Halloweenthemed concert set for Sunday

The P.E.I. Centre of the Royal Canadian College of Organists is getting set to continue its fun tradition of presenting the pipe organ in a more theatrical light through a special Halloweenthemed concert.

“Spook Organa!”, to be held Sunday, Oct. 28, 7:30 p.m., at St. Peter’s Cathedral, All Souls’ Lane, Charlottetown, gives the Island’s most accomplished organists a chance to let their hair down (if they still have any), dress up in outrageous costumes (not a stretch for some given their everyday garb) and play music that has no business being performed during a church service.

Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber unleashed his “Phantom of the Opera” on audiences in 1986 with its thunderous organ

solo in the “Overture”, the pipe organ has been identified with Gothic grandiosity and dramatic theatricality.

It’s all the more surprising, since most people today only hear the organ used in church where it is not given free rein to demonstrate itself as the king of instruments, a title richly deserved, given its size and immensity of sound.

That will change Sunday night as concert highlights will include the “Funeral March of a Marionette” (aka the “Alfred Hitchcock Theme”), “Spookie Boogie Woogie”, the “Toccata” from Boellmann’s “Gothic Suite” and, of course “Phantom of the Opera”.

Performers include Don Fraser, Ann Francis, Gloria Jay, Louise Elder, Susan Stensch, Tom Loney and Leo Marchildon.

Admission is by free-will offering with proceeds going to the RCCO’s scholarship fund. The audience is encouraged to join in the fun by attending in costume.