Organ concert will feature composers from Minnesota and Pa., including Greensburg

The music of Pennsylvania and Minnesota is the latest theme for an organ concert series that blends genres and styles to broaden the appeal and interest in an instrument that most people simply associate with Sunday-morning hymns.

The free concert will be at 4 p.m., Feb. 17 in the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church, in Greensburg, performed by John Salveson and Jeffrey Patry on the church’s recently renovated Austin pipe organ.

Salveson is the minister of music and organist at the church. Patry is the organist and music director at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Robbinsdale, Minn., and staff accompanist at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn.

Salveson came to Greensburg in January 2018 from Bloomington, where he had been minister of music and organist at Christ The King Lutheran Church.

This is the sixth collaboration by the pair, whose previous motifs included “Music for Organ and Narrator”; “Out of Africa: Music by Composers of African Descent”; “Music She Wrote: Organ Music by Female Composers”; “Organ Favorites,” and “Hooray for Hollywood: Organ Music of the Movies.”

The latest installment in the series includes music by Minnesota composers Paul Manz, Libby Larson, David Cherwien, and Walter Pelz. Pennsylvania composers include James Callahan and John Weaver, as well as Greensburg composer J. Christopher Pardini, organist and director of liturgy and music at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, and Gordon Balch Nevins, who was organist at First Presbyterian Church a century ago.

The congregation has been celebrating the centennial of the present sanctuary structure over the past year.

For more information, call the church office, 724-832-0150.

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick at 724-850-2862, pvarine@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MurrysvilleStar.