Organist glorifies Easter through pipes

Organist Lee Scifers glorified the start of Holy Week on Palm Sunday, pumping air through 1,054 pipes to render “Psalm of Glory” for congregants of First Presbyterian Church of Kalispell.

He wraps up the musical celebration during the postlude of Easter services with “Gloria” from the Twelfth Mass by Mozart, a soaring tribute to the resurrection.

After 18 years as the organist at First Presbyterian, Scifers trusts his instincts in selecting music. As usual, “Psalm of Glory” was a hit with the Palm Sunday worshipers.

 “I use it just about every year — it’s just right and beautiful and uplifting,” he said. “One church member said I should play that again on Easter. But I have something else planned.”

Congregation members find out this morning at the 10 a.m. service, which includes Communion. Like parishioners, Scifers feels an extra bit of anticipation on days of holy celebrations.

“On Easter and Christmas you have music you only play once a year,” he said.

Scifers revives the traditional pieces on the church’s Casavant pipe organ that blasts air through a complex of pipes stationed behind a cross at the front of the sanctuary. He called the Casavant one of the Cadillacs of the organ industry.

“This is a very small organ but it’s perfect for this size church,” he said as he fingered the keys on one of the two keyboards, called manuals, while pressing the pedalboard with his feet.

His Casavant responds with a blast of organ notes audible in the highest reaches of the beautiful Tudor-style church.

During his 64-year musical career, Scifers has played dozens of organs as well as other instruments. Raised by his grandparents in Harlem in Eastern Montana, he credits his grandmother for encouraging him to learn to play her piano.

He started at age 6 and continued lessons through high school.

 “I thoroughly enjoyed it,” he said. “I had a heart murmur and couldn’t play sports so it was an outlet.”

Scifers got drafted into organ playing when he was a sophomore in high school. He said the organist at his church, a farmer’s wife, decided she needed a break from the weekly responsibility and chose him as her solution.

“She said. ‘Here’s how it works — you play next Sunday,’” he said with a laugh. “I was self-taught for three years.”

Scifers majored in music at the University of Montana, earning a teaching certificate that kept him employed in Seattle for 30 years. He spent 10 years teaching in elementary school, 10 in junior high and then 10 in high school.

His responsibilities included band, orchestra, classical piano and guitar. Even while teaching full-time and raising two children with his wife Betsy, Scifers continued to play the organ at a series of different churches in the Seattle area.

When he retired in 1991, the couple decided to return to their home state of Montana.

“We checked several spots and found this to be the most beautiful,” he said.

The Scifers first joined the United Methodist Church, where they sang in the choir. About a year later, he saw and answered an ad for an organist that led them to the First Presbyterian Church of Kalispell.

For 15 years, he was also choir director with his wife as an accompanist. Now Scifers volunteers as an organist for three Sundays a month — the fourth is a praise service with guitar and piano.

To keep in top form for his Sunday performances, he practices a half hour each day. He uses his home instrument four days a week.

“I keep my grandmother’s picture over the organ to remind me to practice,” he said.

His routine begins with picking up the bulletin of hymns from the church each week, then choosing selections to play. On Wednesday, Scifers sets up the church’s organ and practices for the upcoming Sunday service.

“Every time you pick out a new song, you have a new challenge,” he said.

According to Scifers, the hardest part of learning to play an organ was getting his feet to go where they were supposed to go. He compared mastering the pedalboard to driving a car — eventually, your feet know where to find and when to press the gas and brake pedals.

For Scifers, the pedalboard adds to the organ’s allure. It provides a new dimension he can add to music at his creative whim.

He used the example of “The Bristol March” that was written in the 1800s before organs had pedalboards.

“It’s fun. On the organ, I can experiment and add pedals to it,” he said. “It gives you a bass sound.”

 He recalled recent workshops for the church’s men’s and women’s groups where he explained the complexity of producing the music each week that accompanies Pastor Glenn Burfeind’s sermons.

“They were very much impressed that it was more difficult than it looks,” Scifers said.

As he plays, his hands move between the swell and great manuals while his feet work the pedalboard. He sets tabs, called stops, to control multiple sets of pipes, called ranks, that produce differing timbre, pitch and loudness and a variety of orchestral sounds such as a trumpet or bassoon.

“There are hundreds of combinations of sounds,” he said. “You never get to all of them.”

 Scifers, 70, has enjoyed the adventure of finding new ones each week. He has taken good care of his hands so he may continue the journey for years to come.

The organist laughed as he remembered thinking when he was young that anyone who hits 60 should retire from performing. He said his hands still work and his feet know where to go as First Presbyterian worshipers will discover this morning.

Scifers can depend on a large assemblage to appreciate the righteous sounds of the divine breath making a thousand pipes sing in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.“Easter is really special,” he said. 

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com