Video: Tampa organist records Brahms, Bach to help promote calm amid coronavirus chaos

Haig Mardirosian, the organist at Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church in Tampa, is Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Letters and Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Tampa. He is also Professor Emeritus of Music at American University in Washington, DC.

As a concert organist, Mardirosian has earned international standing by performing at major concert halls around the world and recording more than 20 bodies of work.

But since the outbreak of the coronavirus and the temporary suspending of public gatherings in Florida, including church services, he has started recording pieces and posting them to YouTube for the enjoyment of members of the congregation and others looking for a bit of respite from the chaos. 

When asked to describe his #covid19 project by 83 Degrees, he responded via email:

“For the moment what I have been doing is very informal. I have actually been duplicating the preludes and postludes from the virtual church services that PCPC has put online, only produced quite professionally. My crew is my iPhone.
 
“I do intend to continue doing these with some regularity, and, yes, it is a specific response to these incredible times. It is also a very small emblem of the great shift that we have been seeing but will continue to see in a greatly accelerated fashion, in the arts. Everyone in that business from the Met (museum) to the Met (opera) is scrambling to recreate itself as a media entity and, more the to point perhaps, monetize that rebirth. Much will, one fears, fall off the table, but that, I aver, is small compared to the dimensions of human suffering and loss in the face of this global pandemic.’’
 
Mardirosian has posted a couple of Brahms videos on his Facebook page and uploaded them to YouTube at the request of 83 Degrees to share with a broader audience. On Monday, he uploaded a couple of Bach videos. More to come.

“My only fear about this moving ahead is that, were there to be a plenary order causing us to be sheltered at home with only the options of leaving for emergent circumstances, I might no longer be able to get to PCPC to prepare and post these,’’ Mardirosian writes. “But, one perseveres and hopes for the best all the way around.’’

Here are links to Mardirosian playing:

• O Gott du frommer Gott
• Mein Jesu der du mich
• The Fantasia con Imitazione, BWV 563
• Postlude 6° Concierto de dos Organos – Padre Antonio Soler
• Prelude and Fugue in e minor (“The Cathedral”), BWV 533.
• “Redemption, op. 104, no..5” (Marco Enrico Bossi)
• “Intendo in G” by Padre Antonio Soler
• Fantasia in C minor, BWV 537 – J. S. Bach
• “Partite sopra la Aria della Folia da Espagna” – B. Pasquini
• “Resignation, op. 104, no..4” (Marco Enrico Bossi)
• Finale, Symphony No. 3, op. 56 (“The Scottish”) – Mendelssohn
• Prelude in C – Felix Mendelssohn
• Fugue on the tune “Westminster Abbey”
• Epilog on the tune “Wareham”
• Prelude and Fugue in B Minor – J.S. Bach
• Called as Partners in Christ’s Service 

And here is more about Mardirosian in this Q&A published by 83 Degrees in 2010.