BELFAST — The Maine Historic Organ Institute will hold a series of concerts, lectures, master classes, and guided tours of extraordinary 19th-century pipe organs October 24-28.

On Thursday, Oct. 26, from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., The First Church in Belfast, UCC, will host a lecture and demonstration entitled: "English Voluntaries and American Organs before 1850" by George Bozeman. Bozeman, a native of Texas, studied organ at the University of North Texas, and apprenticed as an organbuilder with Otto Hofmann of Austin, Texas. On a Fulbright grant he studied organ with Anton Heiller and harpsichord with Isolde Ahlgrimm at the Academy of Music in Vienna. After work with organbuilder Fritz Noack he founded his own firm in Lowell, Massachusets, later moving to Deerfield, New Hampshire. He has continued as an active church musician and is director of music at the Pembroke Congregational Church. He has played recitals across the United States and in Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe. Bozeman also rebuilt the First Church in Belfast's Stevens Tracker organ, in 1975.

The Institute is sponsored by St. John's Organ Society, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and appreciation of E. & G. G. Hook's magnificent Opus 288 (1860) at St. John's Roman Catholic Church, in Bangor. For more information about the Maine Historic Organ Institute, check out the website at: http://hookopus288.net/maine-historic-organ-institute/ .

There is no cost for the event at the First Church in Belfast, but donations for the First Church Organ Maintenance Fund will be accepted.

The First Church in Belfast, UCC is an Open and Affirming Congregation, located at 104 Church Street. For more information, please call the church office at 338-2282.