GREENVILLE — A concert series built around a renowned pipe organ will begin its season with a grand-scale performance that includes dozens of musicians. Fisk on Fourth will showcase the works of four French composers at its opening concert Saturday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Greenville.
The program, featuring Concerto for Organ by Francis Poulenc and Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns, will bring together organist David Baskeyfield with members of the New Carolina Sinfonia. The professional orchestra features members who are natives of eastern North Carolina communities such as Rocky Mount and Wilmington.
“We’re trying to branch out. We don’t always have to have just organ,” said Melanie Moll, president of the board of directors for East Carolina Musical Arts Education Foundation. “We have nine different events, so we’re just trying to broaden it.”
In previous years, Fisk on the Fourth has included a cathedral choir and the Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, featuring Greenville musician and composer Caroline Shaw. For this year’s pairing, the series is pulling out all the stops to bring in a 65-piece orchestra.
“I guess it’s also pretty unusual that you’ll get a full symphony orchestra into a church,” said Baskeyfield, who serves as organist at St. Paul’s and artistic director of East Carolina Musical Arts Education Foundation. “St. Paul’s is not small, but it’s probably going to be a bit of a squeeze.”
New Carolina Sinfonia, a Greenville-based professional orchestra, performed its first stand-alone concert in May in East Carolina University’s Wright Auditorium. When the foundation approached Conductor Jorge Richter about performing Poulenc’s organ concerto with Baskeyfield, Richter knew the idea had potential. But what he thought would make a more perfect pairing was the addition of the work by Saint-Saëns.
“Just putting the orchestra with the organ is an incredible sound,” Richter said. “Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Timpani and Strings is a very interesting work because it takes the wind out of the orchestra and uses the organ as the wind instrument in the orchestra. It’s a masterpiece. Saint-Saëns’ organ symphony was one of the most beautiful works I can remember. Being able to do those two masterpieces, it was a very decision.”
Double bassist Chris Buddo, a founding member of New Carolina Sinfonia, welcomed the chance to perform the all-French program, which also includes works by Paul Dukas and Gabriel Fauré.
“Having all the resources come together to do something with organ is a big deal because it doesn’t happen every day,” he said. “There are a lot of great halls in the world that have organs, but if we wanted to do the organ symphony at ECU, Wright Auditorium doesn’t have an organ. You have to have the right venue to do it. At St. Paul’s, the Fisk organ is a magnificent organ, and the opportunity to do this is really exciting.”
The $1.4 million pipe organ, nicknamed “the Duchess,” stands more than 30 feet high and has more than 3,000 pipes. Dedicated in 2005 as the Perkins and Wells Memorial Organ, the instrument was the result of nearly a decade of planning and fundraising by the church, the East Carolina Musical Arts Education Foundation and East Carolina University. The organ’s tonal design has a strong French influence.
“The organ at St. Paul’s, particularly in this space with this acoustic, is very, very unusual in an American church,” Baskeyfield said. “It’s more like something you’d hear in a French cathedral.
He said the two French composers featured in this weekend’s concert use the organ differently.
“In Poulenc’s Concerto, the organ is as much of a star as the orchestra. It’s almost the orchestra backing the organ,” Baskeyfield said. “That’s very different than the Saint-Saëns. (He) uses the organ as a part of the orchestra, rather than the solo part.”
The church was designed to provide optimal sound for the organ, which can present a bit of an acoustic challenge for the orchestra.
“It’s an interesting place to play,” Buddo said. “That’s something we’ve talked a lot about.
“The more people there, the more clarity that hall is capable of. Every seat full will change the acoustic in a way that will improve the sound. It was designed to have the optimal acoustic when the church was full.”
Baskeyfield, who has introduced popular events such as silent film accompaniment to the series, is hoping for a full house.
“We’re really starting off this year with a bang with this orchestral concert and hoping that, of course, people like what they hear and come back for more,” he said. “There’s certainly been nothing like this for a long time, at least not on this scale.”
The concert will begin at 7 p.m. Saturday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 401 E. Fourth St., Greenville. Suggested donation is $25. Visit opus126.com for more information.
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