by Daniel Hathaway
Walter Henry “Chick” Holtkamp, Jr. joined the Holtkamp Organ Company in 1956 after serving in the Navy, becoming president of Cleveland’s oldest continuously operating manufacturing company in 1962 when his father died unexpectedly. In 1996, thirty-four years later, he retired from what was also the oldest continuously operating pipe organ firm in the U.S. — founded in 1855. Holtkamp died on August 27 at the age of 89. His life and career will be celebrated in a memorial event in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Saturday, November 10 at 11:00 am.
That event will include musical tributes by organists John Ferguson (emeritus professor at St. Olaf College) and David Higgs (professor at the Eastman School of Music), and eulogies by Chris Holtkamp, Eric Kisch, and Sarah McFarlane Polly, as well as by Ferguson and Higgs. Gartner Auditorium houses one of Holtkamp’s flagship instruments, the McMyler Memorial Organ, built in 1971. [Read more…]
Eastman School of Music organ professor David Higgs inaugurated the restored 1926 E.M. Skinner organ in Youngstown’s Stambaugh Auditorium on September 18, 2011, when he appeared as soloist in the Poulenc Concerto and in the Saint-Saëns ‘Organ’ Symphony with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. This Sunday, April 12 at 4:00 pm, Higgs will return to Youngstown to play an eclectic recital on what has come to be recognized as one of the most distinguished organ restorations in the country, a project undertaken by the A. Thompson-Allen Company of New Haven, Connecticut.