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When:
October 21, 2017 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
2017-10-21T19:00:00-04:00
2017-10-21T20:30:00-04:00
Where:
Music House Museum
7377 US-31
Williamsburg, MI 49690
USA
Cost:
$20
Contact:
2319389300

 The Music House Museum is honored to present a concert from world renowned organist, John Ledwon!

Buy Tickets Online On Oct. 21st at 7 pm, John Ledwon will perform a variety of music on our Wurlitzer Theater Organ. He is known and respected throughout the world and it is exciting to welcome him to Northern Michigan!! Ledwon am a native Southern Californian. His family lived for several years in the Palm Springs area, vacating those digs for the Los Angeles house during the summer. When he was about 11 his family moved to La Canada/Flintridge where his parents bought a Hammond M3 and his love for the organ began. He studied with Orville Foster, followed by Gertrude Deutsch in La Canada. She was a former organist at some theatre in San Francisco and also a solo pianist on the NBC Red and Blue networks before they became NBC and ABC.

After a visit to the Crome Organ Company in Los Angeles, he and his dad were absolutely enthralled. His dad searched around and found a 3/12 Wurlitzer and that started my formal introduction with the theatre organ. They had the organ professionally installed and his childhood passion for the theater organ has never waned.

Ledwon majored in organ at SCUN and UCLA with a minor in mathematics and theatre arts, getting his teaching credential. After graduating from college at 20, he did a 4-month tour with the USO entertaining troops in Alaska and Asia. Following that experience and returning to UCLA to get his masters degree, he began his teaching in the Thousand Oaks, California area and at the same time started building my home to house the pipe organ! After losing the first home to California’s infamous brush fires, he rebuilt the house and reinstalled an even larger organ (ultimate specifications, for those who know their theater had specifications of 4 manuals 52 ranks and purchased a new Fox Special French styled console from Ken Crome). The instrument was regularly used by several Hollywood motion picture companies to augment the sound tracks for many motion pictures. John produced six CDs on the instrument before he donated the organ to the Nethercutt Collection in 2007.

Ledwon traveled giving concerts throughout Europe, the US and Australia and was also a regular on the Mike Douglas TV.

He taught mathematics and theatre arts for many years and did a small amount of concerts when asked. During this time he served as program chair and president of the Los Angeles Theatre Organ Society, chaired the 1979 American Theatre Organ Society’s (ATOS) National Convention in Los Angeles. He also served several terms as an ATOS board member and three years as ATOS President.  For several years he taught theatre organ class at Pasadena City College and doubled the size of the program. He finally retired from teaching in 2000 after trying for a year to juggle teaching and his performance commitments. He is the staff organist at Disney’s El Capitan Theatre in LA where he has been on staff since 1999.

He now lives in Henderson, Nevada, just south of Las Vegas, where he has just completed the  installation of a 3 manual 15 rank Wurlitzer in his home. Presently, he does 5 to 10 concerts a year in various locations across the country and abroad, in addition to his commuting to the Disney theater for performances and recording.