Installation Spotlight: Conservatorium High School
To continue our series of “65 Stories Celebrating 65 Years,” we reprint an intriguing first-hand narrative, News from the Conservatorium High School, with permission of its author, Mark Quarmby.
In the Summer 2022-23 edition of the Sydney Organ Journal, I wrote about the new organ program which commenced in 2022 at the Con High and asked the question as to what might happen after the students have received their semester of 'Introduction to the Organ' lessons. This question was certainly answered in a very positive way during term 1 of 2023.
Conservatorium High School, Sydney, Australia
The Con High decided they would perform Durufle's Requiem in Holy Week with two performances involving the whole school. They decided to perform the organ and orchestra version (Duruflé composed three versions: organ solo accompaniment, organ and chamber orchestra, and organ with full orchestra). The school chose to hire a Rodgers Infinity organ (model 243) from Principal Organs with many thanks to Kerry Morenos for her wonderful work, support, and enthusiasm. While I am the first to promote the pipe organ, as it turned out, the Rodgers provided many benefits which the Verbrugghen Hall Pogson [pipe organ] would have been unable to provide.
Gaining the access needed for registering, practising and rehearsing on the Pogson organ, particularly with students who were so inexperienced, would have been impossible as the Verbrugghen Hall is used for so many other activities. Would the Pogson organ be able to compete with a sixty- piece orchestra (with the rest of the school forming the choir)? Duruflé is very specific as to the registrations he requires so what would the students use for a loud Flute Harmonique under expression that could sing above the full strings of the orchestra during In Paradisum? Where is the Gamba Celeste and the soft 32' required for the end of most of the soft movements? Where are the fonds with the French Hautbois? Would the Pogson Tutti be able to be heard in the loud moments of the Sanctus and Libera Me particularly with so many brass and loud percussion instruments playing?
The students currently studying organ and those students who had lessons last year were invited to select a movement each to play. There was no begging students to consider playing: all movements were allocated within seconds of my sending out an email! One boy wanted to play half the Requiem and would have wanted to play the lot only that he was required to play the tuba in several movements! Several students were limited in their movement choices due to being required to play in the orchestra in most movements. Phillip Swanton has two students at the Con High studying through the 'Rising Stars' program so they were also invited to play.
About ten days before the first performance (which the State Governor attended), Kerry Morenos arranged to have the organ delivered to the High School. It was placed in the school gym so that students could come and go to practise, and lessons could be held on the instrument without conflicting with other rehearsals and lessons. One teacher joked that this must be the only gym anywhere where an organ gets a greater workout than the gym equipment! It was the same instrument currently being used in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House while the pipe organ is undergoing maintenance.
I went through the organ score and listed every stop that Duruflé asked for. Kerry set the instrument to default to the Cavaillé-Coll voicing and I asked her to program the 'library' stops to include those stops Duruflé required which were not a part of the default specification. We were also able to include two 32' stops: one for purring under the soft strings in the soft movements and a louder one to underpin the full orchestra in the tutti sections. A large number of speakers and subwoofers were connected up once the organ was moved to the Verbrugghen Hall.
To keep things simple, I was able to set up ten general pistons which covered the entire work on the one memory level but this did require the students occasionally to add or subtract couplers by hand and to add the soft 32' by hand. None of the students had any problems doing hand registrations by themselves.
One movement had very difficult registration changes and I arranged for one of the other students who would be free in that movement, to push the general pistons but the student (only in year 9) would not hear of it and insisted she learn to play the notes and push the pistons by herself which she did faultlessly. One student even played their movement from memory! The students ranged from years 9-11.
As my students had only studied baroque music during their semester of lessons, this gave the students a wonderful opportunity to study romantic music and the French Symphonic organ plus accompaniment skills. We had to work on legato playing with finger and foot substitution techniques. They had to learn to use and control the swell pedal plus change registrations while playing. They also had to breathe with the choir and shape their phrases along with the choir and orchestra, particularly when it came to using rubato. They needed to learn to follow a conductor and also be aware that when sitting at an organ console, it is not always the best place to hear the instrument, particularly when surrounded by a choir and orchestra. We also studied French romantic registrations and they were able to hear, albeit in digital reproduction, the sounds that Duruflé and his contemporaries had and were writing for.
Kerry provided a moveable platform for the organ so it was able to be wheeled from room to room for rehearsals with the orchestra and choir which were held in the school. This would have been impossible with the Pogson so all the students were able to practise playing on the same instrument throughout the rehearsals. They were also able to sit within the orchestra. Since Verbrugghen Hall has been rebuilt, the organ is now a long way from the front of the stage and for young students to be expected to be able to keep in time with delays etc. and watch a conductor in a mirror with their backs to him, this would have been expecting a lot for beginners. The Rodgers overcame this problem too.
After the organ was wheeled into Verbrugghen Hall, and the speakers were connected, I sat in the body of the hall for the final rehearsals and took notes so that Kerry could adjust the volume levels of each stop to balance with the orchestra and choir, making it sound authentic. The organ students just loved the opportunity to play and all of them played as well as any professional organist. How many high schools would give their students this kind of experience and how many organists that young would get this opportunity to perform such a significant work?
Following on from last year's organ program, one of the most keen lads is now studying organ as his minor study and has started playing for occasional church services. One of the students emailed me after the performances were over and said, "Thank you so much for your guidance! I am delighted to be a part of the rejuvenation of the organ at the Con High."
The Con High Singers have been studying church music during term 1 and have learnt several anthems from various periods. Instead of just singing them in class, they will be coming to St Stephen's, Macquarie St, to sing them as part of a Sunday morning service. One of the organ students will be accompanying a hymn and playing the postlude.
What can possibly supersede what they achieved in term 1? We are yet to find out.
Rodgers wishes to thank Mark Quarmby for this story, and we congratulate Kerry Morenos of Principal Organs for her enthusiastic and excellent representation of Rodgers Instruments.
