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Jeff Cooper/Salina Journal Photo

Harry Huber sits by his organ in this Oct. 7 photo at the University United Methodist Church in Salina. Huber will retire as the organist after 58 years.

Salina — Harry Huber spent a summer studying on the same organ that Mozart once played a recital on before turning to his audience and saying, “Truly, the organ is the king of instruments.”

And so it is, Huber agrees.

After 58 years of playing the organ during two Sunday worship services, weddings, funerals and other events at University United Methodist Church, Huber has decided to retire.

“I think the whole congregation just wants this to be a really special day, and in some little way express to him what a treasure he is,” said Karen Pinkall, parish visitor. Huber’s organ was moved front and center and turned so that the congregation could watch him using three keyboards, a row of pedals, and both of his hands and feet to produce the music that has become such a part of their worship experience.

“I’ll miss it, but there comes a time in life when you have to turn things over to somebody else, and I may as well do it while I’m sailing high,” Huber said.

Rising to all occasions

The Rev. Mike Rose, pastor of University church, said members of the congregation will probably be feeling some grief over church services without Huber’s music. Huber would rise to the occasion when the church was having a special celebration. He played all original compositions at the April 26 service when the church celebrated its 100th anniversary.

He knew how to lead the congregation into a quiet, meditative state or wake them up as called for.

“They don’t go to sleep singing the hymns,” Huber said. “In fact, sometimes I think I go too fast for some of these old people notice I said some of these old people and most of them are younger than I am.”

But Rose said the congregation has to respect Huber’s decision to retire “at his young age.”

“I don’t tell anybody my age,” Huber said. “I just let ’em try to figure it out.”

When he was growing up in Gibbstown, N.J., his parents believed it was important for their children to know how to play the piano. He said throughout the Great Depression, they were able to pay $5 a week for his lessons.

Even before he was considered old enough to start taking lessons at age 5, Huber was trying to teach himself. In public school, he played accompaniment for the boys’ and girls’ glee clubs and orchestra.

‘A God-given gift’

During his sophomore year of high school, Huber started taking organ lessons, which he continued through college. He accepted his first professional position playing organ while he was a junior in high school, and he’s played professionally for 80 years.

“Musicality is a God-given gift, and that’s all there is to it,” Huber said. “You should try to appreciate and cultivate that gift as much as you can.”

Huber said he was privileged to study under four great organ teachers: Dr. Alexander McCurdy, Philadelphia; Dr. Claire Coci, New York; Dr. George Faxon, Boston; and Dr. Michael Schneider, Koln, Germany.

He did undergraduate and graduate work at Temple University in Philadelphia, earning degrees in piano, organ and theory of music. He completed graduate studies at Boston University.

While in Philadephia, Huber had the chance to play the largest organ in the world, which is in a department store there and has six keyboards and more than 11,000 pipes.

Huber moved to Kansas in 1945 to accept a minister of music post at First Methodist Church in Hutchinson, where he worked for two years. Then he accepted a position in the music department at Kansas Wesleyan University, where he taught music for 32 years.

He also served as head of the music department and two terms as chairman of the division of fine arts.

Upon retirement, he was named professor emeritus of music and received an honorary doctorate.

During his tenure at Kansas Wesleyan, Huber traveled to Europe several times and had opportunities to play on fine organs at many large churches and cathedrals.

Proud of former students

He took a year’s sabbatical from Kansas Wesleyan and studied at Koln, Germany. There he played on an organ in a cathedral that was the only building in the city not destroyed by bombs during World War II.

Huber is proud of the accomplishments of many former students. Some are organists in large churches in Washington, D.C., Florida and West Virginia, and two studied in the Yale University music department.

A prized student earned his doctorate last year at Oxford University and is now the organist for a large church near Stonehenge in England.

When Huber first moved to Salina, he played organ on the weekends for First Christian Church before moving to University Methodist. He also played organ for 50 years at the Masonic Center.

Rose said University church has been privileged to have Huber’s music as part of its services.

“He could have gone anywhere, and the fact that he came here and fell in love with Salina and Kansas Wesleyan University and University United Methodist Church is an amazing gift to us and has been for almost 60 years now,” Rose said. While musicians sometimes have an artistic temperament, Rose said Huber is a “gracious gentleman” who never let his ego get in the way.

The church’s organ has undergone several renovations. The current organ console was designed by Huber and installed in 1966. While playing it, Huber has a full orchestra at his fingertips.

He can pull out the stops and bring in the sounds of flute, trumpet, strings, reed instruments and chimes.

The organ’s tallest pipe, which produces its lowest note, is 16 feet, and its smallest is the size of a pencil; there are 2,500 pipes in all, Huber said. When the organ’s original set of wooden pipes were replaced with metal ones, Huber traveled to the factory in Holland.

“They’ve been very good to me here at the church,” Huber said. “There was no problem raising the money for it. It will last another organist a good many years.” It has also not seen the last of Huber, who intends to continue regularly practicing on the instrument.