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‘A bonkers gig’: how heavy metal bands are helping keep UK church organs alive
(www.theguardian.com)
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Two doom metal bands, Arð and Pantheïst, recently performed at Huddersfield town hall – accompanied by the venue’s imposing 1860 Father Willis organ.
But the collaboration is about more than just making beautiful music – the hope is that events like these will help save some of the nation’s pipe organs from destruction.
Many were destroyed by Puritans following the Reformation, and then during Oliver Cromwell’s rule, but Victorian organ builders such as Henry “Father” Willis re-populated most of the churches.
Hence the concert featuring Pantheïst, a funeral doom band whose lead singer wears a cassock, and Arð – pronounced Arth, an old English word meaning native land – who performed Take Up My Bones, an album telling the story of how St Cuthbert’s remains were removed from Lindisfarne then taken by monks around northern England for 200 years until they were reburied at what became Durham Cathedral.
By day, Mark Deeks, the musician behind Arð, is a piano teacher and the choirmaster of Newcastle’s Sing United community choir, but is also the keyboardist for Winterfylleth, a metal band.
Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar, Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra recorded for 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Philip Glass’s soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi all include organs he added.
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