Dwight A. McBean – 50 years on the pipes

Imagine you are a 13-year-old at church one Sunday morning, and your pastor tells you that, since the regular church organist is migrating, and you are the only church member who plays the piano, that from next Sunday you will have to play the organ at services!

“But I’ve never played the organ in my life,”you protest. You will learn, said the confident clergyman.

This is not fiction. In 1976 – 50 years ago this year – Canon Peter Mullings of the Church of the Ascension in Mona, asked 13-year-old Dwight McBean – a student at Jamaica College – to become the church organist. McBean had been a piano pupil of the late Mrs. O. A. Lyseight, but had never touched the organ, with its two keyboards for the hands and one for the feet. What would you have done?

McBean put himself on a steep learning curve. To give him lessons he approached well-known organist John Binns, organ tutor at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts, and so began his half-century as an organist.

Binns (who more than a decade before had taught me music at Campion College) recognised McBean’s special talent with his hands – not just musically (which was prodigious), but also on the technical side – repairing and tuning the instruments. Once McBean graduated from JC, John made arrangements for him to train with the renowned Royal Pipe Organ Builders, J.W. Walker & Sons Ltd., of Brandon, Suffolk, England.

With a scholarship from the Church of the Ascension in hand, off he went in 1983 to pursue advanced organ and piano studies in England. McBean studied organ with the eminent British Organist Professor Horace A. Bate, and is one of the few Jamaican organists to hold associate diplomas in organ performance from both the Royal College of Music (ARCM) and the London College of Music (ALCM). While in England, for five years he served as organist at Middle Lane Methodist Church in north London.

TRAINED EXTENSIVELY

For more than five and a half years, McBean trained extensively with at the factory of J.W. Walker & Sons Ltd., organ-builders, and during this period, he gained invaluable practical experience working on some of England’s most prestigious organs, including those at Windsor Castle, Worcester Cathedral, York Minster, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, The Royal Festival Hall, Birmingham Town Hall, and the London (Brompton) Oratory, to name a few.

Upon returning to Jamaica in 1988, he resumed his career as a church musician at a much higher level, to much acclaim. But probably more significantly, McBean launched his career as a pipe organ and piano technician, filling a critical need in the region for qualified expertise.

The importance of the availability in Jamaica (for the first time) of this highly technical professional service may not be apparent to those outside the organ fraternity. There were piano tuners in Jamaica prior to 1988, and one could get pianos repaired to a point; but tuning and repairs of pipe organs had to await the visit of qualified technicians from overseas, often causing great inconvenience.

In 1980 as he prepared to take his Grade 8 Organ Associated Board Examinations with the examiner who visited Jamaica from the Royal Schools of Music in London, McBean suffered embarrassment when he experienced difficulty finding a pipe organ which was up to exam standard. He now promptly services and tunes pipe and electronic organs locally, and long delays are a thing of the past. An entire generation of Jamaican church musicians have grown up never knowing this frustration.

REACHED THE PINNACLE

Over the past 36 years McBean has tuned and maintained pipe organs in churches and cathedrals across Jamaica, as well as instruments in Antigua, Bermuda, Nassau, Trinidad and other Caribbean territories. His piano work includes servicing/tuning Jamaica’s most important concert grand pianos, notably those used during the visits to Jamaica of virtuosos such as Luciano Pavarotti, Marguerite Wolf and Monty Alexander, to name a few.

Over the past 50 years on the organ he has reached the pinnacle. He has accompanied several choirs, including at the funeral services for Sir Florizel Glasspole, Sir Howard Cooke, Lady Bustamante, Michael Manley, Hugh Shearer, Edward Seaga, Rex Nettleford, Louise Bennett-Coverley, Charles Hyatt, and most recently, Stephen ‘Cat’ Coore.

When his mentor, John Binns, retired from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, McBean immediately stepped into his shoes.

Professionally he serves as Caribbean sales and service agent for J.W. Walker & Sons Ltd. He also represents Klais Pipe Organs of Germany, having trained in 2008 at their factory in Bonn. McBean has been Jamaica’s official Rodgers organ dealer since 1990, having trained at their factory in Hillsboro, Oregon; he has installed more than 30 Rodgers electronic organs across the island, which he maintains. Most recently, he represents the pipe organ firm of Organ Design Ltd. of Alton, England.

Well done, over these past 50 years, Brother Dwight McBean OD, BH(M), ARCM, ALCM. We salute you! May you have many more!