The next event of interest

Cleveland High School Winter Choral Concert

The Cleveland High School music department presents their annual Winter Choral concert with Sam Barbara conducting 

and Jonas Nordwall accompanying on the Kimball organ. 

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

7:00 pm 

Tickets available at the door, $5.00 for admission

There will be a 15 minute pre-concert starting at 6:45 pm and you will not want to miss the Handėl Hallelujah Chorus finale

And if that isn't enough.........................

A review of the Hunchback of Notre Dame Silent Picture Presentation
October 30th, 2009

Last night I attended the showing of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" at
Cleveland High School in Portland, OR.  
David Johnston, was the guest organist and did such a great job keeping our
interest in the movie with his unique registration and score.  He's quite a
musician.  Jonas Nordwall was gracious enough to play a half hour concert
before the movie and it was, as usual, flawless.  He played the theme from
Harry Potter which lends itself very well to the theatre organ.  I only
wished his concert were longer.

The organ, which is a Kimball hybrid, sounds fantastic.  The crew at
Cleveland (Bob MacNeur, Mike Bryant, Robert Kingdom, Jonas Nordwall, Max
Brown, and many others) have spent several months rebuilding and refining
this instrument and it shows.  The first thing I noticed is how silent the
organ is when not being played.  I couldn't hear one wind leak, shutter
blades, or tremulant noise.  The organ speaks very well into the room.  It
can go from very soft and sweet to very loud and powerful in a heartbeat.
The strings and voxes made me melt.  The strings have a nice bite to them
without being too edgy.  The Wurlitzer tibias are gorgeous.  I loved the
fact that I could hear so many individual stops and yet it was cohesive at
the same time.

If you come to the Convention in Seattle next summer,  you'll have the
pleasure of hearing this fine instrument as the convention will travel down
to Portland on one of the days.  You won't be disappointed.  I know I'm
gushing but I think the crew at Cleveland deserve a big thank you for all
their hard work.

By the way, if you'd like to know what they've been doing to the organ at
Cleveland High School, they keep an online diary at:
http://www.theatreorgans.com/oregon/ocatos/kimball326e.htm .

Steven Durham

Local News Item

Pictures from previous 2009 open console events

The last few events have very enjoyable, with good turnout, some new faces and lots of good music.

Thanks to those who have played:

• Mike Bryant
• Jeanette Niewenhuis
• Matt Neil
• Robert Kingdom
• Charles Wolf
• Paul Quarino
• Gary Hughes
• Leonard "Lucky" Lucas
• Marc Gerlack