NORTH

West Van
United

receives
- *Opus 10’

THE strains of Bach float through the
chapel doors and out onto Esquimalt
Avenue.

Tr’s a sound che congregation of West
Vancouver United has not enjoyed for close to a
year, ever since the church's 72-year-old organ

* ceased to finction and
was dismantled during
renovations to
upgrade the church
interior and improve
its acoustics.

Inside, the church’s
new instrument is tak-
ing shape — note by My
note, pipe by pipe. = OR Ne:

On the chapel floor EENRSe iar
are the wooden crates ae
that contin the 1,851
pipes that give the organ its voice. In the chancel,

. erafismen dimb in and our of the organ’s tower-
ing cherrywood cabinet, to instail the many thou-
sands of parts that combine to produce heavenly
seund at the touch of a key.

Word has spread through the congregation
about the installation.

Parishioners wander in to express their appreci-
ation over the church’s new acquisition, a custom-
built two-manuai 31-stop pipe organ.

Te is simply the finest instrument of its kind in
Western Canada, says the church’s rousic director
Gerald van Week.

At $325,000 (U.S. dollars), it is a bargain con-
sidering its life expectancy of 200 years.

West Vancouver is lucky to have the new
instrument, says van Wyck.

Tes maker, Washingtonian Martin Pasi is in
such demand that his commissions will keep his
workshop busy to the year 2000.

West Vancouver had to wait three years for the
Austrian-born craftsman to begin work on the
organ, which Pasi cails Opus 10 because it is his
10th commission. [t took five men 14 months ro
design and build in Pasi's Roy, Washington work-
shop and will take no less than six weeks for Pasi
and his team to install in its new West Vancouver
home.

The organ is a loity 28 feet. ft weighs eight
tons.

To van Wyck, who has played pipe organs in
the great cathedrals of Europe, the instrument is
an “amazing conglomeration of artistry and tech-
nology, science and intvition.”

Ten different woods were used in its making.
Carved panels in black walnut adorn the cherry-
wood cabinet. ‘Phe pipe bases are oak. Forty eight
of che lowest sounding pipes are made of wood
from the tulip tree.

‘Trackers thar coniect the organ’s keys with the
pipe valves are cut from Old Growth redwood.
They are just one-sixreenth ofan inch thick and as
long as 20 feet.

The keyboard's biack keys are ebony. The
white keys were cach carved trom the shinbone of
a cow.

Every list component iy made in Past’s work -
shop, a former schoolhouse located near the Fort
Louis army base, about 14 miles south of Tacoma.
This includes casting ef the pipe meral, which
takes place only a few times a year, in accordance
with favorable astrological readings. Blending New
Age logic with Oki World cratisimaiasinp may be
anunorthodex approach ~~ [t's “a foiksy kind of
thing” Pasi admits siviv — bur on the few ocea-

sions he’s defied the signs, the casting has never
quite worked out as well.

Once installed, the pipes must be individually
“voiced,” a process that requires Past and his team
to tim cach pipe to size since the length of pipe is
what deterniines pitch. The process is lengthy.
Each of the 1,851 pipes may be handled severa?
times before Pasi hits upon the aght tone.

“The voicing is entirely intuitive .. it's all in
my ear,” says Pasi, who has been honing his crate
for more than halt his life.

He was 14 when he knew what he wanted to
be when fe grew up. Asa choir boy in Brengenz,
Auda, his interest in the cathedral’s organ was
rewarded oace a year at Christmas when the priest
would open the cabinet and allow him te crawl
inside. He wanted to apprentice at iS but his par

NEWS photo Mike Wakefieid

Organ maker Martin Pasi (left)
and music director Geraid van
Wyck delight in West Van
United’s newest acquisition.

ents encouraged him instead to attend business
school. At 22, he apprenticed with an Austrian
company, and later worked for organ makers 0
Minnesota, Montreal and Tacoma before starting
his own shop in °90.

Yan Wyck, who travelled across Canada and
south to California in search ofa suitable maker
for West Van's organ, has big, plans tor the shiny
new instrument.

The church is flying in the “dean of Canadian
organists” Douglas Bodle of the University of
‘Yoronto for the inaugural concert May 39, 8 p.m.

Van Wick, who ts also music director of BC.
Boys Choir and Celesta Girly Choir, hopes to
commission new works for the instrument,

‘or me this ts aones ina Metime experi-
ence,” he says,

Riveting
hostage
drama

Mm Someone Wao'll Watch
Over Me, Hendry Hall, 815
E. lith, North Vancouver.

“There were three bellocks ina
cell in Lebanon. An Englishman,
an Trinan and an American.”

SOUNDS like the start
of a bad joke doesn’t it?

It is.

The three bollocks in ques-
tion are Michael, Edward and
Adam.

The cell is in Lebanon.

And they are hostages:
chained to a wall, denied day-
light and privacy, with violence
a palpable threat.

Any laughter in Someone
Who'll Watch Over Me is tinged
with hysteria or fear.

It’s not always funy, but
humor is one way to beat back
the boredom, and is a weapon
against their oppressors.

“Fresh white jockey shorts.
A man’s underwear. That’s why
Arabs can’t wear them. If their
shorts don’t have a hole in
them they can’t find their
dicks.”

Laugh, evens though vou feel
like crying.

North Vancouver
Community Players have
achieved one of the best pieces
of community theatre T have
seen in a long time with this
play and if any of the following
seems like criticism it should
not stop you froin seeing this
wonderful production.

Playwright Frank
McGuinness is a major modern
voice in the continuing great
tradition of Irish wordsmiths
and this play is one of the best
of this decade.

What's interesting is that
with all three characters in leg
irons you might suppose that
the play stands a real chance of
feeling static. :

Far from it,

Within the limits of those
chains, director Francesca
Vivanti and her excellent actors
achieve fluid movement.

But it is words and the pris-
oner’s flights of fancy chat allow
them and the audience to
escape from confinement.

This production allows us to
see with Ectward his remem-
bered kingfisher at the
Booterstown bird sanctuary and
hear the birdsong; we can glory
with Michael in the possibility
of bluebirds over the white clitts
of Dover; we slip through the
streets of Beirut with Adam as

See Move ane 31

DINING: 33

CALENDAR: 26 GODSPE:iL: 26 BOOKS: 28 CINEMAS: 30