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Dusting Off the Flentrop
WATERCOLOR PAINTINGS WHEN YOU MOVE
L I F E PAGE 43
COURTESY
ORGANIST JAMES WELCH COMES TO UCSB
THE STRANGER AND THE SELF
Over the course of the past decade, few An award-winning writer raised in California by bands have championed Santa Barbara’s Mexican immigrant parents, a lifelong Cathomusic scene as unconditionally as Waterlic who’s also homosexual, and a respected color Paintings. In between innumerable scholar of literature who eventually left acashows, DIY and otherwise, founddemia to pursue freelance journalism, IN CONVERSATION ing members (and sister and Richard Rodriguez has long charted brother) Rebecca and Josh his own path. In 1982 his memoir, HunRedman have hosted live ger of Memory, established him as a bands and radio programs, probing thinker with a commanding, dutifully promoted the work poetic voice. Since then, Rodriguez of others, and collaborated has published a book about once a with more area music makers, decade. Next Monday, January 13, fans, and advocates than we he’ll appear downtown at the New could even attempt to count. Vic to discuss his latest work with All that said, When You Move celebrated writer Pico Iyer. doesn’t necessitate resting on Titled Darling: A Spiritual Autobithe do-gooder laurels of its makography, Rodriguez’s new collection of essays examines religion through ers. Over the course of 12 tracks, Move shimmies, shimmers, a wide lens, considering the links and plunges deep — Rebecca’s between Christianity, Judaism, and sweet, stream-of-consciousness Islam, and touching on a vast range deliveries hovering somewhere of topics from desert ecology to the between Kimya Dawson’s and changing Catholic papacy to the Julia Holter’s. In previous incarnaimplications of /. usses his tions, the band existed in a strictly On the phone from San READ IT: Richard Rodriguez disc Iyer at the Francisco last week, Rodriguez lo-fi, often twee-inspired setting. new book with fellow author Pico New Vic on Monday. Here, Rebecca and her cohorts up described Darling as “a book about the sonic ante, cranking up the place that began as a book about bass a few notches and employing religion.” As he began to learn about Islam, Rodriguez said, he realized that “the religion of my youth was also a desert religion.” Thus began a some seriously mood-setting fret work. On “Showers of Stones,” chugging guitars journey to better understand Christianity: a journey that took the writer play nicely off Rebecca’s somber and layto the Middle East, where people who at first seemed foreign turned out ered vocals, and “So Dark” gets a little light to be close relations. The opening essay of this collection is titled “Ojalá,” thanks to a barely there guitar line that a common Spanish expression of his mother’s he remembers from childslowly comes to life right alongside the hood and translates loosely as “I pray,” realizing only late in life that the word contains the Arabic word for God, “Allah.” song’s lyrics. As far as next steps go, When You Move is a bold, fearless, and ultimately Many of the meditations in this book center on Rodriguez’s relationrewarding move in a new direction. Who ships with women, even as they seem to be about larger international ever said nice guys finish last? issues. “There’s a catastrophe of religion right now going on in central — Aly Comingore and north Africa, in the Middle East, in Lebanon — I see it as a kind of male extremism,” the author reflected, adding, “Male friends of mine are increasingly becoming atheists; they’re sarcastic, bitter, and angry toward organized religion. Many of the women I know are reconstructslightly tardy 40th anniversary perforing religion.” mance. The occasion, cosponsored by Rodriguez is the first to admit that his thinking and his book range The American Guild of Organists, will across broad expanses, so much so that some frustrated readers have also include a lecture by Occidental accused him of possessing “an overactive mind.” Yet attentive readers College professor and UCSB alumnus will find these essays satisfying glimpses into the thoughts of one of our Edmond Johnson, who will speak on the most sophisticated and eloquent public intellectuals. mid-20th-century organ reform moveIt’s precisely that habit of crossing into new territory and subverting ment. Expect a tantalizing, varied, and expectations that makes Rodriguez’s meditations so rich and so relatsolid program of J.S. Bach and Califorable. As he put it, “I undertook a journey toward the stranger — and the nia composers that leaves all bells and stranger returned me to myself.” whistles behind. UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Richard Rodriguez in conversation The recital takes place Friday, January with Pico Iyer at the New Victoria Theatre ( W. Victoria St.) on Mon10, at UCSB’s Lotte Lehmann Concert day, January 13, at 8 p.m. Call 893-3535 or visit artsandlectures.sa.ucsb Hall at 7:30 p.m. Visit music.ucsb.edu. — Joseph Miller .edu for info. — Elizabeth Schwyzer ALD TIM OTH Y ARC HIB
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ
NICE PIPES: Organist, scholar, and former UCSB professor James Welch returns to campus this Friday, January 10, for a concert in celebration of the school’s Flentrop organ, which turns 40 this year.
W
hen you order a new car with “all the bells and whistles,” recognized or not, you’re tearing a page from pipe-organ history. Mighty theater organs like the Arlington Theatre’s Wonder Morton — great symphonic machines built during the silent-movie era — not only blow 10 thousand pipes but also shake and whirl a host of special effects like sleigh bells and train whistles. With the early-music revival of the mid-20th century, and its hunger for “authentic” instruments and styles, a lean, neo-baroque sensibility prevailed in the pipe-organ world, accompanied by a retreat from the electronic advantages of modern engineering and entertainment-culture excesses. It comes as no surprise, then, that when designs were considered for a UCSB campus pipe organ to be installed in the late 1960s, the academic currents of the time prevailed, and a mechanicalaction organ made by Dutch manufacturer Flentrop was chosen. “These organs were built — are built — in the old style, the way that organs were always built before electricity,“ said organist and scholar James Welch by phone last week. Rather than using electronic servos or pneumatics to control the air flow into the pipes, so-called
“tracker” organs put the player solidly in touch with the valves. “The trackers are connecting rods that go between the keys and the valves that let the air into the pipes,” Welch explained.“It’s an organ that if Bach were to walk in himself and sit down, he’d say,‘Oh yeah, sure, this is what I know.’ ” UC Berkeley organist Lawrence Moe gave the instrument its inaugural recital in 1972. Meanwhile, Welch was pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance from Stanford University. In 1977, he was offered an adjunct professor gig at UCSB, a position he held for 16 years. During his tenure, Welch performed at least 25 recitals on the Flentrop organ and sponsored regular recitals by his students. But Welch’s departure in 1993 marked the suspension of active life for the Flentrop. No one knew the instrument so well, and few have known it since. With a dwindling of music-department interest and funds (and no Sunday service to keep its bellows regularly inspired), the instrument has languished half its life largely unused. But on Friday night, Welch returns to the keys, stops, and trackers of the formidable Flentrop — his first recital on the instrument since 1997 — for a
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