OUR WORK
IOHIO activities may be divided into
five general areas:
CONSERVATION
USE
PROMOTION
EDUCATION
RESEARCH |
CONSERVATION
Protect and conserve the historic organs in the state of Oaxaca.
1) By means of field trips to the villages and communication with the local people.
When the IOHIO was founded in the year 2000, 45 organs in the state of Oaxaca had been documented and published, and since then, we have added 23 more organs to the list, bringing the total to 68. There are undoubtedly still more organs to be registeredand we only hope to be able to register them before they are damaged as a result of either a natural disaster, such as a fire or an earthquake, or by deliberate destruction from ignorance of their historic value. We have made more than one hundred field trips to seventy different communities, some as close as the city of Oaxaca itself and others as far as seven hours drive away, to measure, photograph and record the organs and to establish communication with the local authorities.  During these visits the choir loft may fill up with as many as thirty municipal and church authorities and interested townsfolk as we tell them about our work, the historical importance of their organ and the need to preserve it, its history and how it functions. We also distribute written material about the IOHIO and the Oaxacan organs and donate a framed photograph of the organ for display in the municipal office, in order to insure continuity of attention as the authorities change. 
We encourage the municipal and/or ecclesiastical authorities to keep the choir loft clean and not to use the organ case for storage or to pile up church accoutrements on the bellows; to restrict access to the choir loft; to make sure there is no water filtration or humidity in the church which could adversely affect the organ; to install screens on the windows in order to keep out birds, mice and other invasive animals; and to store all stray pieces of the organ inside the case. Cleaning and minor repairs of the Oaxacan organs are managed by our local staff and tunings and more serious interventions by organbuilder Susan Tattershall.
Each organ is officially registered with the INAH as part of the national patrimony. Beginning in the year 2006 our documentation process has included leaving a registration sheet on the side or back of each organ which on one side has the logo of the INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) followed by  "The historic organ of (town name) is part of the national patrimony and is protected by the federal law pretaining to archeological, historic and artistic monuments and zones. Take care of it because it is part of the history of your community." On the other side of the tag is the logo of the IOHIO and information about the organ: its date, whether known or approximate, other organs it resembles, its state of conservation, and contact information for the IOHIO.
2) By means of documentation of the organs.
 This is an ongoing process, which includes measurements of diverse components of the organ (windchest, keyboard, bellows, case, mouldings, etc.), photographs, descriptive information, and recording the data in our data base. During succeeding visits, we register more specific information in the computer which may later be analyzed and used for comparative purposes. Our photo archive already contains thousands of images. Architect José Luis Acevedo has made technical drawings of the most important organs, and several of these hang on the wall of the IOHIO office. An enlarged photograph of each organ is also on display in the office so that visitors, particularly those from the towns with organs, can appreciate them as part of a chronological series.
 
USE
Assure that the restored instrments are played and heard on a regular basis.
 The IOHIO has organized dozens of concerts, many of which have been presented during our five annual International Organ and Early Music Festivals. During the week IOHIO organ teacher Ricardo Rodys plays and give lessons on the organs in the Cathedral and the Basílica of the Soledad. We also play the organs for events in the Oaxacan communities, for private groups and conferences. In 2006 we initiated a series of bimonthly organ concerts in the Oaxaca Cathedral after the 12:00 Mass celebrated by the Archbishop.
PROMOTION
Promote the organs by means of publicity and the organization of events.
We give frequent lectures and interviews, our newsletter is widely distributed in English and Spanish, our web site is well-regarded, and we have published several articles about the Oaxacan organs. Our festival concerts have been transmitted regularly on local television, bringing the historic organs to the attention of many Oaxacans who would otherwise never have known about them. Many visitors, including tourists, groups of students, journalists, or organ aficionados, stop by our office and can see the photos and drawings on the walls and pick up written information about the IOHIO.
The event which attracts the most attention to the historic organs is our annual International Organ and Early Music Festival. Besides a series of concerts by national and international experts on several of the restored Oaxacan organs , these festivals also include related conferences, exhibits, master classes and/or guided tours. All the Festival concerts have been recorded and the first several IOHIO CDs will be available in 2007.
The first Sunday of every month we present a concert, alternating between piano (in the Santo Domingo Cultural Center) and organ (in the Oaxaca Cathedral).
EDUCATION
Provide keyboard and technical training on the local level so that Oaxacan can take responsibility for their organs.
The IOHIO Music Academy was established in 2004 as a means of providing basic keyboard training both in piano and organ.  Besides interest in playing the organs, several local young people have demonstrated interest in organbuilding and maintenance. They accompany us on field trips, help out with the documentation and cleaning, and learn more specific skills when Susan Tattershall is in town.
ARCHIVE RESEARCH
 Research in Oaxacan archives, particularly that of the Oaxaca Cathedral (Archivo Histórico del Arquidiócesis de Antequera Oaxaca or AHAAO), has brought to light important information not only about the organs, but also about organists and organ music. A manuscript “Cuaderno de tonos de maitines de Sor María Clara del Santísimo Sacramento” (“Notebook of Psalm Tones for Matins of Sister María Clara of the Most Blessed Sacrament”) was registered in the AHAAO some years ago, but was just published by Wayne Leupold Editions in collaboration with the IOHIO in 2005. It consists of a collection of short pieces or verses for organ and seems to have been compiled, though not composed, by a Oaxacan nun during the first half of the nineteenth century. We are almost certain that these organ pieces were composed in Oaxaca by Oaxacans, in which case they would be the only examples of organ music documented to date by Mexican composers. These light, happy pieces are classical in character and very accessible to the listener. They were probable written down for teaching purposes, since liturgical organ was usually played by memory or improvised and for that reason so little of it remains. To honor the memory of Sor María Clara, we regularly incorporate pieces from her notebook in our IOHIO concerts and encourage Mexican organists invited to play in our festivals to do the same.
Since the publication of the manuscript, IOHIO archive researcher Ricardo Rodys has discovered genealogical references which prove that Sor María Clara (or Clara Martínez Ramírez) was part of a dynasty of Oaxacan organists and organbuilders which originated in the late eighteenth century. What had been a routine research project suddenly turned into exciting detective work as one reference led to another. Thus Rodys was able to discover that Clara´s grandfather had been the organist in the Oaxaca Cathedral starting in 1786, but previous to that had been in Tlacolula and other nearby communities such as Ocotepec and Teitipac (where the cases of the organs still exist). It seems likely that at some point he would have played the organ in the neighboring community of Tlacochahuaya as well. Clara´s uncle was also an organist in the Cathedral, her cousins were organbuilders, and her aunt had been an organist in the Conceptionist convent, just like Clara herself (see the preliminary report about this research in the Fourth Newsletter of the IOHIO). A more complete study about this remarkable Oaxacan family will be published next year.
Rodys´s research has also brought to light the construction dates of many Oaxacan organs, allowing us to situate them correctly in their historical context. He has compiled a detailed history of the organs, organists and organbuilders of the Oaxaca Cathedral from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries, to be published next year. At the present time, his research is focused on the Notary Archives of Oaxaca, because sometimes the contracts between churches and organbuilders may include detailed information about an organ, its disposition, the materials used in the construction and its cost. Such was the case in a contract discovered by researcher Nora Sedeño for the organ (later destroyed during the Revolution) in Santa Catarina Ixtepeji. The document indicates that the community wanted an organ exactly like the one in Santo Domingo de Guzmán (later destroyed during the Reform Period) and describes the organ in detail. Thanks to this reference, we were able to recover information about two important Oaxaca instruments. |
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