Spokane Symphony Cellist Finds New Passion As Organist

As a Spokane Symphony cellist, Helen Byrne sits in front of the trumpets, tubas and the trombones.

After years of playing quiet, accompanying music, it’s her turn to pipe up, so to speak.

“This is my revenge. I can now play as loud as the entire brass section,” Byrne said, sitting at a three-keyboard electrical organ in a Spokane Valley church.

After 30 years of playing the cello, Byrne has now found passion in playing the organ. As a child, summertime was spent playing the organ for her church.

Last Sunday, she gave her first recital at Opportunity Presbyterian Church.

“In college I never told my friends who were organists that I played the organ,” she said. “I never considered myself an organist. Now I feel I have a really good start.”

OK, so she’s not one to toot her own horn.

“She’s a very aggressive cellist,” said her husband, Leonard Byrne, a Spokane Symphony tuba player. “That, of course, is her best instrument.

“But with the organ it’s new, unexplored territory.”

Not only unexplored, but much more technical, Helen said.

Rather than reading the one or two lines of music for cello, she has to read three for the organ. And she must use not only both hands to play the keyboard, but also her feet as well to press and slip smoothly over the pedals.

And playing the organ means she’s center stage, unlike being in the middle of a 70-member orchestra.

“Your mistakes are more obvious, and they’re quite loud,” she said, smiling.

But make no mistake, she said, after that first recital, featuring the music of Bach, Handel, Schumann and organ composer Francois Couperin, she’s now ready to take on more.

“I’m glad to have (the first recital) over,” she said. Then she added, “I don’t think it would be too much to have one recital a year.”

The public tends to forget about about the monolithic organ. Or it tends to stereotype it, said Floyd Czoski, head of the Spokane Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

“The media portrays the organ as this ghastly, somber instrument, but it really isn’t,” he said.

In Spokane, there are 40 or more pipe organs and 65 people who belong to the organ guild, Czoski said. But that doesn’t include electric organs or the organists who have been playing Sunday services for years but haven’t joined the guild.

In fact, Spokane has the oldest working municipal organ west of the Mississippi at Lewis and Clark High School, he said.

But these instruments aren’t cheap. One can run anywhere from $50,000 to $600,000 or more. And as Byrne said, “Not everyone has an organ in their home.”

No matter what the challenges, Byrne’s passion won’t subside. She’s become second in charge of the organ guild, and has more energy than ever.

“There’s going to be a organ guild convention in Spokane in 1999, by that time she’s probably going to be setting up the conference,” Leonard Byrne said of his wife.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo