PORTLAND, ME – The Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ (FOKO) is launching “Kotzschmar for Kids,” a two week educational program designed to travel to schools in Maine. FOKO has commissioned organ builder David Wallace of Gorham, Maine to build a small demonstration organ, which has been nicknamed Kotzschmar, Jr., to use as an integral part of this program. The 6th grade classrooms of Topsham’s Mt. Ararat Middle School will be the first to experience “Kotzschmar for Kids,” starting on Monday, January 31.
The organ will remain on site for the full two weeks during which math, science, language arts, social studies and music lessons will all focus on the pipe organ. The students will have an opportunity to examine the mechanisms involved, hear the sound, and play the organ. The “Kotzschmar for Kids” program is based on the PipeWorks curriculum developed by the American Guild of Organists and coordinates with the Maine State Learning Results to support Maine schools’ curriculums.
In the words of builder David Wallace, “one of the very best ways to illustrate a discussion of the pipe organ is to be able to let the intended audience not only hear the sounds of a pipe organ, but also be able to see how the instrument works.” Kotzschmar, Jr. is small and light enough to be easily transported and has a clear plexi-glass back panel so that the internal workings of the organ can be viewed while the organ is played. The Kotzschmar, Jr. is large enough to demonstrate quite a bit of music with a keyboard with 37 keys and pedal board with 27 foot pedals. It has 149 pipes made of both metal and wood. The bellows of the Kotzschmar, Jr. Organ can be hand-pumped, demonstrating how air pressure is fed to the pipes to produce sound, or it can be winded by an electric motor. The Kotzschmar, Jr. is 33” wide, 26” deep and 60” tall.
The Kotzschmar Organ in Merrill Auditorium, by contrast, has 5 keyboards for the hands, a 32-note pedal board for the feet, over 6800 pipes ranging from 1?2 inch to 32 feet in length, over 100 miles of wiring and weighs more than 50 tons.
In addition to its use as part of the “Kotzschmar for Kids” program, it is hoped that the Kotzschmar, Jr. will be used for lectures and demonstrations in various learning situations.
The Kotzschmar Memorial Organ, built in 1912 by the Austin Organ Company of Hartford Connecticut, is this nation’s oldest working municipal organ. It is a permanent fixture of Portland’s Merrill Auditorium.
The Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ (FOKO) was founded as a non-profit organization in 1981 to relieve the City of Portland of the tasks of raising funds for the organ’s care and repairs. They present a wide variety of concerts including a summer classics and pops organ series, a silent film series, Music from the World’s Great Cathedrals series and Meet the King of Instruments (a program for elementary and middle school classes).
For more information regarding this event or for a full schedule of FOKO’s concerts, call Brown Fox Printing, 207-883-9525 or visit FOKO’s website at www.foko.org
GILLIAN BRITT 207-767-6488
gBritt P.R. & Marketing
RUSS BURLEIGH 207- 883-9525
FOKO Executive Director
January 24, 2005
gBritt P.R. & Marketing
