Music continues to be a vociferous part of our Church. Margaret, now entering her 98th year, continues to be in good health. With her biannual maintenance and tuning by Foley Baker, she continues to be our magnificent “Queen of Instruments” as the only real working pipe organ in Pine Plains. I know that one of the reasons some people come to Church is to hear Margaret. She continues to inspire and comfort our congregation. In 2026, we will plan a big birthday bash for Margaret’s centennial!
On Halloween, we again had the Church open for trick-or-treaters, and spooky organ music was played to the enjoyment of all who visited. Huge thanks to Jan Brooks, Jim Petrie, and John & Carol Hart for handing out candy! We had even more kids in costume and their families stop by the Church this year, and several of my students from school also visited (some for a second year in a row). For many, again, this was the first time they’ve ever been in a Church, and they could ask for a tour to see how Margaret works. They see the organ through a secular rather than a religious lens. Like the Christmas Concert, this is becoming a sought-after annual event. Adults and kids alike look forward to stopping by the Church each October 31st between 5 & 8 p.m. This is another wonderful service we provide for our community, and we felt good as we closed the Church up for the night.
The Annual Christmas Concert was, again, a resounding success with over 50 in attendance. New and returning performers made it a very enjoyable afternoon and a wonderful, reinvigorating, and inspirational service to our community during the most joyous time of year. It really spread the holiday spirit! During the offertory, $418 was collected for the Organ Fund. As I mentioned in my Concert remarks, this event is one that is looked forward to by the Town and surrounding communities. It reaches even more people than those in the Church with a recording uploaded to our Facebook page. For 2024, with the way the calendar falls, the Christmas Concert will have to be on a Sunday afternoon – there aren’t enough available Saturdays before Christmas this year. I already have some ideas for performers and performances for this year!
A new idea discussed among some of us (and we’d love to get everyone’s feedback on this!) is having a Summer Organ Concert with an ice cream social – possibly near Independence Day in July. If all the windows and doors in the sanctuary are open, people can easily hear Margaret (and she doesn’t have to be played with all the stops out for this to happen)! For this concert, people could sit inside the Church or outside on the lawn. Ice cream can be secured through Stewart’s Shops free of charge – they constantly donate to nonprofits for community events (like the Grange for Community Day in September), and volunteers could scoop it out and organize the toppings. It could feature patriotic music as well as other festive pieces or combine themes like summer, a composer, or anything else we think of. This can help our Church create more community connections, offer another service to bring people to us and see what we do and who we are, and, as always, music and ice cream makes us feel good, especially on a warm summer day! The more we do, the more visibility our Church has, and the more people may visit us.
It’s been an honor to work with my good friend, Rev. Jan Brooks, as our new Minister. She is very creative, and we’ve discussed ideas on how to use music to bring people to the Church for religious, spiritual, and secular events. I’m excited to see where 2024 will take us, and I hope you are, too!
“Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise. The gift of language combined with the gift of song was given to man that he should proclaim the Word of God through music.”
~ Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)