September 2009

Irish Student plays New York

Ruth Clinton, who has just completed the ACCM course, is a final year NCAD student. In June she set off to New York to look for summer work. In the course of her wanderings, she walked into a church to have a look at the organ. Here’s Ruth’s account of what happened.

In south Brooklyn, New York there is a small church called the King's Chapel. In June they were looking for a new organist and I, a hungry student on a three month working visa in America, was looking for a job. I was delighted therefore when the pastor, Ronald Weinbaum, agreed to take me on as a sort of stand-in. He was conducting interviews all summer and so I was able to fill in when there was no candidate to audition. Their hymns are very similar to those in Irish Church Hymnal so I didn’t have too much trouble, but my practice time was very much restricted by the fact that the only available piano was one in a local cafe. They didn’t mind my playing there and the Korean chef even came out of the kitchen to tell me that the music reminded him of his Methodist church back home! Not having music with me, I sourced some in the Brooklyn library and my mum sent more from home. The organ is a 1946 Moeller pneumatic pipe organ and the service lasts two hours with a forty minute sermon ! There are three hymns sung in their entirety; then, using various other hymns, they sing a single verse in response to God’s forgiveness, two verses in response to God’s Word, a Doxology and a psalm at the end. It was a great way to stay in practice over the summer and it gave me a chance to try out another organ!

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