Vladimir Sokoloff

The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA) will kick off its annual summer-long series of FREE ORGAN RECITALS at the historic Great Auditorium starting on Wednesday, July 6, 2023.

Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association presents Free Organ Recitals on the Great Auditorium Pipe Organ, Wednesday July 6 - Saturday August 27, 2022.

'The Storm' was written in the mid-1920s by Clarence Kohlmann, who served as the organist in the Great Auditorium from 1924-1944. This rarely-heard piece follows a Civil War army unit as it marches and encamps with snippets of music from that era: 'Dawn' from the Peer Gynt Suite,' a bugle's reveille, 'America,' hymns and church bells, a funeral march.

These recitals will be performed in Ocean Grove's historic Great Auditorium. This season's series will bring 'young rising star' organists to the stage - a new generation of organists who have never appeared in the historic auditorium before.

There's nothing like the sound of a thundering or lilting organ to shake you to your emotional, musical core - and there's nothing like the massive pipe organ in the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA)'s Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove.

Once again, the whispers, thunder and wonders of the Great Auditorium Pipe Organ will ring out during The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA)'s Free Organ Recital Series, a signature part of its summer-long program of family entertainment. OGCMA's Pipe Organ is among the largest in the world and is the heart-beat of this Christian Victorian resort on the Jersey Shore. The historic 11,000-pipe instrument was built and installed in 1908 with original design innovations that became standard elements still extant in modern organ construction. It is made of over 40,000 feet of California No. 1 Sugar Pine and weighs 20-25 tons. In its illustrious 109-year history, this remarkable instrument has been played by numerous distinguished organists, including Will C. MacFarlane, Clarence Kohlman, Josephine Eddowes, Harold Fix, Clarence Reynolds, Beverly Davis, Jon Quinn, and Robert Carwithin. Order tickets by phone at 800-590-4064 or online at www.oceangrove.org.

One Chekhovian country house exits the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and a new Chekhovian country house enters.  But Richard Nelson's Nikolai and the Others, enjoying an elegant staging by director David Cromer, is a more sober-minded effort than the venue's last tenant, Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike.