Hawaii Tribune-Herald Island Beat Thursday, March 9, 2017 11 organ to be heard by music lovers on the Big Island.” The music of the Higashi Hongwanji organ is produced by more than 1,600 pipes that range in size from the length of a pencil to 16 feet long. The pipes consist of 27 different voices and produce the musical variety of a full symphony orchestra. “I have helped Scott Bosch maintain the beautiful, old Wicks organ at Higashi Hongwanji several times a year since retiring to Hilo in 2004, and have always viewed it as an unknown ‘diamond’ that needed to be heard by the local community,” says Mazurowski, an AGO member and organist at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hilo. “It is truly a concert instrument with beautiful gilded, exposed pipework and excellent acoustics. Music lovers in Hilo will simply be delighted to discover this amazing instrument played under the hands of such an amazing artist like Joey Fala.” Mazurowski says that the program will showcase the many capabilities of the instrument. “(Audiences will hear) whisper soft Erzahler stops, fiery trumpets and heart-stopping, thunderous, full organ sounds,” he says. “Isn’t it interesting that music written over the last 400 years is still stirring to the soul?” “There are a handful of landmark organs in the world, usually large instruments in vast spaces with inspiring acoustics,” Fala says. “While it’s exciting and gratifying to give recitals in some of these venues, there’s always something special about performing for a more intimate audience in a setting like the Hilo Hongwanji. “Often, the people who come to a program like this aren’t necessarily frequenters of organ recitals, or even classical music performances. Many come with an open mind, to hear something new. I get to share with them music I love on an instrument that is not so familiar to them, and as a performer that’s a really enjoyable audience to play for.” Fala says it’s hard to say exactly how many organs he’s played on through the years, but he estimates nearly 100 everywhere from Hawaii to California to the East Coast, Canada and Europe. “Playing the organ is so different from any other musical instrument because every organ you encounter is so drastically different,” Fala says. “Each instrument is custom designed and built for the space it resides in. There’s no standard on how many keys you’ll have, their positioning or the layout of controls. “Then there’s the more artistic side: the tonal palettes vary in size and style, the variety of sounds available on one instrument are completely different than another.” The closest thing he says he can liken it to is if you showed up in a kitchen where you had no idea which ingredients would be available for you to use. “The success of a performance is largely due in part to the way an organist is able to adapt his or her repertoire to the strengths and shortcomings of each instrument,” he says. “Some people see it as an added stress. For me, it’s part of what makes playing the organ so exciting. There’s a lot more variability between the way organists render a given piece due to this productive challenge.” A Honolulu native and 2010 graduate of Iolani School, Fala served as organ scholar at Central Union Church through his high school years. He is currently finishing his last year in the master’s of music in organ performance at Yale University’s School of Music. Fala says his plans after graduation aren’t set in stone. “I really enjoy performing and would love a career in concertizing, but have also come to have a deep appreciation for sacred music — the organ being so intrinsically attached to the church. I’m still trying to determine how I would like to balance both of these passions. I also miss my island home and would some day hope to return, but that adds its own challenges since there are far fewer work opportunities as an organist in Hawaii than there are on the mainland, especially when it comes to concert performance.” It wasn’t always about the organ, however, for Fala. “I’ve always had a love for music, but it didn’t seem like a viable career decision at the time I was applying for college,” he says. “Several interests in the design field led me to pursue my undergraduate degree in architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.” But it was on the East Coast where Fala also became excited by the wealth of opportunities in performing and meeting some of the great concert organists in the area. Though he says he doesn’t recall what originally attracted him to the organ, he recalls hearing the instrument played when he was a preschool student at Holy Nativity School on Oahu. “The organ accompanied the annual Christmas pageant and I can vividly recall being awestruck by the commanding sound that emanated from pipes mysteriously shrouded behind a translucent screen,” he says. “The organ console and organist were tucked away behind a wall in the corner of the chancel. It was in part the mystery and power of the instrument that I found so compelling.” When Fala was in the fifth grade, he was in the Iolani School chapel choir, which is where he met the school’s organist, Katherine Crosier. She let Fala try his hand on the chapel organ one day. “She would go on to become my first organ teacher after helping me to receive scholarship support from the Hawaii Chapter of the American Guild of Organists,” he recalls. This concert will be a nice homecoming for Fala. “Having grown up in Hawaii and being a scholarship recipient of the Hawaii Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, I have performed in a handful of AGO events, but this is the first time that I’ve been featured as the guest artist for their annual recital series,” Fala says. “It’s a great honor and also a special joy for me to come home and perform again, almost eight years later, for this group that gave me so much support as a young musician.” After Fala’s Hilo recital, he will return to Central Union Church to give a similar performance Sunday, March 19. Email Katie Young Yamanaka at BIVHawaii@gmail.com ORGANIST From page 2 Joey Fala is a Honolulu native and 2010 graduate of Iolani School. Courtesy photo
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