probably one of my most treasured LP recordings

This disc is pipe organ music. French organ music, specifically. Played to perfection by Dr. Anita Werling on the Triumvirate Organ at Central Congregational Church in Galesburg, IL, recorded approx. 1980. Notice in pic 3 Dr. Werling's signature on the front cover, pic 4 is the exact specification history of the instrument itself as printed on a record jacket insert.

There are several reasons it is meaningful to me. Not quite in order: Dr. Werling was my official 'second' organ instructor, at Western Illinois University. Linda Bliven, the producer of this LP (then a doctorate student of Dr. Werling, I think) was my first and was also the organist at Central Church. As such, I received my first organ lessons from Ms. Bliven upon this very instrument (though I did my practicing at my own church elsewhere) and heard some of my first organ concerts there. To say I was *enthralled* with its dramatic and noble sound, in the largest and one of the oldest churches in town, would be an enormous understatement.

Perhaps more important to how my life turned out is due to James M. McEvers, the Curator of the Organ and author of the history of the instrument on the back cover of the record. It was he who first allowed me (as a teenage organ student that also liked to play with tools) to follow him around and fully *into* the depths (heights?) of this same exact instrument, patiently showing me all that was in there and what everything did -- and eventually how to help him **FIX** it and tune it every so often when he was in town.

And then a couple more decades happened but that SOUND never left me -- fate marched onward to give me a ~25yr career with a firm that built new instruments in very much the same tonal style in likewise grand and glorious rooms -- and now I myself tune and maintain most of those and many more.

WOW. Talk about that 'full circle' life thing, huh...??? ;-) :-)

https://galesburgchurch.org/home/history/organ/