Kenneth Udy’s desire to play the organ started as a young boy when he would see the organ in the Salt Lake Tabernacle during general conference broadcasts.
“We would watch general conference, and I was totally mesmerized by the organ,” Udy said.
Udy, a Salt Lake City native who teaches organ at the University of Utah, will be the featured performer at the Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso concert on Friday, Aug. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City.
The 90-minute concert is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. It’s recommended for those 8 and older. While past Organ Virtuoso Performance Series concerts have been streamed online, this one will be available only in person.
Udy said that in his experience with teaching, “nobody tells you you’re going to like the organ or that you are going to play the organ. You tell your parents, ‘I’m going to play the organ.’ And it calls out to you.”
Growing up, Udy and his siblings took piano lessons. When Udy was finally tall enough to reach the pedals, in about ninth grade, he started taking organ lessons. As he progressed in his lessons, he played the piano in his meetings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — priest quorum meetings and in Sunday school opening exercises. His instructor was the organist for a local Protestant congregation, and Udy would occasionally substitute for him.
Udy also studied in high school with Clay Christiansen, who later was a Tabernacle Choir organist. Udy graduated from Skyline High School and served a mission in Japan. After his mission, he studied at Utah State University and University of Southern California and earned a doctor of musical arts from Claremont Graduate University.
After coming back to Utah, he started playing at Wasatch Presbyterian Church in 1991 and is the director of music and organist there. “They’re my home away from home.”
He also was the organist at Congregation Kol Ami for 25 years. “That’s what organists do is play for churches,” he said.
In 2000, when the University of Utah was building the Libby Concert Hall, a pipe organ and funds for an organ program were part of the donation, he said. Udy was hired as the university organist and helped develop the curriculum for the undergraduate and graduate organ degrees. He’s now an adjunct professor and organ area head at the University of Utah.
“It just beats my soul, that sound,” he said of organ music. “I love the repertoire. I love the history. I love helping people come into that world, because it is such a niche in the world of music.”
He’s also a guest organist at the Tabernacle on Temple Square, playing in the daily organ recitals and has played on both organs in the Tabernacle and the Conference Center.
As he’s played for various congregations, Udy said, he’s seen a lot of overlap in hymns and beliefs. “What I love about Church music is that it’s so universal,” he said.
For the Organ Virtuoso concert, the program will highlight works of Alexander Schreiner, who was a longtime Salt Lake Tabernacle organist, and a childhood hero of Udy. This year is the 125th birthday of Schreiner, who was born in 1901.
Udy plans to play music to highlight Schreiner’s life. Udy wrote a book on Schreiner called “Alexander Schreiner, the California Years” that was published in 1999 and came across music in his research that was previously unpublished.
Schreiner’s career began as a theater organist for silent films and Udy had done some arrangements of music for silent films to perform. Udy is also playing some of the songs Schreiner performed in the daily organ recitals and other broadcasts from the Salt Lake Tabernacle, including a lyric interlude that Schreiner improvised to fill time in a broadcast. He was an organ professor at UCLA in the 1930s and wrote and arranged music while he was there, including a toccata that Udy is planning to play.
Schreiner also wrote the music for hymns and children’s songs, including “God Loved Us So He Sent His Son,” (“Hymns,” No. 187) which Udy is planning to perform an arrangement of.
About Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso Performance Series concerts
The Tabernacle Organ Virtuoso Performance Series started in 2022 and was created to showcase the Tabernacle organ and world-renowned organists and has been presented quarterly. Each year, national performers and local organists are invited to perform, and one of the Tabernacle Choir staff organists also presents a concert.
This year, Daniel Hyde, the director of music at King’s College in Cambridge, England, was the featured performer in January. Isabelle Demers an associate professor of organ at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, performed in May.
Later this year, Joseph Peeples, an organist at Temple Square, is scheduled to perform on Nov. 13.
There is also a free, 30-minute daily organ recital in the Tabernacle at noon Mondays through Saturdays and at 2 p.m. on Sundays. They are occasionally moved to the Conference Center. See TheTabernacleChoir.org/daily-organ-recitals for information and the weekly schedule.
Playlists of organ music, including “Organ Solos” and “Tabernacle Choir Organ Performances” are available on the Tabernacle Choir’s YouTube channel.
About the Tabernacle organ
The Tabernacle organ currently has 11,623 pipes — and 10 of the largest pipes in the facade on the west end make sound. There are about 11,000 pipes behind the facade and about 600 on the east end.
It has five manuals, or keyboards, and 206 ranks of organ pipes and is among the world’s largest instruments. Its golden pipes are made from wood staves fashioned from Utah timber and still add to the sound of the famous instrument today.
