Roman Catholic Church of St Alban,
Elm Park,
Hornchurch, RM12-5JX.
Background (written by KB):
The wedding took place on 25 May 2019. The organ, a digital instrument, was virtually unplayable. Virtually none of the stops (voices) were working. So there was only one rather loud stop (voice) available. The pedals could not be used because the felts had disintegrated and when one tried to play on them, they made a tremendous clacking wood-on-wood noise.
The bride, Elaine, had invited a friend, an excellent young violinist (Cameron McNichol, in his last year at secondary school, and about to study chemistry at university) to play the violin together with Klaus.
Klaus and Cameron had two rehearsal sessions together and played a lot of semi-improvised music before, during and after the ceremony. Cameron made up with his violin for the missing voices on the organ. Both tried to make up for the deficiences of the organ by skilful playing. The congregation probably did not notice that the organ was a wreck.
On 27 May 2019, Klaus received the following e-mail:
Morning Klaus, thank you so much for being part of my wedding.
It was a fantastic day and we couldn't have done it without you.
Once again thank you,
Elaine and Terry
xxxxxxcc