Jessica White | Staff Writer
Chautauqua organist Jared Jacobsen will perform the American-themed Massey Organ Mini-Concert he didn’t play on the Fourth of July at 12:15 p.m. today in the Amphitheater.
During his usual concert time on the Fourth, the Amphitheater crew was preparing for an evening entertainment event. Today, Jacobsen will play a set of variations on the tune “America” by Charles Ives, and another by I. V. Flagler, who was a music director at Chautauqua in the late 1800s.
“(Flagler) was very much in tune with that early, restlessly experimental nature of Chautauqua, where the sky was the limit, and you wanted to expose people to as many different things as possible,” Jacobsen said.
He will also play “Voluntary” by William Selby, which was one of the first published organ pieces in the United States, and “Air” by Gerre Hancock, an originally improvised piece that Hancock published for his wife.
“This is a little bit of a concert under false pretenses, because the organ was built in Canada, and it was funded by Canadians as a wonderful gift to this uniquely American institution,” Jacobsen said. “But I’m excited, and I feel quite comfortable playing American music on this organ.”
The Chautauquan Daily 
