| My interest in
theatre pipe organs began when I started taking lessons with Eric
Smith a prominent Sydney classical and theatre organist He
was the resident organist at the Wesley Chapel Conference Centre in
Pitt St Sydney and had his own practice teaching room in the chapel
with a Yamaha E75 organ. So every Saturday afternoon I would knock off
work in Nowra at 12 and arrive in Pitt St Sydney for my 2:30 lesson with Eric.
Eric expanded my love of organ music to include theatre organ playing
and I started listening to theatre organ recordings.
This all ended when Jill and I
decided to go into business and finding time to practice became too hard. It
wasn't until I retired 20 years later (2006) that I started to look
again at organ playing again.
I then discovered and bought Hauptwerks V2 software to play theatre organ samples on my PC. I used
my Technics KN7000 keyboard and a Roland MIDI pedal board to play it.
It wasn't until 2020 that I built a mockup 4 manual VTPO so that I
could play it properly.
My first time playing the real
thing was at the Theatre Organ Society 50 year celebration of music in
South Australia in 2015 at the Adelaide Capri Theatre. Jelani
Eddington was out from the USA so I travelled there to hear him
live. On the last day of the festival they were offering time at the
console in the morning and then travelling on to view a classical pipe
organ in the afternoon. I asked If I could go last and stay back for
extra time as the rest of the group moved on to the next organ.
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