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Baroque Celebration

Robert Nickel, organist with Hope United Church of Christ in Sturgeon Bay, plays on the church’s Dobson pipe organ. The organ was installed at the church 25 years ago this month.

A concert at 2 pm Sunday, Dec. 7, at Hope United Church of Christ in Sturgeon Bay will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the installation of the church’s Dobson pipe organ. The public is cordially invited to attend.

Dr. Sarah Mahler Kraaz, professor of music, college organist and chair of the music department at Ripon College, will be the featured recitalist. The program will also include performances by: Mary Hall, soprano and flutist, Hope’s choir director; and David Robertson, baritone, director of choirs for the Algoma School District.

Dr. Kraaz, director of Ripon’s Collegium Musicum for 25 years, was a visiting affiliated scholar in Florence, was the only American to appear as a guest recitalist at the XVI Festival Internazionale Storici Organi della Valsesia in Campertogno, Italy, and has also performed in Scotland and Germany, as well as throughout the United States.

“I am excited to be a part of this program at Hope Church with Mary and David,” she said. “It is wonderful to participate in such a special occasion and to have the opportunity to play their Dobson organ.”

Robert Nickel, Hope’s organist, arranged the program that features music for the liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany.

Dobson pipe organ at Hope United Church of Christ in Sturgeon Bay.

“This seems especially appropriate,” he said, “since the organ was first used and blessed on Christmas Eve morning, Dec. 24, 1989.”

Four selections by Bach are included, along with works by modern composers and arrangers Charles Callahan, Michael Burkhardt, Patrick Liebergen, David Willcocks, Neil Harmon and Wilbur Held, as well as Alexandre Guilmont of the Romanatic period and Nicolas Lebègue, Jean-Francois Dandrieu and Dietrich Buxtehude of the Baroque period.

The 904-pipe Opus 47 organ – meaning that it was the 47th designed and built by Lynn Dobson of Lake City, Iowa – is “voiced” in a Baroque style, capable of producing the kind of sound available to musicians of that period, and is versatile in its use for church services and accompanying vocal and instrumental soloists. Nickel describes it as a “tracker-action” organ that operates mechanically, with electricity used only to turn on the blower and supply the wind.

“When you look inside, you can see the parts moving,” he said.

The organ’s pipework was custom made in Germany. A vanload of organ parts arrived in Sturgeon Bay in late November 1989. It took a week for a crew from Dobson Pipe Organ Builders to assemble the organ and another week for the tonal finishing work to be completed.

The Dec. 7 program will be the sixth in a series of special recitals since the Dec. 24, 1989 dedication of the organ. It will include one intermission. A reception in the fellowship hall will follow the recital. The freewill offering will benefit the church’s ENHANCE Hope campaign. Hope Church is located at 141 S. 12th Ave.