Q: Why are the arts so important to you and what is your own background in music?
I grew up loving music and learned to play the piano at an early age. Since I lived in New York, I was able, as a kid to visit Carnegie Hall for many concerts on student passes which cost fifty cents in those days. I also was enrolled in Juilliard’s prep division from ages 10-13. It became apparent at that point that I wasn’t going to make music my profession, but it became an important part of my life.
I was first exposed to what a great organist could make a great organ sound like when I was a freshman at Columbia and Virgil Fox was giving recitals on the organ at Riverside Cathedral which was a five-minute walk from campus. I had also grown up with a pipe organ in my Synagogue (a rarity), so I knew how an organ could enhance a religious experience.
I was ordained a Rabbi in 1965 and in the 1970s became the Rabbi of Congregation Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia which also had a pipe organ in its sanctuary, so I was able to further my interest in the organ, although I never learned to play. At the congregation, we instituted a series of concerts using the organ (it was a three manual Austin) which was something that had not been done previously. My family had a summer home on Lake Cobbossee near Augusta, and I became aware that there was an organ in the municipal auditorium in Portland that had been made by the same company that had built my synagogue’s organ. So in the late 1970’s, I began to come to Portland to hear the Kotzschmar when I was on vacation.
By the late 1970s I had left pulpit work and had gone into notfor- profit work in the Jewish community and by the late 1980s my professional career brought me back to New York where I became an active member of Central Synagogue in Manhattan and eventually was chairman of it’s music committee. In 1999, the synagogue, which was a national landmark building, suffered a terrible fire, and the building had to be rebuilt.
The leadership of the congregation decided that it wanted to replace the old Kilgen pipe organ which had been severely damaged in the fire, with a new high end pipe organ. As chair of the music committee, it was my responsibility to lead the committee in deciding what we wanted, then to raise the money for the organ.
We chose Casavant Freres of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. The installation was a 74-rank organ with 4,345 pipes, 55 stops and two consoles (one on the pulpit for ordinary liturgical use, and a much larger one in the choir loft for concerts). The final work of installation was finished in March of 2002 and we celebrated with a concert by David Higgs and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Q. What drew you to the FOKO Board – what interests you most about our programs?
In 2003 my wife, Robin, and I retired to Maine where I started going to Kotzschmar recitals on a regular basis. After one recital, we were invited to a reception at Peter Plumb’s home, where I ran into Chester Cooke, a member of the Kotzschmar board. He had read about the new organ at Central Synagogue in an organ magazine (it was a big deal in organ circles because it was the first major organ installation in a synagogue in many years), and somehow remembered my name from the article which I didn’t know had been written. We ended up talking about the details of the organ which he knew more about than I, and by the time we were finished talking, it became apparent that I should be on the FOKO board.
I am proud to be associated with the Kotzschmar Organ. I believe it is a unique part of the cultural life of Maine. No other city in the United States has a Municipal organ like the Kotzschmar. I especially love to tell my friends from New York, that if they want to hear a symphonic concert that has an organ component with a great pipe organ, they cannot hear it in New York (both Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall use electronic organs) but we are able to hear such concerts on a regular basis.
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