AUDIO TRANSCRIPT: Syracuse University professor to co-produce new organ documentary to reinvigorate the instrument
Noah Sandler: A Syracuse University professor’s dream project, one with national implications, has finally been realized. NCC News’ Jason Ruppert is live in the studio with more details about the documentary.
Jason Ruppert: Filming will begin this week for Syracuse University organist and professor Anne Laver’s newest passion project, the documentary series “The Organ in America.” The docuseries will detail the history of organs in Central New York, and across the country, with the organ’s role in American culture. Professor Laver says though, that this is about more than history.
Anne Laver: So the big reason behind it is that I’m worried about the future of my instrument.
Ruppert: The number of people playing and listening to the organ has gone down in recent years and professor Laver is hoping that this documentary can help reinvent life into the instrument in American culture.
Laver: How are they going to experience the organ? Well we gotta figure out new ways to do that. And one of them, I think, could be this film.
Ruppert: The documentary series starts in CNY looking at organs in Syracuse, Rochester and Ithaca, before going across the U.S. Live from the studio, Jason Ruppert, NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Syracuse University organist and professor Anne Laver is co-producing a new documentary series titled “The Organ in America.”
The docuseries is being made to document the organ and how it has been a staple in American culture since the beginning of the 18th century. Even though the instrument is featured in places like churches and baseball stadiums around the country, the amount of people interacting with the organ has declined in recent years. This means that the documentary is about much more than history for Laver.
“The big reason behind it is that I’m worried about the future of my instrument,” Laver said.
Laver has been playing the organ for over 25 years and she does not want to see all her hard work go away. She knew that something had to change.
The birth of the series came with a bit of luck for Laver. She met the director of “The Organ in America,” Will Fraser of Fugue State Films, through email. Fraser, director of the organ documentary “The English Organ,” reached out to Laver first, asking if she wanted access to some of his work. Laver, immediately recognizing the name, jumped at the chance to work with Fraser and tell the story of organs in the United States. The two have been communicating ever since.
“We just hopped on Zoom, and we’ve been meeting since December 2022 pretty regularly,” Laver said.
The two have been hard at work since their first meeting, but it has not been easy. Funding for projects like these is hard to come by, so the team has been trying to gather funds in any way they can. After receiving grants from various societies and generous donations from organ enthusiasts, the team secured the funding to launch their project. But Laver says that the work is not over.
“We sent out a grant to the American Theatre Organ Society for another $25,000,” Laver said. “So it’s constant work.”
The team does know that they are able to make their first documentary focusing on the rich organ culture that can be found in Central New York. Filming for the piece is starting Thursday and Laver, Fraser and the rest of their team is eager to showcase the most important part of the organ: just how different each organ is.
“The main thing that is worth communicating is that every organ is different,” Laver said. “Every organ is custom built to its time and place so an organ from 1840 is going to be really different from an organ from 1950.”
It is exactly those differences that will be focused on in this first documentary. The team will be looking at organs across Central New York with stops in Rochester, Syracuse and Ithaca. Once this documentary is done, the team hopes to have secured funding to make even more documentaries celebrating the organ.