Grayson’s anatomy

The sound is full and vibrant as his feet rise and fall on the pedals and his fingers ripple over the keys. The instrument mesmerizes most houseguests, but it might make purists bristle. With the vintage keyboard lying in ruins inside a warehouse in Greenville, Miss., Robert Grayson at least salvaged the glorious pipes of the 1922 organ. Those long, angular tubes now form the façade of the three manual digital organs in Grayson’s living room, a project he completed at 1 p.m. the day of his daughter’s wedding last New Year’s Eve, just in time for a raucous post-reception party to ring in 2008.

While an entire subculture of aficionados who refurbish them has supplanted the popularity and proliferation of organ play—even in many area churches where more contemporary rock arrangements fill the air—Grayson’s love for the organ is both musical and biographical.

A Hammond organ was his first instrument when he dabbled on his father’s at age 8. Grayson met his future wife because they had the same organ teacher at Cal State Long Beach. His wife still plays, and so does his newlywed daughter. A former tenor for the New York City Opera and voice instructor at The Juilliard School, Grayson fosters the next generation of vocalists as chair of LSU’s voice and opera divisions. He composes at one of the two grand pianos that sit on opposite ends of his music room, but the organ, he says, is what he plays for fun. He also stays sharp in case he needs to substitute for any area organists who call in sick. Professional organists are in short supply in Baton Rouge.

“Maybe when I’m 70 or something and retired from LSU I’ll go be a cathedral organist,” he says with a laugh. “By then there really won’t be many of us.”