Today was the first offi­cial day of the Organ His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety con­ven­tion, its 61st con­ven­tion in this its 60th year since the found­ing in 1956. Its pur­pose is thus: The Organ His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety cel­e­brates, pre­serves, and stud­ies the pipe organ in Amer­i­ca in all its his­toric styles, through research, edu­ca­tion, advo­ca­cy, and music.

And because OHS is now a ​“mature” orga­ni­za­tion in terms of struc­ture and mem­ber­ship, it now enters a new stage in that it now has a new home in an old home. If this is con­fus­ing, let me explain that the OHS is the recip­i­ent of an extra­or­di­nary gift which we vis­it­ed today: a 36-room estate called Stoneleigh, locat­ed on an expan­sive 40-acre prop­er­ty near the Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus. Today was just a quick vis­it to the beau­ti­ful grounds and the intro­duc­tion of how the fam­i­ly of OHS mem­ber Fred Haas came to donate the prop­er­ty. It was amaz­ing to learn that he moved to this grand home when he was three years old, it being the home of his grand­par­ents. It remind­ed me of the grand cas­tles in Europe, except that it was built in the 1920s. It will be cared for by the Nation­al Lands Trust.

When the archives of OHS move here in a cou­ple of years after some ren­o­va­tions to make it ADA-com­pli­ant, it will be the most com­pre­hen­sive library of books, mag­a­zines, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions all devot­ed to the pipe organ. At its incep­tion, there was only one fil­ing cab­i­net of mate­ri­als, which has grown to over 15,000 items. A large pipe organ will also be moved here, which will match the age of the house.

Tonight was the open­ing con­cert of the con­ven­tion, a vir­tu­osic dis­play by Stephen Tharp on the Austin organ at the Irvine Audi­to­ri­um of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, just four blocks from our hotel. Can you imag­ine, he opened with the ​“Toc­ca­ta” from Suite, op. 5 of Duru­flé! He also played ​“Poème héroïque” by Mar­cel Dupré and two won­der­ful tran­scrip­tions: ​“Fan­ta­sia on a theme by Thomas Tallis” (Vaugh­an Williams) and ​“La Valse” by Ravel.