EsteyFest ’24 Free Organ Concert

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – The EsteyFest 2024 organ concert will be held on Sunday, Sept. 29, from 1:30-830 p.m., at Epsilon Spires, 190 Main Street in Brattleboro.

At 1:30 p.m., renowned scholar and keyboardist Artis Wodehouse will perform contemporary music specially adapted for Estey reed organs. Wodehouse’s program includes the world premiere of a new harmonium sonata composed by Michael Calabris, idiomatically suited to the Estey “Z56 Artist’s Model” from 1919 on which he’ll perform.

At 3 p.m., six organists from the International Reed Organ Society, representing all four corners of the United States and parts of Canada, will perform a wide variety of repertoire written or arranged for reed organs. They will showcase several of Estey’s top-of-the-line instruments from various periods of the company’s history. The concert organs are on loan from the Estey Organ Museum and private collections, making this performance truly a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear some of the finest instruments built in Brattleboro.

The day of music will conclude at 7 p.m. with musical vespers by celebrated organist Susan Ferre, who will present a recital of “Music in the Ste. Clotilde Tradition” on the glorious Estey pipe organ. Ferré studied and worked at Ste. Clotilde with famed organist and composer Jean Langlais. She will perform works from the same hundred-year-old period that Estey built organs in the United States. Through the music of Cesar Franck, Theodore Dubois, Charles Tournemire, and Jean Langlais, Ferré will showcase the subtlety and power of the Estey pipe organ.