The Charlene Larsen Center for the Performing Arts is in need of help. It is a popular regional performance venue.

A 1916 Estey organ will be the centerpiece of a fundraising campaign for the Charlene Larsen Center for the Performing Arts in Astoria.

A weekend of recitals is planned to raise money for the restoration of the instrument at the Larsen Center. Activities begin with a free children’s pipe-organ building activity, that will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday.

Organ Recital Series

Organ Recital Series

A weekend of activities begins at 4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, at the Charlene Larsen Center for the Performing Arts, 588 16th St., Astoria.

Other event locations include Grace Episcopal Church, 1545 Franklin Ave., Astoria; St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 5000 N Place, Seaview; and Peace Lutheran Church, 725 33rd St., Astoria.

The Seaview concert is Saturday, Jan. 27.

Recital tickets are $15 and may be purchased online or at the door. Season tickets are also available for $75, and include a donation to the organ fund. Separate donations are also welcomed by phone.

www.larsencenter.org

Students from the Astoria Conservatory will be among those attending the event, which is spearheaded by OrgelKids USA, a nonprofit group.

Three organ recitals are also planned at other locations. At 7 p.m. Friday, a multimedia organ performance called “Around the World in 80 Minutes,” featuring Jeannine and David Jordan from Lincoln City, will take place at Grace Episcopal Church.

At 3 p.m. Saturday, a recital by Andrew ElRay Stewart-Cook, from Eugene, will be held at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Seaview, Washington. Lastly, at 3 p.m. Sunday, a recital with Barbara Baird, a longtime University of Oregon instructor, is planned at Peace Lutheran Church. Admission is $15 to each performance.

‘Colors of sound’

Bereniece Jones-Centeno, executive director of the Larsen Center, is excited to see the project back on the calendar.

“This concert has been in the making since March of 2020 when it was canceled/postponed due to the pandemic, so I am very grateful that the artists have hung in there with us until now,” she said.

Baird plans a program that includes church music and works by Brahms, Fanny Mendelssohn and several contemporary American composers, as well as Bach favorites including the Toccata and Fugue.

“The organ has been called the ‘king of instruments’ because it can have so many different colors of sound, some imitating woodwinds, or brass or strings,” Baird said. “This versatility allows composers to write in many different moods and styles.”

Floated

The performing arts center is housed in the former Trinity Lutheran Church, which was designed by Astoria architect John Wicks in the 1930s using Depression-era funds. It stands on the site of the Convent of the Holy Name which existed there in the late 1800s.

The Estey Opus 1429 organ was constructed by a company founded by Jacob Estey, a plumber turned businessman whose Vermont factory began selling organs around the world in the 1840s.

The Astoria instrument, which has 1,298 pipes, was originally in the home of Dr. John Sellwood of Portland. It was floated down the Columbia River on a barge to be installed at the church in the 1930s and first played on Christmas morning in 1938.

In 1974, the congregations of Trinity and Zion Lutheran churches merged to form Peace Lutheran at 12th and Exchange streets in Astoria. Clatsop Community College bought the building three years later and transformed it into a performing arts center.

‘Holy ground’

The organ was reportedly not played for many years. When college leaders determined the building was superfluous, a coalition of eight organizations named Partners For The PAC, which gained nonprofit status in 2017, campaigned to prevent it from being sold for a different use.

Constance Waisanen bought it in 2020 to preserve it, with a view to the Partners for the PAC group eventually having full ownership. It was named for arts promoter Charlene Larsen at a ceremony, where she was taken completely by surprise.

Larsen has played the upright bass with orchestras on the stage, as well as serving as a leader with the Partners for the PAC group. Her affection for the former church is evident in her introduction to a recent promotional video. “For some, it is ‘holy ground’ for the performing arts,” she said. “It is a venue that reaches out to the community and invites you to come in.”

Passion

Jones-Centeno, a leader in several musical groups, echoed that sentiment. Her first venture at the location was with the Astoria Music Festival when she worked with apprentice vocalists.

She described the space — it seats about 200 — as ideal for performances suited to a more intimate setting than Astoria’s larger Liberty Theatre.

Improvements have included new carpeting and flooring, plus repairs of flat portions of the roof which had deteriorated during decades of coastal rain. Windows have been renovated by the college’s historic restoration class; the Lower Columbia Preservation Society has provided assistance.

Visiting organist Baird shares a passion for this month’s fundraisers. “Because organs are so massive and expensive to build, it often takes a village to finance such a project,” Baird said. “I’m delighted to hear that the community of Astoria is coming together to raise funds to renovate and restore the organ at the Larsen Performing Arts Center. It’s my privilege to assist in this worthy undertaking.”

Jones-Centeno is pleased that three churches will showcase their instruments for a broader audience. “The collaboration from everyone is fun and inspiring,” she added.