Kenneth Potter  tracker@j51.com
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I am a late blooming organist.  I did not begin organ study until I
was forty. I have two degrees in voice and music education from
Ball State University and Columbia University Teachers College. I
have had the pleasure of singing in churches under some of the
finest organists and sitting in wonderment as they did their thing
each Sunday. I sang throughout college at the First Presbyterian
Church in Muncie, Indiana under Gerald Crawford, then went on to
Riverside Church under Fred Swann and Virgil Fox. I sang with
McNeil Robinson at Smoky Mary's, Richard Bouchet at Fifth Avenue
Presbyterian. After that I spent seven years as tenor soloist at
Greenville Reformed Church in Scarsdale.
 
I spent twenty eight years teaching as an Orff specialist in the
Nyack Public Schools. I had a 125 voice children's choir called
"The Sweet Voices Of Liberty" (Liberty Elementary School) which was
a great source of pride for me. This past June I took early
retirement in order to follow the dream of my live - to do church
music.
 
The great turning point in my life was when my friend John Bate
convinced me to take a job attempting to play the organ at a little
Episcopal church in Sparkill, New York on a tiny Moller Artiste. I
spent the next four years there, practicing my butt off and getting
hot on some big pieces. I played a whole slew of noontime recitals.
When John left Grace Church in Nyack, New York, I got to do a year
interim there on their gorgeous 1967 Phelps Casavant with a
wonderful choir. After that, I spent seven years playing the 1963
Gress-Miles organ at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Spring Valley,
New York, working hard to get that fine instrument restored to good
order. Tonally it is gorgeous, electrically it was a festival of
badly working Klann parts.
 
On the homefront, I have a one manual and pedal Flentrop tracker.
I am in the process of installing a 16' Lieblich Gedekt pedal unit
on electro pneumatic action from an old Kilgen organ nearby and
will install pedal contacts under the Flentrop. It operates on a
second small Laukhuff blower. I really miss having 16' sound when I
am practicing. It will not be installed in such a way as to
compromise the integrity of the Flentrop.
 
I have recently started a new job as Minister of Music at St.
Peter's Anglican Church, Westchester Square in the Bronx. There I
play the fantastic new three manual Sebastian Gluck
rebuilt/expansion of their 1947 Austin, which in turn was rebuilt
from a Roosevelt. That organ is still under construction and is
currently seeing the installation of the Mounted Cornet V on the
great and the 16' Clarinette Basse in the swell. Please send me
lots of money so I can get the 32' Contrabombarde put it. It was
the featured organ in the July-August 1996 edition of The Northeast
Organist. Check out the specs and photos there.
 
My wife Christine is, in addition to being a great poet, English
teacher, cook, guitarist and the sweetest woman on earth, now the
carilloneur at St. Peter's. We have a 10 note chime in the tower
which has become her new hobby and obsession. Every Sunday, her
bells are heard all over the Bronx before the 10:00 service. Her
greatest frustration is that she has found the secret compartment
in the chime stand and can't figure out how to open it!