Fifth Graders from schools in the San Diego Uni-

fied district have been flocking to the Organ Pavil-

ion this year! Presentations by Raúl, the curator

team, and volunteers help acquaint them with how

the organ works – and sounds!

Opera Concert: Friday Evening, Apr. 26

San Diego Opera and the Spreckels Organ Society unveil the San Diego Opera's 2019-

2020 season! Hear famous arias sung by San Diego Opera cast members with San Diego

Civic Organist Raúl Prieto Ramírez playing the world's largest open air pipe organ as the

orchestra. Whether you regularly enjoy the Opera or have never done so, this is your

chance to enjoy music in Balboa Park's most majestic open air setting. Your no-cost ad-

mission is a gift from the City of San Diego, the San Diego Opera, and the Spreckels Or-

gan Society.

Monday, June 24—a Rockin’ Start fo the Festival!

After last year’s outrageously successful finale concert, Raúl Prieto Ramírez and the

Spreckels Organ Rock Band are back, this time to open the Festival with a shot of music

adrenaline! This popular concert draws a large crowd of over 5000 locals and will kick off

the summer (see full schedule of Summer Concerts inside.) The June 24 Festival premiere

will be a tribute to the music of Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin. We’re expecting an outsize

crowd, so more volunteers are needed! Contact 619-702-8138 to get involved.

For a full listing of this summer’s concerts, click here.

Coming Up at the Organ Pavilion...

The Spreckels Organ plays every Sunday, rain or shine, at 2 p.m for a free public

concert in the heart of Balboa Park.

Sunday, March 31—2 p.m. concert by Raúl Prieto Ramírez celebrating the birth-

day of Johann Sebastian Bach

Sunday 2 p.m. Concerts continue through April and the remainder of 2019.

Special concerts of note:

Sunday April 21—6:15 a.m. Easter Sunrise Service by La Jolla Presbyterian

Church, with 15-piece brass ensemble, 100-voice choir, organist William Lullo

Friday April 26—7 p.m. Opera Celebration Concert in partnership with San Die-

go Opera: Raúl Prieto Ramírez will perform with Opera cast members

Sunday April 28—Earth Fair in Balboa Park (there will be a 2 p.m. organ concert)

Saturday May 11—Brunch-Concert-Tour event (Invitation enclosed)

Monday June 24—7:30 p.m. Organ Festival Opening Concert (See inside for de-

tails of this Summer’s concert series.)

Movie Night:

Saturday, August 31

Movie Night concludes the 2019 summer season with “Chasing Choo Choos,” filmed along the “Spreckels Railroad.” That line, the San Diego & Arizona Rail-way, was completed in 1919. We’re excited to join the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum to celebrate its 100th anniversary!

Saturday, May 11 —

Your chance to take the

Insiders’ Tour by attend-

ing the annual Brunch-

Concert-Tour Fundraiser!

Click here for information and

reservations

...Hello from Carol !

Dr. Carol Williams has some exciting new concert bookings. She

is well known for playing jazz on the classical organ and now you can

hear her perform at the world famous Royal Festival Hall in London in

the International Organ Series, April 2020. She will be representing

the USA at this prestigious event.

She will be also performing on the massive organ in Atlantic City

this Summer for a regional convention.

Besides concert bookings, her latest work, Symphony of Time, for

organ and dedicated to the American Guild of Organists, has just been

published.

SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL ORGAN FESTIVAL MONDAYS AT 7:30 P.M. JUNE 24 TO AUGUST 26, 2019

MOVIE NIGHT FINALE: SATURDAY AUGUST 31 CLICK HERE FOR CONCERT LISTINGS

Getting the Maximum Tax Ben-

efit from Your Donation to the

Spreckels Organ Society

You probably know that donations to the Spreckels

Organ Society are eligible for an itemized deduction on

your income tax return. But you may not know that there

are ways to increase the tax benefit you receive from

your contributions.

If you donate property that you have owned for more

than a year, such as real estate or stock, and that has in-

creased in value and would result in capital gains tax if

you sold it, you may be able to avoid the capital gains tax

by donating the property directly to a charity (such as the

Spreckels Organ Society) rather than selling the property

and donating the proceeds. In most cases, you will get a

deduction for the full market value of the property, not

just your basis in the property (the amount you paid for

it).

If you are 70 1/2 or older, there is another provision

that may apply. Anyone who is at least 70 1/2 at the time

of the donation may exclude from taxable income a dis-

tribution of up to $100,000 from a traditional IRA if it is

paid directly to a charity. This is known as a Qualified

Charitable Distribution.

This is especially valuable for someone who claims

the standard deduction rather than itemizing deductions,

but it can be of benefit even to those who itemize deduc-

tions. For example, it may benefit a donor who would

otherwise pay a higher Medicare premium based on in-

come. It will also count toward the Required Minimum

Distribution that applies to those who are 70 1/2 or older.

Your tax advisor can tell you whether any of these strate-

gies will benefit you.

San Diego Sings! 2019

On March 23 more than a score of

choirs came to serenade the city from the

Organ Pavilion stage in the San Diego

Choral Consortium’s third “San Diego

Sings!” In this photo by Gary Payne,

1,000 singers lined the colonnades and

filled the stage to sing “Homeland” and

“America the Beautiful” accompanied by

Raúl Prieto Ramírez on the organ. The

massed choir was led, from a scissor-lift

placed in the central aisle, by Dr Arlie Lan-

gager of Mira Costa College.

