Artis Wodehouse performs Arthur Bird’s 1898 “Auf dem Lande” on her unique Model 86K Mason & Hamlin foot-pump reed organ live at the Melodeon Concert 3/25/12 at Church of the Epiphany in NYC. Bird’s composition was specially written for this exact model reed organ which is part of Wodehouse’s instrument collection. This late model instrument is from 1918 and was restored by Louis Huivenaar and Anthony Meloni. It is thought to be the only working instrument of it’s kind in the world. Arthur Bird (1856-1920) was an American ex-pat composer, now completely unknown whose works are of the highest quality.
About admin
Pianist and harmoniumist ARTIS WODEHOUSE has devoted her careeer to preserving and disseminating neglected but valuable music and instruments from the past, with an emphasis on American music. Cited by the NYTimes as “savior of the old and neglected”, she received a National Endowment grant that propelled her into production of CDs and published transcriptions of recorded performances and piano rolls made by George Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton and Zez Confrey. Her best-seller, “Gershwin Plays Gershwin”, on the Nonesuch label has sold over 500,000 copies. Beginning in 2000, Wodehouse began performing on a representative group of antique reed organs and harmoniums, toy pianos and an 1823 English square piano and an 1860 Steinway square piano that she had painstakingly restored and brought to concert condition. She founded the chamber group MELODEON in 2010 to present little known but valuable music from 19th and early 20th Century America, using her antique instrument collection as the basis for repertoire choice. Wodehouse has a BM from the Manhattan School of Music, an MM from Yale, and a DMA from Stanford.
