Our Lady of Refuge Organ Benefit Concert

A peek inside the Kilgen Organ.

World-renowned organist Stephen Tharp will perform a donor-chosen program to benefit the restoration of the Kilgen Organ at Brooklyn’s Our Lady of Refuge Church, which has sat largely unused for 15 years. Check out this video for a little background on the organ, and to hear Tharp playing it.

The benefit concert will take place on Friday, November 18 at 7:30pm at Grace Church, 254 Hicks Street, Brooklyn. The program has been selected via donations to the Our Lady of Refuge Organ Fund.

Advance tickets available online: $20 for the concert; $30 for the post-concert reception. Tickets at the door for the concert: $25.



The Kilgen Organ (Opus 5163) at Our Lady of Refuge Church in Brooklyn was designed by premier organist and composer Charles Courboin and dedicated in July 1934. The landmark instrument had to be removed in 2007 to repair water damage to the building. A complete restoration of the organ is expected to cost more than $215,000, but more than $150,000 have already been raised by members of the parish and the worldwide pipe-organ community. Efforts have included the Sponsor-a-Pipe program and the production of Resurrectio, a two-CD set of performances by such noted organists as Peter Conte, Ken Cowan, Olivier Latry, Daniel Roth and, of course, Stephen Tharp, who is contributing his time and talents once more to the cause.

Joseph Vitacco, Chair of the Organ Committee, has spearheaded the restoration project. His own love of organ music---sparked by childhood visits Our Lady of Refuge---inspired him to found JAV Recordings in 1997. The company pairs premier musicians with pipe organs around the world. For him, restoring the Kilgen Organ is as much about the future as the past. “At one time, Brooklyn had 900 pipe organs---900! It’s hard to imagine,” says Vitacco. The instruments were in public schools, auditoriums, concert halls, museums, movie theaters, and houses of worship of all denominations.

Of all of those instruments, only about 70 are still in use (in various states of repair) in a city of 2.5 million. “There are fewer than 10 pipe organs in Brooklyn that can be considered concert organs,” Vitacco continues. “The Kilgen at Our Lady of Refuge has to be saved so the people of the parish can be accompanied while singing hymns, and so all the people of Brooklyn can have a pipe organ to enrich the musical and cultural life of the borough.” Recitals featuring guest musicians are part of the restoration plan, along with discussions with nearby music schools to allow students to practice on the Our Lady of Refuge organ.