the massive church.

After the consecration of the church and the instrument last Sunday, he will play the inaugural concert at the church tomorrow evening from 6pm. The concert repertoire will feature several organ pieces by composers like J.S Bach, George Frideric Handel, Leon Boellmann and Erik Bedard.

Koenig will also perform a piece that he has composed specifically for the occasion.

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John Dixon, organist emeritus

John Dixon was born in the UK in 1930 and learnt the piano as a child. He first heard the organ through the radio and later played the instrument in his school chapel.

Dixon first came to East Africa in 1952 to work in the Survey department of the colonial government. He played the organ at a church in Entebbe and would also carry out maintenance on the instrument.

He’s been in charge of tuning and maintaining the organ at All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi since 1972 and officially relocated to Kenya after 1981.

In 1985, Dixon took on Benjamin Ogolla who was then a choir member with the All Saints Choir as his apprentice. Today, Ogolla is the choirmaster of the main choir at the Cathedral and still works on the church organ with Dixon.

Dixon is also a life member of the Nairobi Music Society.