Richard Gwin/Journal World-Photo Bales Recital

Michael Bauer, professor of organ and church music at KU, plays the organ at Bales Organ Recital Hall, which will be home to the Bales Artist Series. The new subscription series will bring four of the greatest

Kansas University's Bales Organ Recital Hall, which is 10 years old, was a joint effort of an architect, acoustician, organ builder, organ faculty and university representatives. The venue is perfectly constructed for organ music.

The Bales Organ Recital Hall quietly turned 10 years old last year.

There was no fanfare, no anniversary celebration, just a dutiful continuation by the decade-old instrument and its venerable home to showcase the performances – from lessons to recitals – of Kansas University students, faculty and visiting artists.

It’s 2007 that marks the accomplishment the hall’s founders have been coveting.

“Our number one goal since we opened the recital hall has been to start a major series and bring the greatest organists in the world here,” says Michael Bauer, professor of organ and church music at KU.

A gift from Polly Bales, a KU alumna from Logan whose family’s contributions established the hall, has made that possible. A new subscription series of organ recitals with accompanying master classes and lectures by four major artists launches Thursday with a 7:30 p.m. concert by Kimberly Marshall, organ professor and director of the music school at Arizona State University.

Future installments in the Bales Artist Series will feature Lynne Davis, of Wichita State University; Roberta Gary, of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music; and Susan Landale, of London’s Royal Academy of Music, who dedicated the organ in 1996.

“We needed a series that would befit the performance venue that we have – not because I say so, but because everyone from all over the world that’s been here says it’s the finest facility of its kind,” says James Higdon, the Dane and Polly Bales professor of organ at KU.

The main purpose of the series is to expose students – there are about 24 majors in the program at a time – to the field’s top artists, who will be available to teach, counsel and meet informally with them.

Naturally, organizers also hope the public will attend.

“The subscription price for the whole series is only $40,” Higdon says. “We’re trying to make this available to everybody so that no one will feel that they can’t afford it.”

Even veterans of the Bales concert experience may be unfamiliar with the rarity of the hall – and the reason music sounds so stunning there.

The architect, acoustician, organ builder, organ faculty and university representatives worked together throughout the planning and construction phases, tailoring the building to perfectly suit the instrument designed for it.

“We’re still pinching ourselves because this facility has turned out to be one of the finest facilities, probably not just in this country but anywhere in the world for hearing organ music,” Bauer says. “It’s a spectacular hall, and the organ is one of the finest in North America.

“Now being able to bring the best organists in the world here to play it kind of completes the picture.”

Before Bales, KU students and faculty played organs at Swarthout Recital Hall and area churches. Now the program has a single-purpose facility that’s accessible to students 24 hours a day.

In addition to instruction, rehearsal and the new subscription series, the hall is home to a choral series, a new in-house choir, an annual organ, brass and percussion recital, and a series of free student, faculty and alumni concerts.

Higdon says some people don’t even know the hall exists. Yet audiences have been good through the years. Even student recitals frequently fill the hall to more than half its capacity, Bauer says.

“The organ is an instrument that … can express the majesty and depth of emotion that you miss a lot of times from instruments that cannot produce that kind of sound mass. And yet it also can be very delicate,” Bauer says. “And it’s got a historic tradition that traces back 1,000 years.

“In the Middle Ages, this was one of the most technologically advanced pieces of equipment known to Western man, and it has retained some of that fascination, I think.”