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Lenoir-Rhyne music professor Florence Jowers recently presented a concert in Germany's Ulm Cathedral. Noted for having the tallest tower of any church in the world, the Ulm Cathedral organ could only be reached by climbing 80 circular stairs and opening five doors with large skeleton keys. |
Allegro—lively, brisk, rapid. The pace of life for Florence Jowers, Lenoir-Rhyne College’s associate professor of music and founder/conductor of the L-R Youth Chorus. Even during the summer.
Jowers just returned from a three-week trip to Germany where she performed organ recitals, played for church services and met with former students and colleagues.
The summer break from classes gave Jowers the time she needed to renew acquaintances and perform in some of the country’s best-known cathedrals.
She flew first to Frankfurt, took a train to Stuttgart, where she was given access to a newly built 5,366 pipe organ at the downtown Stiftskirche, and then headed to Ulm Cathedral where she would give a recital the next day. Noted for having the tallest tower of any church in the world, the Ulm Cathedral organ could only be reached by climbing 80 circular stairs and opening five doors with large skeleton keys.
Jowers said the cathedral’s organist “left me there with instructions on how to lock up, and he left. I practiced until about 10 p.m. It was an awesome experience to be in such a huge old cathedral all alone. Practicing was the easy part! Climbing down the 80 stairs, locking doors behind me and knowing I had only two and a half minutes before the lights went out, was a little frightening!”
The lights actually did go out as Jowers struggled with the last skeleton key at the bottom of the stairwell. After a brief thought of being locked in there all night, she found the switch and turned the lights back on.
The next day Jowers performed music by Bach and American composers inside the vast Gothic space of the cathedral, where sound reverberates for seven seconds. L-R graduates Laura Voelkert Weant, a 2005 sacred music major, and her husband Jonathan, a 2005 philosophy and religion major, were there to greet Jowers after the performance.
Jowers’ next stop was Tübingen, where the Weants are studying for the year. Jowers toured the town with them and learned more about the German university system. Jowers said she was amazed at how quickly and well the couple has adapted to another culture.
The next several days Jowers dedicated to sightseeing, from Salzburg to Dresden, before starting the real working part of her trip near the Danish border. There, a German pastor Jowers had known during her graduate school days at Yale had scheduled four concerts for her in six days. Jowers’ recital again featured the music of Bach and various American composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. At each concert, Jowers said the German people presented her with flowers or candy and told her they were not accustomed to such diversity in one program.
She also played for a Pentecost service at a friend’s church. Playing for the church service was more nerve-wracking than the recitals, Jowers said. “Even though I speak some German, it is still hard to know exactly what to do when,” she said.
The organs were, in all cases but one, more than100 years old and all were mechanical. Jowers said they were sometimes very difficult to play, and she had to make some changes in the music to accommodate keyboards that are shorter than the newer American instruments.
On the two days that Jowers had no recitals scheduled, she took a train and ferry to Copenhagen so she could get a quick look at the city. Her Danish dinner, she noted, was Mongolian barbeque.
She also visited the old city of Lübeck and toured Marienkirche, a German church that had a succession of noted organists during the 17th and 18th centuries. Bach even visited there. The Marienkirche houses a Refugee Chapel built around a half-melted bell that still lies on the floor where it crashed during the bombing of World War II.
Jowers also stopped in Hamburg to visit Thomas Dahl, the organist of one of the two main churches there. Dahl will come to Lenoir-Rhyne in October to serve as church musician-in-residence for the college.
From there, Jowers traveled to Cologne, where the city overflowed with people draped in German flags as a show of support for the home team in the World Cup Soccer tournament.
She presented her last recital in Bad Vilbel, a small village on the outskirts of Frankfurt. This recital, organized for Jowers by the Yale Club of Germany, gave her the opportunity to perform on a modern instrument. Jowers said she was glad to have less preparation because by this time, three weeks had passed, and it was time to come home and rehearse for an upcoming music festival.
Her brisk pace quickens as Jowers prepares the Lenoir-Rhyne Youth Chorus for the music festival co-sponsored by the college’s sacred music program and the Region II Summer Conference of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. The free program is set for 7:30 p.m. June 27 at First Baptist Church of Hickory and the public is invited. The festival includes organ and choral music, anthems and congregational hymns. Jowers will be at the organ playing three major works. This time the pace will be whatever the music calls for.