Faith Community UCC to host concert rededicating recently refurbished Wicks Pipe Organ

On Sunday, Oct. 12, Harmonia Concert Series presents Zach Klobnak, assistant professor of music at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, in concert playing Faith Community United Church of Christ's recently refurbished Wicks Pipe Organ.

The concert will be at 3 p.m. at the church, 192 S. Center in Bensenville. There will be a freewill offering taken. All are welcome.

The organ was originally built by the Wicks Organ Co. of Highland, Illinois, and installed in the church in 1979. When originally installed, it had six ranks (independent rows) of organ pipes and incorporated mechanical switching in order to control which pipes should sound when an organist played the instrument.

Bogue Services of Downers Grove replaced the organ's mechanical switching with a microprocessor-based solid-state control system. The main benefit of such a control system is that it eliminates most of the mechanical contacts and switches in the organ, resulting in a more reliable instrument with less points of future failure. Additionally, the new control system provides a number of very useful features, such as a powerful preset, transposer, MIOI interface, and even record-playback of the actual organ pipes.

Additionally, Bogue Services expanded the organ's tonal specification by adding four additional pipe ranks-a Ill Mixture and a second flute stop, both located in the Great division. These stops give organists more tonal colors to work with.

Klobnak has taught at Centre College since 2013. He teaches applied lessons in piano, organ, and harpsichord; course in American music and music theory; and newly developed courses for the college's study abroad and general education curricula. His duties include accompanying responsibilities for Centre's voice and choral programs.

A native of Iowa, Klobnak holds degrees from Luther College (BA), the University of Florida (MM), the University of Kentucky (MA), and the University of Illinois (OMA) where he held the Brownson Fellowship for organ studies.

During his doctoral work, he studied French organ literature and design in Paris and in the Alps region of France. His principal organ teachers include Dana Robinson, Laura Ellis and Gregory Peterson. He also studied harpsichord with Kathryn Reed and choral conducting with Donald Nally, Fred Stoltzfus and Timothy Peter.

Klobnak especially enjoys designing programs that help expand the core repertoire to include underrepresented composers including Parisian composer Rolande Falcinelli, who was the subject of his doctoral project.

Since 2015, he has served as principal keyboardist and accompanist for the Kentucky Bach Choir and has performed in the last two seasons with the Johnson City (TN) Symphony Orchestra.

For information, visit faithcommunityucc.com.