July 2001

Cover

Aeolian-Skinner opus 1015 (1940), restored 2001 by
Thomas-Pierce, Inc., Palm Beach, Florida

Music room of Thomas R. Thomas and J. Steven McCall, West
Palm Beach, Florida

Ronald Edward Ballard,
of Little Rock, Arkansas, died on January 23, from kidney, liver, and heart
disease. Born on January 9, 1947, in North Little Rock, he was a graduate of
Oklahoma Baptist University. He wrote theater and concert reviews for the Spectrum
and Arkansas Times and was business administrator for Stanton Road School and
First Christian Church in Little Rock.

Sunday, July 30, 2000 was the 250th anniversary of the death
of Johann Sebastian Bach, and throughout Thüringen there were major
celebrations to honor the day.  In
Arnstadt, where in 1703 a very young Bach took on the post of organist at the
Neue Kirche (now known as the Bachkirche), there was a special religious
service that featured the organ and Bach's choral music sung by invited
choirs from other parts of Germany.

In 1988 the County of Los Angeles received its largest gift
ever of $50,000,000 from Mrs. Lillian Disney, the widow of the late Walt
Disney, for the construction of a new music hall for the Los Angeles
Philharmonic Orchestra. To be known as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, this new
edifice was to stand on land which had been set aside for this purpose in 1964
when a major complex of three performance halls and theaters was completed.
Also received for an organ was a $1,000,000 gift from the Toyota Motor Corporation.