RAHWAY — Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) recently presented “Illumination: A Haunted Organ Concert by Candlelight featuring Ian Fraser.”
Fraser performed Halloween music from the 1870s to the 1980s on the 1928 Wurlitzer. Hundreds of candles lit up the stage and a fog machine creating a Halloween ambiance.
Travis Head, director of operations, said that he once saw a candlelit show in New York City and has been wanting to do something like this “forever.”
“Such a cool vibe,” he said. “The event took months of planning. We were all here early this morning, turning on candles. Our techs did top-notch work.”
Fraser opened the show with Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” combined with Danny Elfman’s “This is Halloween” from Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” film.
One of the show’s highlights was a medley of music from “Phantom of the Opera.” Fraser performed the music, along with the 1925 silent film, a few weeks prior to the “Illumination” performance.
He also performed a ragtime piece written in 1912 called “The Skeleton Rag.”
A medley of Halloween-spirited television themes followed. They included “Bewitched,” “Scooby-Doo,” “The Munsters,” “Casper the Friendly Ghost” and “The Addams Family,” in which the audience joined in, snapping their fingers along with the catchy tune.
“The Monster Mash” was another hit the audience loved, followed by “The Time Warp” from “The Rocky Horror Show.”
Fraser performed the theme from “Ghostbusters” and said, “That’s a lot of fun to play on the organ.”
Three songs from the 1958 film “The Blob” were performed – “Love Theme,” “Violence” and “The Blob.”
“The King Kong March” is a musical piece composed by Max Steiner for the classic 1933 film “King Kong.”
Fraser followed up with two pieces from The Shining, “Masquerade” and “Midnight, the Stars and You.”
The show concluded with “Danse Macabre,” which Fraser called “Quite a fun, atmospheric piece.”
Fraser received a standing ovation from the audience.
During the performance, Fraser also shared his technical and historical knowledge of the Wurlitzer, as well as the background behind the songs he performed.
Fraser developed a passion for organs and mechanical music at the age of 2, after hearing a band organ on a carousel. He’s the house silent film organist at UCPAC, the Brook Arts Center in Bound Brook, The Grand Theater in East Greenville Pennsylvania and the duCret Center of Art in Plainfield. Additionally, he’s the house organist at the St. George Theatre in Staten Island, performing pre-show concerts for their classic movie series and “Arts-in-Education” series, where he regularly plays for audiences of more than 1,500 K-12 students, introducing the theater organ to the next generation.
Learn more about Ian Fraser at: https://ianfraserorganist.com/.
Learn more about Union County Performing Arts Center at: https://ucpac.org/.
Photos by Maryanne Christiano-Mistretta
