BANGOR – On a recent Sunday evening, St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor was virtually empty – as it usually is when the holy day’s events have ended. But the lights were dimly lit and a richly layered music of choral singers poured from the choir loft. They were accompanied by the historic and renowned E. and G.G. Hook pipe organ, built in Boston and transported up the Penobscot River on a steamboat in 1860.

Organist Kevin Birch was working the three keyboards and floor pedals that give voice to more than 1,800 pipes. It’s likely that earlier in the day in the Netherlands, Gemma Coebergh, who has never been to the United States, was playing the same music on the splendid organ in St. Joseph’s Church in Haarlem. Coebergh was born in Haarlem – one of Europe’s great organ cities. And Birch studied there for two years in the late 1980s. The two traveled in the same circles in those days but did not meet formally until a few years ago, when Birch heard Coebergh perform High Mass at St. Joseph’s. He wondered if she might like to try the Hook organ in Bangor.

Turns out, she did. Coebergh arrives in town Thursday to collaborate with Birch and his chamber chorus on a four-part concert series of 20th century Dutch music for choir and organ. The concerts, which will feature works by Hendrik Andriessen, Albert de Klerk, Jan Mul and Herman Strategier, will take place at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11 at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor and at 7 p.m. Nov. 12 at Saints Peter and Paul Basilica in Lewiston, as well as at churches in Boston and New Bedford, Mass. Maine soprano Nancy Ogle will perform at the Maine concerts. Additionally, Coebergh will participate in an organ workshop at 7 p.m. Nov. 14 at St. John’s, and she will deliver a talk at 12:15 p.m. Nov. 15 at Bangor Lounge in Memorial Union at the University of Maine. All of the events are free and open to the public.

“This is a once-every-10-years special event,” said Birch, who, in addition to playing the organ and founding the chamber choir, directs the organ society at St. John’s. “We’ve had interesting people play here in the past. But we’ve never had anything as integrated as this or that went on tour.”

Not only was Coebergh the student of the esteemed organist Albert de Klerk, but she played at his funeral and then took over his position at St. Joseph’s. She is also chairwoman of a choir, organ and chamber music foundation that bears his name.

“I heard her play at the feast of the Epiphany in 2003 in Haarlem,” said Birch, who garnered grant money from a handful of foundations to support the Bangor-Haarlem exchange. “It was fabulous. It was high art. She was flawless. I greeted her afterward. All I had to do was tell her the date, the size and the condition of the organ in Bangor, and she was electrified because she understood what it was. Organists thrive on these connections.”

Coebergh, who calls Haarlem an “organ town” – said that she and Birch quickly discovered a shared passion for organ music, and in particular for the works of de Klerk and Andriessen, a legendary Haarlem organist, composer and pedagogue.

“Kevin loves this music very much. So do I,” Coebergh explained by e-mail. “I have heard this music all my life: When I was a child, I heard it in the church, and later began to play it myself. So it became part of my life. I wanted to do this collaboration with Kevin because I had the fullest confidence in his approach.”

Organ music has a reputation for being serious and religious. Much of it is. Coebergh called it “music of quality and substance. It has noblesse. It can be serene, but sometimes also dramatic.” Still, she said, organ music is as multifaceted as the stops in a large Hook organ. It can be “light-hearted” and “jocular,” but, she added, “It is never dull.”

St. John’s Catholic Church is located at 207 York St. in Bangor. For information about the E. and G.G. Hook organ or about St. John’s Organ Society, visit www.hookopus288.org.