Organs get a bad rap.

Dusty, stuffy, locked up in churches ... most people don't go near them.

But they're coming out to play for Organ Festival on the Grand, which includes four days of concerts and activities.

Festival chairperson Eric Dewdney says church services generally feature subdued organ music.

"A lot of people don't know the organ can really talk in good hands. It can be exciting and colourful. We want to really pump it up in the community."

Dewdney expects that people of all ages will attend the festival, which starts Sunday and will double as the national convention of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, an event that is held in a different Canadian city each year.

In keeping with this year's theme of creativity and imagination, festival activities will include an "organ crawl," a silent movie with organ accompaniment and an improvisational competition.

On Sunday, the Waterloo Region Organ Crawl will begin at the Delta Hotel Kitchener. A bus will carry participants to see the featured pipes -- including the Warren organ at Glen Morris United Church in Brant County, the Wolff organ at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Cambridge and the Brunzema organ at Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church in Kitchener.

At 8 p.m. the same day, local organist Brad Moggach will perform during an inter-denominational jazz vespers program to be held at St. Andrew's in Kitchener.

Dewdney describes jazz vespers as an increasingly popular form of meditative service that alternates between readings and music.

"It's a laid-back kind of service that a lot of people relate to," he said.

Following jazz vespers, organist Kirk Adsett will perform to accompany a 10 p.m. showing of the 1920 silent movie The Parson's Widow at St. Matthews Lutheran Church.

Produced in Norway, the movie is about an aspiring parson, a man whose romantic dilemmas offer plenty of humorous opportunities for organ melodrama.

"The cinema organ can get quite carried away," Dewdney says.

As can competitors in the festival's improvisational competition, who will vie for a $9,000 prize.

European organists have tested their skills in such contests for centuries, but six musicians will make history at the first North American event of its kind.

As jazz musicians do, the organists will create music as they perform, improvising on a set theme.

The semifinals will take place Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at First United Church in Waterloo. The finals are set for Wednesday at 9 a.m. at St. Andrew's in Kitchener. Both rounds are free to the public.

Pauline Finch, a festival volunteer and student organist, says her grandfather used to improvise jazz during communion services in England.

"Now we're seeing talented younger organists, people who have looked at the organ and said, 'This has possibilities.' Everything old is new again.

"It's like watching art happen. It's an unrepeatable event."

The organ's versatility extends to a wide range of moods, cultures, sounds and textures in addition to traditional hymns and Bach fugues, Finch says, and playing this "symphony in a box" is an addictive "whole-body, whole-mind, whole-heart experience."

Other festival events include a "totally non-churchy, mind-bender concert" at Kitchener City Hall, which will fuse electronic sounds with flute and voice, plus an organ and saxophone jam session by local musicians Jan Overduin and Willem Moolenbeek.

On July 14, the Nota Bene Period Orchestra presents the Bach Concerti for Four Organs.

And on July 15, a carillon concert at St. George's Anglican Church in Guelph precedes an organ performance by David Briggs of Massachusetts.

Dewdney says, "We want to bring the organ out of the traditional church-cloistered world it lives in and give it a very public face."

Waterloo Region Record

If you go

Organ Festival on the Grand runs tomorrow to Wednesday, July 16. A concert pass is $95. For several events, admission is free.

Full registration for Royal Canadian College of Organists national convention is $340 (students $240, college members $290).

For a list of festival events, visit www.festivalotg.ca or phone 519-621-4530.