Organ Recital

This afternoon I went to listen to Dr. Dorothy Riess give an organ recital. Part of our church's growing concert series. Dorothy is turning 77 this year, and is a truly delightful and accomplished human being. She has an interesting biography, starting with her playing piano at the age of four. Oh, I should say here that the reason she's doing this at our church is that she's one of our organists. On with her story; when she was a teenager she studied advance piano at Oklahoma City University, switched to organ when she was 16. She began winning lots of competitions. She studied in France with Marcel Dupre, who was a megaforce in the music and organ world. She was for two years organist-choirmaster at the American church in Rome. She was heard there by a Yale professor and got a scholarship to Yale Graduate Music School. Some changes happened, as they do, and her father died. The result of that was that she did pre-med at Columbia University, at at the age of 33 went to Oklahoma Medical School, and got her MD. From then on she practiced internal medicine until she retired. Quite an accomplished life, and she rocks on the keyboards.

The recital itself was marvelous. She gave a brief history of the pieces and composers, and explained to us the workings of the organ, and gave a great performance. A good afternoon was had by all.