Yesterday’s text message from organist Dan Werning, now living in Bangkok, Thailand, introduced us to Okey Okafor, Nigerian organist at Christ Church. I was so fascinated by Okey’s story that Dan encouraged me to write to him!

My musical journey started started when I was a kid. My father was an organist in a church in Nigeria where I come from. We had a bellow organ at home and as a kid I developed interest in music having heard my father played the organ. Sometimes I would go to the organ to play with the notes. At a point I started making reasonable sounds by combining a number of notes.

When my father saw the interest he started teaching me how to read music, using a book called “Smallwood tutor” which was very popular in Nigeria at that time. I picked up so quickly that at the age of 14, I became a church organist, played in churches around my state of origin.

Along the line, I started developing on my own, playing piano pieces accompanying choirs during singing competitions etc. My first encounter with a pipe organ – (Digital organ anyway) came when I was the resident organist at a cathedral church in my state – (Anambra state, Nigeria). The cathedral church bought a Viscount Prestige 1 digital pipe organ. As a result of that, I was challenged to learn how to play a pipe organ. Fortunately I met someone – a Nigerian pipe organist who guided me through the fundamentals of pipe organ playing. I then challenged myself through self studies, reading about organs and organ techniques, watched a lot of YouTube videos of many organ scholars.

Many organists that I came across on YouTube who inspired me were Diane Bish, Samuel Metzer, John Scott, Cameron Carpenter, Dr. Carol Williams and so on. I also learnt from many organist from around the world who became my friends though a facebook page meant for organists which I belong to. There, I saw different organists and their styles.

I came to Thailand in 2013, did my masters degree in Business administration (M.B.A) at Stamford International University, Bangkok. After that I started working and fortunately I found a pipe organ at Christ Church Bangkok. At first I occasionally played until their music director who was the only organist at the time left the church, then I became in charge of music till date.

The organ at Christ Church Bangkok was built by Henry Willis in 1904. It has two manuals and pedal and is the only pipe organ in Thailand. According to a post called “Pipe Organs of Thailand,” in 1975, the organ had become all but unusable, but rather than replace it, it was rebuilt by Peter Scott, the Manager of DuPont Chemicals (Thailand), with advice and diagrams from Henry Willis IV. Henry Willis himself came from the United Kingdom for two weeks to finish the rebuild.

Dan Werning made special note of the hymns at yesterday’s Easter service: As a musician, you might enjoy the congregational treatment they gave to the “Hamburg” tune arrangement of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”! For the “See, from his hands” stanza, we sang it in MINOR! It actually worked, and the congregation didn’t seem to have too much trouble adjusting. However, they raised the last, major stanza of the hymn a FOURTH! Really no one except the praise singers were able to sing that. Anyway, all around interesting service and music. It was Easter in Bangkok, the best we could do!

Meanwhile, Dan reports that he has 715 organ pieces recorded, about 29 hours and 22 minutes worth, in his “insane” project of recording every single piece of organ music he owns (He’s crazy!) Go to his YouTube channel, “All My Music” for a playlist. May 3rd will mark the one year mark of his project.