Welcome, Music Lovers!

It has been really exciting to

work on the development of the

events coming in the next months.

For the first time we are celebrating

Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday on

my Sunday 2pm concert on March

31st. Even Google has celebrated it

with an interactive doodle that led to

our contest: followers can create

their two-bar polyphonic "song" on

the doodle and share it with Spreckels Organ Society on

Facebook. The best three "songs" will be performed by me

on our beloved instrument during Bach's birthday concert

March 31st, and winners will receive a book and DVD as a

present. Not bad!

On April 26th we will have our first collaboration con-

cert with the San Diego Opera: the Opera Celebration Con-

cert. Whether you regularly enjoy the Opera or you have

never done so, this is your chance to enjoy it in Balboa

Park's most majestic open-air setting, and it's no-charge

admission thanks to the City of San Diego, San Diego

Opera and your support! It is very exciting to have SOS in

partnership with the Opera to present their 2019-2020 sea-

son. The Spreckels Organ is truly the musical instrument of

San Diego, and the decision of San Diego Opera to start

their new season with us is a good example of how we are

seen by our peer cultural organizations, and what potential

our Society has as a cultural service provider for our com-

munity. I want to encourage all our members to help us

achieve a full house that day and show how much we care

about promoting accessible and affordable high quality

music and art for San Diego.

Finally, how to express my excitement about our forth-

coming San Diego International Organ Festival in a few

lines... This is the first of our festivals that I have fully pro-

grammed. My focus—as always—is to bring to our city the

best of the best from wherever it’s found – five different

countries this time. We will be featuring both almost new

artists for the first time in USA and mind-blowing artistic

proposals - first time ever in history- like a concert with

string quintets by Brahms and Franck (the Art of Elan, fea-

turing musicians from SD Symphony) with organ. The fes-

tival will start with our Tribute Night to Pink Floyd and

Led Zeppelin and end on a Saturday (this is new) with our

highly successful Movie Night concert. We have a world-

class facility that deserves a world-class festival, so you are

all welcome! If you want to help underwrite a concert or

advertise in the festival program, please contact our office

as soon as possible. Your support is needed, at any level!

I'm working right now on many new exciting projects for

the fall 2019 and the year 2020, so stay tuned with us to be

the first to hear about new musical gifts!

Raúl Prieto Ramírez Civic Organist / Artistic Director

Dear Spreckels Friends:

I am so excited to be the new

president of the Spreckels Organ So-

ciety. I joined the board in 2013 as a

trustee, then was elected secretary in

2015. I first moved to San Diego in

1975 not too long after graduation

from U.C. Berkeley. I moved away

three times over the years, but al-

ways moved back because, as we all

know, there is no place like San Diego!

But I have a confession to make - although I lived

just outside Balboa Park and walked to the park almost

every day, I never went to a Sunday afternoon organ

concert. I saw the “Concert at 2 pm” signs, but dis-

missed organ music as hymns and skating rink music. It

wasn’t until some dear friends brought me to a Summer

Organ Festival concert in 2009 that I realized how di-

verse the organ repertoire is, and what a powerful instru-

ment the organ is. I became a member of the Spreckels

Organ Society that summer, and have enjoyed the Sun-

day afternoon and summer evening concerts ever since.

I look forward to seeing you on Sundays at 2 pm.

And it is less than three months until the start of the San

Diego International Organ Festival!

Sincerely,

Jean Samuels President

Page 2 ⧫ StopTab ⧫ Spring 2019 Page 3 ⧫ StopTab ⧫ Spring 2019

StopTab: A Quarterly published by the

SPRECKELS ORGAN SOCIETY 1549 El Prado, Suite 10, San Diego CA 92101-1661

(619) 702-8138 / SOSorgan@gmail.com / www.SpreckelsOrgan.org

Officers

President - Jean Samuels

Vice President - Dang Nguyen

Treasurer - Tom Warschauer

Secretary - Paul Saunders

Trustees Manuel Aguilar Ralph Hughes

Gary Allard Jared Jacobsenl

Charles Ballinger Robert Kilian

Mitch Beauchamp Alfred Lewis

Andrea Card Robert Plimpton

Brandon Carpenter Paulette Rodgers-Leahy

Ron DeFields Gordon Stanley

Bill Galante Tony Uribe

Dwight Gordon Tony Valencia

Charles Gunther Antonia Villafranca

Randy Ward

Ex-Officio Trustees

Lyle Blackinton—Curator Emeritus

Ross Porter—Executive Director & StopTab Editor

Dale Sorenson—Curator

Raúl Prieto Ramírez—Artistic Director

Happy Birthday, Bach!

At the Sunday con-

cert on March 31,

Raúl Prieto Ramírez

offered an all-

Bach concert in

honor of Johann

Sebastian Bach’s

Birthday. Among

the innovative

elements of the

concert was

Raúl’s use of two musical entries from Google’s

online contest offering a chance to invent a melody

and have it arranged in the style of Bach.

How to Get Involved

Members who would like to get more involved

with the Spreckels Organ Society are encouraged to

join one of our committees. If you have an interest in

helping out with membership, special events, educa-

tion or grant-writing, please write to:

sosorgan@gmail.com or call (619) 702-8138.

If you always wanted to be a “roadie” with a band,

we can use help with set-up for summer concerts and

special events.

If you are interested in learning about sound,

lighting or video editing, we have internship opportu-

nities available. Theater students in high school and

college can gain valuable experience and may be eli-

gible for course credit from their school.