Going West

A multitalented California musician brings the organ up to date on our next Pipedreams broadcast. John West is composer, arranger, singer, and recitalist, working in and comfortable with both classical and popular styles, in church or in the theater. He demonstrates instruments in Glendora, Northridge, and Los Angeles, talks about his hopes for the future, and excites us with some great music of the past and some of his own new adventures.

Listen to the program

Program Broadcast dates:

January 31, 2000

Music played in the program

LOUIS VIERNE: Allegro, from Symphony Number 2 (Murray Harris/St. James Episcopal, Los Angeles, CA) Pipedreams Archive recorded January 18, 1998

ALFRED HOLLINS: Grand Choeur. JOHN WEST: Now thank we all our God. JOHN WEST: Fanfare on For All the Saints (1987 Rodgers/Glenkirk Presbyterian, Glendora, CA) PowerHouse Productions CD-1001

ALEXANDRE GUILMANT: Sonata in c, 1st movement. CHARLES-MARIE WIDOR: Andante sostenuto, from Gothic Symphony Number 9. LOUIS VIERNE: Divertissement. JOHN WEST: Woodsy Hollow. JOHN COOK: Fanfare (1997 Walker/California State University, Northridge, CA) Pipedreams Archive recorded January 18, 1998

JOHN WEAVER: The Squirrel. RICHARD PURVIS: Communion. JOHN WEST: Improvisation on God rest ye merry gentlemen. JOHN WEST: Variations on Amazing Grace. MARCEL DUPRÉ: Paraphrase on Te Deum (Murray Harris/St. James Episcopal, Los Angeles, CA) Pipedreams Archive recorded January 18, 1998

John West is active as a Broadway and studio vocalist, a MoTown composer, an organ professor at Cal State-Northridge, and director of music at Immanuel Presbyterian, Los Angeles. The Saint James organ project, overseen by Manuel Rosales, combines historic pipework by California builder Murray Harris with modern mechanism and additional new ranks by the Schlicker and Austin organ companies. The organ at Northridge, was first installed in 1992, ruined by the Northridge earthquake in 1994, and revised to its present 20-stop French-oriented specification in 1997. The Glenkirk organ of 70-ranks of pipes is one of several such installations from the 1980s made by the Rodgers Instrument Company.