Concerts are held on first Friday of the month
At Coronation Hall, Spa Road, Woodhall Spa starting at 7.30 p.m.
“Music for Woodhall”
President Nicholas Martin B.E.M.
TONY STACE
I started playing the organ when I was 9 -
At around the same time, I was lucky enough to spend a weekend with FRANZ LAMBERT,
and was honoured to be in the company of such a famous organist. At age 12, Dad and
I were attending a lot of demos and concerts, and a new organ on the market (an ELKA
E49) caught my Dad's eye. He kept looking at it, and for months he kept saying "I
want that organ". At age 13 I arrived home from school to a gleaming new organ -
By the time I reached 14 Dad said "We need to get you another teacher, Ray has taken
you as far as he can". Just a week earlier we had seen an advert in our local paper
"Be taught by the best -
Around this time I started entering competitions; my first was a Yamaha Local Region Competition to be held at Teville Organs at Worthing. I turned up and saw that one of the judges was Steve Lowdell. I played a 'Phantom of the Opera' Selection and won it.
After winning the local event, I was asked to compete in the National competition,
which was held at The Library Theatre Solihull. I played the Yamaha HS8, i won £125!
which, at that age, was like winning the Lottery! I then entered the Wersi competition,
winning the local event. At that time, we didn't know but the competition was going
to go further. A week after winning I got a call from Aura Sounds, Purley, to ask
would I compete in the Wersi European finals to be held at FRANKFURT -
We went over and WON a Wersi Prisma organ. When we got home Dad built it and that's the setup I used, with a Technics KN800, for the next three years.
At the age of 14, I also entered the Cinema Organ Society competition held at Gunton
Hall. I played one slow piece and one fast piece and won. Dad was hoping that it
would lead me into the Theatre organ circuit but, although I loved the sound of the
Wurlitzers -
At seventeen, we had heard if you want to get on to the Organ circuit the best place to play would be somewhere called Caister. I had already sent off letters to all the leading manufacturers to ask if they needed a demonstrator, but the only reply I got was from Brian Price of BOHM to say "We don't need anyone at the moment, but good luck for the future", which I appreciated. I also sent off 40 letters to Organ Societies asking for a chance of appearing at their club. Looking back, I don't remember getting any replies to my letters so the next course of action was to find out if I could get a spot at Caister. I got in touch with Grant Neal and he said I could start off an evening concert for 25mins. We turned up at Caister the day before, trundled our Organ (which was now a Yamaha HX1) into our chalet and practised and practised so when I did eventually play I would be as sharp as I could be. Unfortunately, we got complaints from other chalets and had to turn the organ off! The day had come for me to play my first spot at Caister. I received a standing ovation and suddenly a lot of the people I had written to were now offering me concerts, so playing at Caister really did kick start my career.
The next year (now aged 18) I was playing around 30 concerts for the year as well
as a full time job in my Dad's Billposting company. I was working for Dad from age
17 to 21, because I still didn't have enough concerts to do it full time. When I
reached 21, with four years manual labour and trying to play concerts in the evening,
my hands were starting to suffer so Dad and I had a talk and decided that I should
leave his Company and try to make my living solely from music -
At 22 I got a call from Grant Neal "Do you want to play on the Blackpool Wurlitzer?"
As I've said earlier, I was not 100% into the theatre organ but loved the sound and
just couldn't turn down an offer like that. It is an amazing experience to rise out
of the floor on the famous organ. I played for 20 minutes and found the organ very
easy to play, not like a normal theatre organ where there is a lot of delay after
pressing the notes -
The same year I got a telephone call from Zurich -
I get asked frequently what I listen to when I'm not playing, and a lot of people are surprised when I say Klaus. I do listen to other music but he has to be top of my list and always will be. I have been to Switzerland 5 times now, played the Blackpool Wurlitzer three times, am performing over 50 shows a year and enjoy my job very much.
I was proud to receive the Trophy for the first ever Keyboard/Organist of the Year
2003-
After receiving the trophy for the second time the organisers called it a day for this award.
I live in a nice part of the world -
Tony Stace
SPECIAL JUBILEE CONCERT