Global project detailed at festival

s the Eastman School of Music prepares for its third annual Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative (EROI) Festival, so does an international contingent of influential organ builders, prominent organ scholars and researchers, and Lithuanian dignitaries. A major highlight of this year's festival, October 21-24, is a first-of-its-kind cultural heritage project between Rochester, Sweden, and Lithuania.

In collaboration with the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, the Göteborg Organ Art Center (GOArt) in Sweden, and the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, the Eastman School will present its most recent EROI organ project to the public: the building of a reproduction of a historic 1776 Lithuanian organ to be installed in Rochester's Christ Church in 2008 and the simultaneous restoration of the original Adam Gottlob Casparini instrument in Vilnius, Lithuania--considered to be one of the most valuable musical artifacts from the period in Europe today.

The new instrument, to be called the Craighead-Saunders Organ, is to be named in honor of two legendary Eastman faculty organists: Professor Emeritus David Craighead and the late organ professor Russell Saunders.

"This project will provide both Eastman and the Rochester community with an organ suitable for the music of J. S. Bach, and at the same time, help give life to the largest, most well-preserved late Baroque organ in Northern Europe," says Eastman Organ Professor Hans Davidsson.

In recognition of this cultural exchange between Vilnius and Rochester, the EROI festival's opening event welcomes local dignitaries and guests Vygaudus Usaçkas, the Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States; Kestutis Masiulis, deputy mayor of Vilnius; Rimas Chesonis, the Lithuanian honorary consul of upstate New York; and members of the local Lithuanian-American Association. Throughout the festival, demonstrations of Lithuanian cultural activities will take place in addition to a performance by Lithuanian choirs from the United States and Canada.

Other festival highlights include concerts by Eastman organ faculty, guests, and students; scholarly lectures; professional workshops; and presentations by nearly a dozen instrument builders.

"The EROI festival is fast becoming one of the most important and fruitful meetings for some of the organ world's most influential movers and shakers," says David Higgs, organ professor and chair of the organ department. "It provides a fertile environment conducive to creativity and the sharing of important new ideas in the evolution of the pipe organ."

Many of the festival's concerts and events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.rochester.edu/Eastman/organ.

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