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Donnie Rankin in Concert

With Hannah Feely in "Duets"

May 4th 2012

Organ and Piano duets, drums and live projected video

AGO Pipe Organ Encounter
July 11, 2011 - 2:00 PM

Pipe Organ Encounters are an AGO sponsored educational outreach programs to young organists aged 13 to 18. This is the second time AGO has hosted a POE in Portland. 24 young organists participated this year, and here were five public events that occurred at various venues around Portland.

Monday, July 11, OCATOS and Portland chapter of the AGO sponsored an event at Portland’s Cleveland high school featuring Jonas Nordwall at the 3/21 Kimball pipe organ. Jonas played a short program of pieces that really demonstrated the Theatre organ, including “Hora Staccato” and “Hindustan”. Jonas also gave a tonal tour of the Theatre organ, then proceeded to the silent picture presentation. The movie was Buster Keatons’ “The Balloonatic”. Jonas played as fine a score as I have ever heard him play. What made this even more amazing, as it was Jonas’ second viewing of the film. After the presentation there was a organ crawl chamber tour. There were about 100 or so overall in attendance.

This presentation gave the young organists another view of the organ in general and its role in American entertainment and musical art form.
Many thanks to Mike Bryant and Marc Gerlach for logistics and especially to Gary Hughes for the loan of the DLP projector and DVD player. Gary actually saved the day, as the DVD Jonas had would not play on the DVD player. Gary had a Buster Keaton DVD with him and that was the one we used.
Also, thanks to Dr. Wally Krueger for organizing the POE event in Portland.

CHS Winter Choral Concert

Thursday, December 16th, 2010 - 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM

Once again, the Kimball organ did one of its other jobs, accompanying the Cleveland High School choral groups during their annual Winter choral concert. Last years performance was spectacular and this one was the equal. Mrs. Kathryn Giffert conducted the choral groups and Chris Nordwall accompanied playing the Kimball organ. The Handel Hallelujah Chorus, with the combined choirs and past alumni singing onstage was the Finale.

Click here for a video clip

Multnomah day of the National ATOS Convention

July 1st, 2010

featuring

Donna Parker and Jonas Nordwall

and special guests

Micha Bison, Jelani Eddington and Rebecca Anderson

Outside the Box, Part Deux

Nathan Avakian

May 5th, 2010

A reprise of the original Outside the Box program, featuring Nathan Avakian, singer Claire Avakian, silent comedian Angel Ocasio, and the Northwest Fusion dance company.

Cleveland High School Winter Choral Concert

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

The Cleveland High School music department presented their annual Winter Choral concert with Sam Barbara conducting and Jonas Nordwall accompanying on the Kimball organ.

There was a 25 minute pre-concert played by Jonas Nordwall starting at 6:35 pm and the evenings' performance ended with the Handël Hallelujah Chorus.

Video clips can be seen by clicking here and here.

The various choral groups under the direction of Sam Barbara were superb and the selection pieces performed was diverse and eclectic. This was not an organ event so much as it was an opportunity for the organ to be used in a supporting role to the various choral groups. Jonas used the organ in both traditional modes and in quasi theater organ mode to accompany the choral groups on five different pieces during the two hour concert. This was the first time the organ was used in this capacity since the organ was installed almost twenty years ago. Since there were in excess of 800 people in attendance, this event had the largest audience for a theater organ in the Portland metro area in many years.
Oregon chapter is indeed lucky to have this environment where the organ is valued, appreciated and installed in a good acoustical environment. Many thanks to the OCATOS volunteers who sacrificed many hours of time to allow this to happen, and very special thanks to Jonas Nordwall (a Cleveland High school alumni).

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

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


Post Rehearsal jam session by CHS students (photo: Jerry Hertel)	From the Concert program