Organ Dances (Solo Organ)

The pipe organ has a bit of an image problem. It spends most of its professional life in a church, playing reverently for people who are sitting very still and being on their best behavior. What doesn't get talked about enough is that underneath all that solemnity, it's actually one of the most wildly capable instruments ever built — delicate and whispering one moment, rattling the walls the next, and capable of just about everything in between.

Organ Dances is an attempt to remind the instrument — and the audience — of that range. The piece moves continuously through a series of shifting moods and dance-like characters, from the quieter and more intimate corners of the instrument's personality all the way out to its full, room-filling grandeur. Nobody is sitting still for this one. Well — except the organist. They're pretty busy.