RELIGION IN BRIEF BANGOR: HOOK ORGAN

Kevin Birch, director of music and organist at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor, will perform at the International Organ Festival in Berlin on June 29 and lecture on Saturday, July 7, about the historic E. & G.G. Hook organs in Maine. The organs were selected to illustrate key developments in organ building practices in New England during the 19th century. Maine is an important area for the study of the American pipe organ. Many of the instruments throughout the state have been restored including the one built in 1860 that Birch regularly plays at St. John’s. In Berlin, Birch also will perform the festival opening concert on an 1870 Hook organ recently relocated to the Heilig-Kreuz Kirche in Berlin. The organ was moved to Germany from a closed church in Woburn, Mass.