Kaysea Suzana | Entertainment Director
Last Sunday afternoon on Oct. 27, famed Ryan Chan graced FIU’s Wertheim School of Music with organ pieces of the macabre and the strange.
Chan’s accomplishments are far too many to name but his most recent honors goes to his First prize and Audience first Prize 2024 American Guild of Organists National Young Artist Competition in Organ Performance.
Though, how did such a masterful musician come to be?
“I’m originally from Hong Kong, and everybody learns to play an instrument there. I remember being fascinated by the piano, though I didn’t receive any pressure to learn it,” Chan shared regarding his upbringing.
“I picked up the organ at around 14 or 15 and enjoyed the physicality.
It’s almost like dancing, there’s a lot of foot maneuvers. I originally suffered a lot in the beginning and couldn’t play certain notes,” said Chan.
Life originally wasn’t so clear cut for Chan, since for his undergrad he pursued the sciences and majored in food science before making the switch to music for grad school.
Chan mentioned that his inspirations came from his great teachers that he learned from in his study exchange programs such as the one he had in Melbourne, Australia who pushed for him to realize his own potential.
“To me, the organ is a rather eclectic instrument that does rather everything… it is no surprise that this otherworldly sound was used in churches and cathedrals,” Chan said.
Being his second time playing at a university campus, Chan had originally expressed a slight hesitancy towards the challenge of the event.
This event was to be a 17 minute performance, as opposed to the more usual 15 minutes that Chan was accustomed to.
“I hope I will survive this encounter,” Chan laughed.
Modern concert hall organs tend to use electro pneumatic action, a system that relies on electrical signals for keys to be pressed and pipes to open and close without much physical exertion.
This means musicians can play a bigger sound, with the trade-off being that they have less control over the pipe speech.
But Chan wasn’t playing a modern organ.
17 minutes is an impressive feat when considering that the organ at FIU’s Wertheim school of music is a Schantz pipe organ, a true behemoth of musical practicality.
Featuring over 4,255 pipes, the organ was a true test of skill.
Excitement fueled Chan’s veins as he beheld the organ.
“Yes, this organ can do so many things! I will be using this to its full potential! There’s so much color I can use!”
What Chan is referring to as “color” can also be known as “timbre”, or the specific sound that instruments have regardless if they play the same note.
The effusive energy that Chan felt was over the different kinds of pipes the organ had including flute pipes, reed pipes and different types of pipe families as well as trombones, tubes, trumpets, etc.
For the overall selection of the pieces he played, Chan wanted to go bombastically big.
Program list for Ryan Chan’s show | Photo via FIU Wertheim School of Music
He covered big names such as still-relevant composer Mozart to Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” to even contemporaries like Connor Chee.
[danse macabre]
“I wanted to open big, and close big,” Chan said.
Ryan Chan not only survived his fight with the organ–he prevailed.
Organ faculty Joanne Schulte (left), Guest Organist Ryan Chan (center) and Director Karen Fuller (right) | Photo Courtesy of Michelle Vires, Wertheim School of Music
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