My Baby Is Sold

​Today the results of my first large consulting job in Dallas for First Community Church UCC, a once prominent congregation and school located at Abrams and Mockingbird Avenue, the Gabriel Kney organ of 27 beautiful stops, which served the church for 41 years, inspiring many, is moving to Indiana!  The congregation has become a Mission-Centered Church-Without-Walls, which speaks for itself.  Without any judgment at all about this congregation's decision or enthusiasm for the future on this path, it seems that the organ has become superfluous, along with the very walls of the church itself.  The organ had been relocated, in fact, once before when the church downsized and moved further East toward a more varied, but needy, part of the city, leasing space on Ferguson Road. 
 
It wouldn't bother me quite so much, perhaps, that another beautiful instrument finds a new home, and I am grateful that it has found a new home, but this one was a product of my years of traveling, playing some of the most historic organs in Europe, my associations with organ builders who were laying the ground for what is now called the historical organ revival, and for the love of a sound not yet heard, at least not in Dallas.  It was my baby. 

The opportunity came from members of the church who knew my father as Interim Pastor there for 3 years, and who shared his enthusiasm for an organ that would inspire, stretch and support the musical future of this aspiring church.  During Dr. Gus Ferré's tenure, the church debt would be paid off, and donors for the new organ were found.  
 
I was pregnant with our son, Carl, as the dreaming of a future organ began, and the dedication fell to me just a few months after he was born.  I remember carrying him to the balcony of the church, and practicing as he lay in his basket.  My husband, Charley, also joined me for practice sessions and I thoroughly enjoyed playing a wide range of literature on this new organ, especially works which couldn't have sounded typically French on any other Dallas organ.  Dr. Robert Anderson, then Professor of Organ at SMU, down the street, shared his excitement about the addition of this instrument to the Dallas landscape, bringing his students for a Master Class.  Several of Dallas' most prominent organists still remember playing it on their first Saturday visit to the Kney organ. 
 
On the 75th anniversary of the church's founding, in November 2019, I was invited to play again this magnificent organ, as members testified about their shared history.  My family gathered to hear it one more time.  Our son, now 38 years old, his wife, Rachel Coyle, my sister, Lisa, and niece, Kirstin Wilson, along with my husband, Charley Lang, attended, and with tears in our eyes we remembered the glory days of both the church and the organ.  It was to be the last concert on the instrument in Dallas.  I had played the first and last recitals on "my baby."   
 
I had played other concerts there on Mockingbird Lane in the Chapel: all Bach, Clavierübung Manualiter at the Kingston harpsichord, concerts with the Texas Baroque Ensemble, choral works such as the Schubert Mass under the direction of then Director of Music, and beloved  friend, Charles S. Brown, and many other tender memories of singing, directing, playing, rehearsing, and rejoicing as the doors opened at First Community.  Now the lucky people of St. Meinrad School of Theology in Meinrad, Indiana, will have that privilege.  It will be reinstalled in late March, 2022, with tonal finishing by Buzard Pipe Organ Company. Gabriel Kney, Opus 93, will be afforded new life.  Gabriel is 92 years old, a genius, from London, Ontario. 
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