We are pleased to have caught up with our organ competition’s premier award winner, Colin Lynch, to learn a little more about the musician and his plans for the coming year.
While our competition is national (and this competition drew a number of people from other countries!) we found it ironic that you were born in Morristown, the town where Masterwork was founded. Tell us a little more about your early life.
While I was born in Morristown, I grew up in Basking Ridge. There I went to St. James School, attached to my home parish. I took piano lessons from Joyce Russell who was the music teacher at school and the organist of the church and she got me hooked on music! One day she asked me to accompany a song for the Saturday night Mass with the school choir singing. I was thrilled and worked so hard on it---I even decided to play it from memory! During the Mass, it came time for my big moment and halfway through, I got lost, leapt up from the piano, and ran out of the church crying. ( Ironically, the song was called “We Remember.”) To this day, I’m incredibly thankful that she forced me to play it again a week later!
A few years later, I became a 7th grade student at Delbarton School in Morristown, NJ where Dr. Roy Horton introduced me to the organ in St. Mary's Abbey. I studied the organ for several years before I actually began to enjoy it. I was initially frustrated because the organ is surprisingly different from the piano. Despite my piano chops, it felt like I had to start completely from scratch! In my 6 years at Delbarton, Dr. Horton taught me so much and gave me countless opportunities to accompany and to play for services. These were my first experiences of Gregorian chant, hymnody, and beautiful choral music. The monks at St. Mary’s Abbey were also extremely supportive and patient in enduring the music from a young organist playing for their Masses and Offices.
When did you first realize that you were interested in the organ — and when did you decide to dedicate your career to the organ?
I grew up being very involved at church and the music I first experienced was folk music—sort of dated Catholic schlock. As I said, Dr. Horton introduced me to the organ and it really took some time for it to click. By my Junior year in high school, I knew that I wanted to become a professional musician but piano still seemed like the path forward. Dr. Horton helped me understand that my love of playing for church naturally meant that the organ was my true path forward. (I also keenly figured out that there was less competition for organ than piano to get into conservatories!). I'd like to think it all worked out!
You currently reside in Boston where you are an organist for the Trinity Church in Copley Square. You also juggle a performing career. How did the pandemic impact your professional life?
Like just about every musician, I essentially had to give up music for months! Unlike so many colleagues however, I was very fortunate, to have a salaried job and didn't lose many gigs. At Trinity, we consistently took a very aggressive stance toward the Covid safety and we only recently have begun regathering in person, outdoors. For the majority of the pandemic, all of the music was pre-recorded from nearly 100 singers and I stitched it together with audio and video editing software. I could probably have a second career in movie editing now! Video production became a more-than-full-time job but keeping our multigenerational choir engaged and challenged was a high priority. We created virtual choir music for every hymn, anthem, and morsel of service music, including a virtual Duruflé Requiem, a virtual Stainer Crucifxion, our Candlelight Carols Service and more. While it was frustrating, and tedious, and tiresome, I’m tremendously proud of our work and ministry. That said, I’m quite ready to get back to making music instead of movies!
Colin, there were a number of criteria for this award, including an essay. Many of our Board members were struck by what you had to share in that. One line, in particular, stood out - “My hope is always to help others love the repertoire and the instrument as much as I do.” You’ve been studying the organ from an early age, to what do you attribute your enduring love?
There are lots of organists who love the organ because of all the fun, nerdy technical organ building things. Others get really excited about the history of each instrument and the builder. I’m embarrassingly ignorant about all this stuff. For me, it’s simply the music---the works Bach, Duruflé, Vierne, and so many more--and how each instrument can render that music in a different way. Also, organists get to experience things that practically no other musicains get to, like the thrill of accompanying 1,500 people singing a hymn. We also get the opportunity to collaborate and meet so many people. I love the people I get to work with in my choirs, the folks in our pews, and folks I get to meet after a concert.
In your essay you shared the story behind why you have often dedicated your performances to your guidance counselor in High School. Would you mind sharing it here, as well?
Ha! As I mentioned, I was very privileged to go to Delbarton School—it’s a great school with a long list of very successful alums. My college guidance counselor at the time (I’m sure wanting the best for me!), had other ideas about my future when I told him that I wanted to go to school to become an organist. His attempts to dissuade me were less than elegant. He first asked “Do you really want to live from gig to gig?” “Do you think you’re getting any better?” In his final attempt he asked me if I was tall enough to reach pedals.” (I’m 5’4”) I hope you’ll watch my competition video in which I play George Thalben-Ball’s "Variations on a Theme by Paganini for Pedal Solo." Whenever I play the variations in concert, I share this story with the audience and dedicate the performance to dear Fr. Giles!
How will winning this award impact what you plan to accomplish in the year ahead?
I’m tremendously grateful to Masterworks for their support which will now help make several backburner projects possible. I have an upcoming opportunity to spend several weeks at Waltham Abbey in England helping out with some of the service playing but mostly just practicing! I’ll use the time preparing for an upcoming concerto concert and a solo recording project which this award will help fund. (Stay tuned for more details!) I’m also nearly across the finish line of learning the complete organworks of Maurice Duruflé. After my time at Waltham Abbey, I have plans to study the complete Duruflé with Vincent Warnier at St. Etienne du Mont, the church where Duruflé himself played for nearly 60 years. I’m also eager to use this time to learn music by women and composers of color whose music is woefully underrepresented in my repertoire.
What recommendations do you have for any young musicians reading this who may be interest in a professional organ career? What do you wish someone had shared with you before you embarked on that journey?
Be a nice person and be willing to compromise. It doesn’t matter how brilliant of a musician you are or how many Bach Preludes and Fugues you have memorized if everyone thinks you’re pompous, difficult, and mean. I know we don’t have the corner on the market, but we organists sometimes give ourselves a bad reputation in this regard. As musicians who primarily find ourselves working in churches which strive to live out the Gospel, our ability to connect with our choir members, parishioners, other musicians, and dwindling audiences must be our primary responsibility. And you need to be willing to give a little---sometimes you have to play a hymn that you hate or find a way to accommodate a request from your clergy. It won’t kill you, I promise! As a wise person once said, "what goes around comes around."
Oh, and practice slowly!
How can our readers follow you, Colin?
Visit my website at www.colinlynchorgan.com. Thank you again to Masterwork Arts for their support. I'm lookng forward to sharing more updates about how this generous award helps my career!
Thank you for sharing some of your story with us, Colin.
In case you missed it, you can enjoy Colin's competition submission here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13UScCOh9co
The Masterwork Music and Arts Foundation Board wish you all the best in the year ahead.
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