Welcome to the new Portland municipal organist, James Kennerley (” ‘The people’s organist,’ ” April 15, Page C1).
How many seats are there for our new organist to fill in Merrill Auditorium? Organist Kennerley has a standing-room-only goal of 1,900. By comparison, there are 2,500 seats in Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park in San Diego. I wonder what the attendance is in San Diego, which is always noted in passing in your newspaper as home to the only other municipal organ in the USA besides the Kotschzmar.
The only reason I know about the one in San Diego is that it appeared when I was researching outdoor theaters for my 1985 self-published book, “Outdoor Drama.”
At the time, the director of the Institute of Outdoor Drama, who wrote the foreword, said the book should be updated and republished every five years to be kept current. That hasn’t happened, and the book did not have wide distribution beyond nationwide libraries, so if I listed Balboa Park in the index of “Outdoor Drama,” the information never reached Maine news media to my knowledge.
Regarding the Kotzschmar, I always read in the Portland paper that the only other municipal organ in the country is in San Diego. It is more colorful than that! It is in the Zoo!
Mary Elizabeth Nordstrom
Kennebunk
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