It’s not as easy as it looks.

From day one, you are taught to always sit in the middle of the organ bench so you can develop a sense of where the pedals are without looking.

So if I were to play a duet with someone else on the organ, I would be discombobulated.

This Sunday, March 5th at 5:00 pm, there will be a solo and duet recital with Paul Tegels and Dana Robinson, both college organ professors, on the Beckerath organ at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. Both hold degrees from the New England Conservatory in Boston and the University of Iowa. They have concertized in solo and duet performances in the US, Europe, New Zealand, and Japan.

The program will include works of Bach, Mozart, and Mendelssohn (including a new 4-hand organ arrangement of the last two movements of the Reformation Symphony).

Paul Tegels, a native of the Netherlands, is Associate Professor of Music, and serves as University Organist at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA.. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Organ Performance and Pedagogy and his Master of Arts Degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Iowa, where he studied organ with Delores Bruch, and choral conducting with William Hatcher.

Other degrees and awards include the Artist Diploma and the Master of Music Degree in organ performance from the New England Conservatory in Boston where he studied with Yuko Hayashi and William Porter.  He is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship from the Netherlands-America Commission for Educational Exchange.

He holds the teaching and performance degrees from the Stedelijk Conservatorium in Arnhem, The Netherlands, where he studied organ with Bert Matter and harpsichord with Cees Rosenhart. He has done extensive research on the organ and harpsichord concertos of Franz Joseph Haydn, and has played the first American performance of the Haydn Organ Concerto in D, Hoboken XVIII-2, of which he has prepared a performance edition.

He is the past dean of the Tacoma Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and is currently president of the Westfield Center, a national resource for the advancement of Keyboard Music.

Prior to his appointment at PLU, he taught at Bethany College in Lindsborg, KS.

Dr. Tegels is a good friend of Scott Fikse, the present Director of Music and Liturgy at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. He was also the teacher of my former student, Miki Yamamoto, who graduated from Pacific Lutheran University.

Dana Robinson teaches at the University of Illinois. A native of Boston, has performed on some of the most significant modern and historic organs in the United States, and has presented recitals, master classes, and lectures for the Boston and River Valley chapters of the American Guild of Organists, the Round Lake Historical Society, Boston’s First Night festival, Methuen Memorial Music Hall, the Old West Organ Society, Baroque Artists of Champaign, and the National Convention of the Organ Historical Society. He has also appeared with The Boston Cècelia, Baroque Artists of Champaign, and with Dutch organist Paul Tegels, with whom he gives frequent duet recitals. His performances are frequently featured on the nationally syndicated radio program, Pipedreams.

An active church musician, Professor Robinson has served as organist and choir master of Trinity Cathedral in Davenport, Iowa, and as organist and director of music for the Center of Faith and Life at Luther College. Professor Robinson is presently organist of Grace Lutheran Church in Champaign. He has held teaching appointments at Central College of Iowa, and Luther College. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Professor Robinson won the Youth Concerts at Symphony Hall Concerto Competition, and First Prize in the Arthur Poister Competition. In 1988 he received the Frank Huntington Beebe Grant for study abroad. His principal teachers include George Faxon, Yuko Hayashi, Harald Vogel, and Delbert Disselhorst, and pianists Julius Chaloff and Kenneth Amada.

The concert is free and donations are welcome.