by Pete Rosenbery
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The works of composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonín Dvořák, Jehan Alain and Maurice Duruflé, will envelop Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Shryock Auditorium on Sunday, Oct. 29, with a Halloween Extravaganza of music.
Presented by the Southern Illinois Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, the concert, which begins at 7 p.m., is part of the SIU School of Music’s 2023-2024 performance series and is free and open to the public.
Three SIU Carbondale faculty members are part of the event, which features seven local organists, a piano duet and a flute choir. The program has 10 separate numbers. The audience is encouraged to come in costume.
James Reifinger Jr., an associate professor and music education coordinator in the School of Music, will perform Duruflé’s “Prelude et Fugue sur le Nom d’Alain, Opus 7” on the Marianne Webb Pipe Organ. In addition, Anne Chandler, an associate professor in the School of Literature, Writing and Digital Humanities, and Dr. Kathryn Waldyke, assistant professor of Family and Community Medicine in the SIU School of Medicine in Springfield, will be part of a seven-member Southern Illinois Flute Choir performing masques by American flutist, composer and publisher Anne McGinty.
Shryock’s iconic Webb Pipe Organ
Marianne Webb came to SIU Carbondale in 1965 as a music faculty member, teaching organ and piano and serving as the university organist. Under her direction, the School of Music initiated an annual organ festival, the first of its kind in the country.
She led an effort to renovate Shryock Auditorium, including installing a new 3,312-pipe, 3-manual, 58-rank Reuter pipe organ that she designed. The organ was named in her honor in 2001, when she retired, though she continued to serve as visiting professor and distinguished university organist for 11 years after, passing away in 2013.
The Southern Illinois chapter of the American Guild of Organists covers Southern Illinois, southeast Missouri and western Kentucky.