Our organist quit on us a few weeks back. She is a brilliant young student at VA Tech doing a double major in two very difficult scientific fields, so she just doesn't have time to devote to developing the music of the church. Thus, we have posted a job description at the university and I have been pursuing some leads. This is what we would call in the IT consulting world a "risk". It is a situation that, if it escalates and gets out of control, could hurt or even derail the "project".
We have several problems related to all of this: 1) very few people study the organ anymore; 2) piano players are everywhere, but, like guitar players, there are more mediocre ones than competent ones available; 3) our music is very demanding - a total of 15 pieces of of music at a Holy Communion service; 4) our music is becoming more and more obscure - Anglican liturgical music (and even good classical music in general) is alien to most people; 5) we have little money to offer a musician, so they have to do it for a ministry and because they are passionate about it. These are big things, but God is bigger. We will pray, advertise, ask around, and see what happens. This is a good gig to have - we just need to find someone else who sees that.
The reason there is a shortage of organists is because organists themselves (even if they are bad) do not "proselytize" others, and try to get others excited about learning the instrument. Serious and good musicians have a way of getting others excited about learning an instrument. It is the same with encouraging vocations to Holy Orders - you have to talk about it and generate excitement about it, otherwise no one will care. That, by the way, is why there are so few Roman priests these days. The continuing churches have generally done very poorly in developing musicians to play for her services. Just as we do not print Prayer Books, have Sunday School materials, seminaries, hymnals, etc., so we do not have a strategy to raise up and develop organists from within our ranks.
So what will we do if we can't find an organist? I don't know yet. Maybe we'll do all Gregorian chant, or no music, or maybe some contemporary music. I odn't know yet. I actually am not opposed to having good contemporary music in churches. When I was a member of the Roman communion I attended the 9:00 contemporary service at my parish - a large, wealthy city parish. They had a schola of four men that sang all of the music in harmony to a piano played by the music director, and it was very good. The thing with contemporary music is that, like with all other music, it must be done well and taken seriously to sound good, and you need a trained music director/musician to make that happen. In some ways I think having good contemporary music would help transform this place even more.
If anyone has any leads or ideas please let me know!
