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A conversation with Stephen Tharp--continued

January 16, 2004
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Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of THE DIAPASON.

It is so exciting to take a piece of early music and find the rhythmic flexibilities within isolated motives, give and take within a smaller metric framework, good and bad, strong and weak beats.  This is just as challenging as holding together a 15-minute Romantic work like Franck's Prière, or shaping inner phrases with intense subtlety. I would argue that this kind of differentiation IS what communicates the most evocative nature of our instrument, and there is no reason that this cannot be done in an educated way. Mixing things up just for the sake of communication, color, etc., actually has, I believe, the opposite effect of the one intended. I think that playing the organ this way is not more colorful, more expressive, but ultimately less, because it cuts off the true potential of the instrument's diversity--diversity of style and all of the rhetoric implied by speaking different languages with convincing accents. This goes for transcriptions as much as for early music, Romanticism, or modern music. There is a time and place for everything, and if you communicate intelligently, creatively, and artistically, with an esthetic awareness and informed good taste, ALL things have a justified place.

JR: Since you're not part of a church staff anymore, how do you handle the practicing issue? Do you have an instrument where you reside--or how do you get enough practice time in?

ST: That's a tricky question. The answer is, sometimes I don't. Without a regular gig you have to rely on the generosity of your colleagues.

JR:The kindness of strangers!

ST: (chuckles) The kindness of strangers, or sometimes even the kindness but complexity of friends. You know, New York City can be especially quirky that way. I can't always go to a church and say "Can I come and use this organ?" You call someone and say "I'd like to come for two hours and bring a student over to look at some music on your instrument; it has a big acoustic and they'd like to learn from that, could we come over for an afternoon?" They say, "Sure." If you say, "Could I practice two or three days a week?" then it's "Well, you know the schedule. . . ."

There's often some monkey wrench. So I've found a few churches that have been very, very kind to me and I sort of play musical chairs among them. Every now and then I might play a wedding or a little mini-concert or something for them for free as a way of saying thank you, and that way you get a practice organ one place or another, usually 4 to 5 days a week. I've been very lucky that way for the past two years. It's a lot of juggling and a lot of being very creative because it's the one thing you want to be consistent and simple.

On the other hand, it wasn't always better having a big church job--St. Patrick's can be like Grand Central Station. Such a crossroads of tourists and masses and weddings and all that going on. You could never use the organ during regular business hours because of the number of people in the building, and for the longest time you couldn't use the organ at all after dark because they put on the security system--so you couldn't practice during the day when it was open, and you couldn't practice at night when it was closed. St. Bart's was easier, because they couldn't care less when you practiced, as long as nothing else was happening. But as the place got bigger and busier, and more outside groups would come in from rentals and things like that, the schedule became such that I couldn't get in enough time there either. That's one of the first things that made me realize, "Look, this has been a great four years, but the place is getting so big and busy, it's getting in the way of other things." And it was impossible to dance around that much and get the amount of practice and travel time that I needed. So, it's always been that way--it's not walking down the street to the Methodist church and then I can have the organ six hours a day--I think the majority of organists kind of have that luxury--and unfortunately that's not the case, but somehow I'm making it work anyway, moment by moment. (laughter)

JR: Well, I'm curious. Do you have any new commissioned works on the horizon?

ST: I've mentioned that in 2004, I've got a new piece coming from Bruce Neswick which will be a set of variations on the hymn tune Rouen, which is such a strong hymn. I haven't worked out exactly where to premiere it and whatnot yet, but definitely 2004, probably in the spring.

And in 2005 I'm getting a big piece from Samuel Adler, either a big symphonic poem or an organ symphony of some kind, which will probably get premiered in Germany. He's writing a big orchestral piece for the 300th anniversary of the Mannheim Symphony Orchestra that's getting done in March of 2005 and his idea was, well, if you're interested in doing this in Europe, or in Germany, why don't we do that, because I'm there, and another piece is being done the same time anyway. I have some even bigger plans in the works after that, something with organ and orchestra, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag on that one yet.

But I think it's time that we had something from a major mainstream American composer, something with orchestra, an organ concerto--we really haven't had anything like this in a while. It's certainly something we need.  We have all these wonderful new instruments now, and more symphony halls than ever before have new modern instruments, and it's certainly time to take advantage of it. That's part of the goal too, just always push the envelope and say something fresh, you keep things going, that is so vital. That's sort of what's planned.

JR: Where do you see life going for you? Are you going to continue on this basis for a while? Are you happy with the way things are going for you?

ST: Oh, I think so, in general. I've put my whole life into doing this and it's ended up this way. And sometimes it's stressful but it really is ultimately exactly what I wanted. And as long as there's a way to do that I'm going to stay this course, and that's exactly what I'm doing.

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