Xaver Varnus and his newly installed pipe organ. Photo contributed by Xaver Varnus.

A musician bringing Bach to his venue in Brooklyn is hoping the public will help repair the building.

Organist Xaver Varnus bought the former pilgrim church in Brooklyn last year to transform it into a live music venue.

He has already installed a pipe organ and has now set his sights on restoring the exterior to its former glory.

Varnus has been gathering pictures from the early 1900s showing the church clad with brown brick instead of the white vinyl siding it has today.

“I really don’t understand why this fashion came in the 60s and 70s to cover most of the Nova Scotian churches with this, kind of, white condom but it’s terrible. Maybe it’s very good against the weather but it’s terrible for the look,” said Varnus.

However, before the siding can be replaced, there are some structural issues to contend with as time has caused the walls to go out of alignment.

The pandemic has cut into his plans for performances so he has turned to a GoFundMe page to help get the work done.

To date, he has raised over $6,000 of his $48,000 goal.

Varnus credits his popularity on YouTube for the number of donations he is receiving from around the world.

“I get donations from everywhere, from New Zealand, from Japan, from Korea, everywhere,” said Varnus. “And now I can realize how many people are listening to the YouTube recordings because the people are mostly reacting because of the YouTube Videos.”

Videos of Varnus playing some of the world’s most famous pipe organs have been viewed more than 15 million times.

The organ master has more grand plans for the former church including installing a clock in the tower, something that was not part of the original design.

Varnus says the work he has done on the newly christened Varnus Concert Hall is not going unnoticed by the classical music world’s elite.

“One of the most famous string quartet of Europe at this time is the Kelemen Quartet and they are coming to Carnegie Hall, to New York, at the end of August,” said Varnus. “They just called me two weeks ago and they said after the Carnegie Hall concert they are coming to visit me in Nova Scotia for a week and they want to play two concerts here in my church.”

Depending on what COVID restrictions are in place, Varnus is planning to hold a concert on March 21. Besides being the start of spring, the date is significant for him.

“I always play the great concert on the twenty-first of March because that is the birthday of Bach,” said Varnus.

He understands it can be difficult for someone who hasn’t been raised on classical music to find it accessible. But that’s a perception he hopes to change.

“Maybe I can take a little part of, for local people to opening the gate of the beautiful country of classical music for them.”

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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Xaver Varnus and his newly installed pipe organ. Photo contributed by Xaver Varnus.

World-renowned organist Xaver Varnus plans to host a series of mini-concerts during the holidays at the former Pilgram Church.

Varnus bought the church earlier this year and installed a pipe organ shortly afterwards.

He’s made many friends of the neighbours who would stop in to check on his progress.

“In Toronto, in one year, I met only one of my neighbours,” said Varnus. “Since I’m here, I don’t know how big is the population of Brooklyn, perhaps one thousand, I think I already met 999.”

Initially, Varnus had hoped to mount a concert in his church to repay the warm welcome he has received.

Because of COVID-19, he needed to rework his plan. Instead of one gathering of over a hundred people, he will host five nights of organ music for up to 20 people at a time.

“I don’t want to play a very long concert. Maybe 30 minutes or 35 minutes and then after, maybe we have some chat outside the church,” said Varnus.

The program will feature selections from Bach, a personal favourite of Varnus since he was a five year-old child.

In fact, he calls Bach, “his first language.”

“It’s very easy to understand Bach for the twentieth century because, like Shakespeare, of course, one-third of his work was made for his own age but the other two-thirds is general for all over the ages and people.”

Varnus says some of the people who stop in to visit have had little experience with classical music prior to his arrival in the community.

He’s touched to see them embrace the genre so fully as evidenced by a performance by a visiting musician friend.

“This very nice lady was sitting in the first bench next to the piano and during Walter’s wonderful performance of Brahms, she was crying. I thought, this is the first touch, when classical music was touching this lady’s heart.”

Varnus is already making plans for a larger performance in the fall of 2021. Several of the top figures in classical music from around the world have committed to perform in his Brooklyn Church, now rechristened ‘Varnus Hall’ at a festival in September.

“I want to give some hope to people that after COVID we still have light, we still have sunshine, we still have Debussy and Bach and we still have big red apples, so everything, you know?”

Varnus will play his mini-concert series at 5:00pm each evening from December 26 – 30. Admission is free but a donation towards his 2021 festival and ongoing renovations is appreciated.

Unfortunately, if you haven’t secured a seat, you’re out of luck. The concerts were announced Thursday and by Friday, all performances have been filled.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson