- Campus , Culture
- 12/11/2024
Unconventional concert at Auditorium
On Sunday, November 17, an ‘unconventional organ concert’ – as initiator Gerrit Kroesen calls it – will take place at the Auditorium. A complex piece of music by Joseph Jongen will be performed on the organ there. The unconventionality of the concert lies in the limited reverberation and visibility of the key effects.
When we talk to professor Gerrit Kroesen, he’s sitting at the organ to demonstrate. “This evening, the organ will be tuned for the concert, which can easily take four or five hours.” He smiles. “This organ has 3,750 pipes, so it’s a lot of work.”
Kroesen is an organist himself and enjoys playing the organ. Alongside his full professorship at TU/e, he also takes care of the organ at Auditorium. “The idea for this concert already came into being six years ago.” First, permission had to be requested from the heirs of the late composer. This was granted. “And then an orchestra had to be found that dared to take on this complex piece of music. There weren’t many. Fortunately, we found a match in Harmonieorkest Sint Josef from Kaalheide, conducted by Björn Bus. Then the piece of music had to be adapted a bit for the harmony orchestra. And then of course there were many rehearsals,” Kroesen recalls.
On Sunday, the organ will be played by TU/e alumnus Jan Verschuren. Gerrit Kroesen won’t play the organ himself during the performance, but will keep everything on track logistically and organizationally.
Gift from Philips
The organ at the Auditorium was a gift from Philips. “Shortly after the university – then called ‘Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven – was founded, the Auditorium was built. The director of Philips at the time called the rector of the university and told him that he wanted to give a present worth one million guilders. This is what they settled on.”
Fun fact: as the organ ended up being bigger than planned, some of the women’s toilets were sacrificed to make room for the service space for the organ. “Much later, TU/e decided to convert that entire toilet space into storage for cleaning. That explains why the Auditorium upstairs only has two women’s toilets, and only on the west side.”
“It’s actually not that uncommon, having an organ at a university,” says Kroesen. “In Leiden, Amsterdam (VU University), and Bochum they have one too. And in the US and UK it’s fairly common too. We did start using it less and less in Eindhoven, unfortunately. That’s different abroad. It used to be played for the Dies Natalis and the opening of the academic year, but in recent years it wasn’t.
Unconventional
What makes this concert unconventional? “The organ offers many opportunities for ‘peeping in’. You can see what the keys actually do by looking through the transparent sides and front of the organ. The rods that transmit the sound from the keys to the pipes are also visible behind the organ. This is not the case for most organs. People are also allowed to come upstairs after the concert to take a look.”
The effect of the organ in the Auditorium is also unconventional for the piece of music, Kroesen believes. “Organs can often be found in churches. When the organ is played there, there is always a considerable reverberation. That’s not the case here. Such a limited reverberation fits this piece of music very well.”
Wanted: successor
Kroesen has taken care of the organ for over 25 years and is about to retire. He’s therefore looking for a successor. “Preferably an employee of TU/e, as you need to be able to approve organ tuners’ invoices, for instance. It’s an unpaid position, but it’s really only a few hours of work each year.” As an organ aficionado, he’s always liked the work. “The successor doesn’t have to be an organist themselves, but they do need to be passionate about music (preferably organ music).”
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