Cincinnati-born organ virtuoso releases sixth CD

Robert Delcamp, born and raised in Clifton and an organ student of Wayne Fisher at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, has had his sixth album released on Naxos Records. The music is Charles-Marie Widor's ten organ symphonies, inspired by the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Sulpice in Paris. This music, the album jacket says, "revolutionized the art of organ playing and composition in France."

"Widor is the 19th-century, early 20th-century French composer who wrote the famous Toccata played at weddings, from his Fifth Organ Symphony," says Delcamp, reached Sewanee, Tenn., where he chairs the music department at University of the South. "It's really a 'highlights' disc. You couldn't do Widor without putting that on it."

Naxos is one of the few remaining labels still devoted to classical music, and it has an ongoing series specific to organ repertoire. Delcamp has already recorded three volumes in the Organ Encyclopedia Series of the complete organ works of Marcel Dupre, and CDs of organ music by Camille Saint-Saens and Alexandre Guilmant.

Delcamp was a member of the last freshman class in CCM's old building on Highland Place.

"We called the first building (on the UC campus) the great white whale," he says.

During his Cincinnati years, Delcamp was organist at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church, and also at Rockdale Temple. He succeeded his teacher Wayne Fisher at Rockdale, before it moved to Amberley Village. He also recalls recording the Brubeck oratorio with Erich Kunzel and the CSO at Westminster Choir College for Decca Records.

"It was my first experience with a recording session, with everything blanketed with mics and watching Kunzel saying, 'We need more French horn here!'" he recalls. "Kunzel was the conductor at CCM back then, and my minor was bassoon."

After CCM, Delcamp was drafted into the 19th Army Band, stationed in New Jersey -- not a bad gig, considering the US was still embroiled in Vietnam.

At University of the South, he is organist of All Saints' Chapel and directs the University Choir "on the style of Oxford and Cambridge chapel choirs," he says.

Last spring, he took his choir on their ninth tour to Europe. Each tour is a week's residency at a major cathedral in England, such as Westminster Abbey. While there this time, he was invited to play on a prestigious organ series in Trier, Germany, and three days later, gave a recital at the cathedral in Dudelange, Luxembourg, where a few years earlier, he had recorded the Saint-Saens disc.

"In Europe, the audience for organ music is truly amazing. When you do something like I did at Trier, the Romanesque cathedral has a famous organ by Johannes Klais one of the big German builders. It was quite extraordinary.

"You're the artist; you don't have to explain yourself. Probably 450 people came, each paying 5 Euros. It's a big deal there, and it's the same thing in Luxembourg, where I played in an enormous church with an and incredible organ. They have an organ club, and it's like you're a god because you're the artist."

Speaking of his former church, acclaimed organist Alan Morrison (pictured) kicks off the Organ Concert Series at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church at 4 p.m. Sunday. Morrison's varied program includes J.S. Bach, Maurice Duruflé and Cesar Franck.

Morrison has performed everywhere from Lincoln Center to the Crystal Cathedral, and has appeared on television on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." He's made radio broadcasts from Philadelphia’s famed Wanamaker Organ, and recently, he was in the news for inaugurating the new organ in Verizon Hall, new home of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The organ concerts are free. The public is encouraged to get there early for a seat. 513-871-1345, www.hydeparkchurch.com.