Yesterday a choral group I'm in rehearsed and performed, with members of
the Kansas City Symphony, the Haydn 'Lord Nelson Mass' (Mass in d minor)
in a small Kansas City church, St.  Mary's Episcopal, located in a rundown
section downtown.  I noticed a small, trim, elderly man, clad in coveralls,
scurrying about doing this and that; I took him to be the custodian.
During the rehearsal our conductor thanked this man, and identified him as
Bruce Prince-Joseph and told his story.  Perhaps some long-time New Yorkers
will remember him.  I got more information when I talked to him at a break:

A Kansas City boy, he went to New York to continue his piano and organ
studies, and eventually became the pianist/organist/harpsichordist of the
New York Philharmonic from the 1940s to the early 1970s - in later years
somewhat overlapping the tenure of the late, lamented Paul Jacobs - and a
fairly well-known organist, for years at, I believe, the St.  Paul's Chapel
of Columbia University.  He was on the faculty, and eventually dean, of the
music department at Hunter College (CUNY).

In 1987 he retired and returned to Kansas City. He discovered that St.
Mary's, the oldest Episcopal church in Kansas City, built in the 1840s, and
long since replaced by the  nearby Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral, was in
terrible shape. He made it his mission to see that the church was restored.
I asked him why; he thought and said, 'Well, I played my first organ
recital here when I was a boy.'

Since that time he has organized volunteers who have raised several million
dollars to physically restore the church, replace the broken stained glass
windows, rehabilitate the pipe organ, replace the leaking roof, renovate
the interior.  And the church is now an active parish again.

He said, 'This is easily the most rewarding work I've ever done.'
Considering the results, I think I might want to agree with him.

Scott Morrison