Thank you for the honor you have bestowed on me -- an honor which, I know, is not for my words. That music and musicians are held in high regard says something powerful about the heart of God.

I must tell you at the outset, it is difficult to address you from this end of the hall. [laughter] I would prefer the organ bench, where I can speak more freely. But, if you will indulge me, allow me to share one thing I have learned from more than seven decades on the organ bench.

It is all about grace, which really means this is not very much about me.

My paternal grandfather, Johann Christian Maliszewski [so, you can see why I chose the simpler “Manz”] was a Cantor in Nowawiescz, Russia. I cannot take credit for the genes which found their way into my body -- and richly, I might add, into a cousin I never knew (also named Paul, born the same month and year as I. He had been a star student of Heinrich Fleischer in the Höchschule für Muzik in Leipzig, Germany, and, along with him, was conscripted into the German Army in World War II. Heinrich lived to come to America and taught at the University of Minnesota. Paul was killed on the Western Front.

Very simply, much has been given to me. My parents skimped and saved so I could have an education. My mother, Hulda, even sold Sunshine Greeting Cards so that I could have organ lessons. My father, Otto, was an office worker for a large steel company in Cleveland, Ohio. I am their only child. If I can’t take credit for the nurture I received, neither can I take credit for any of the amazing intersections which have given occasion for my music and shaped my vocation. Much has been given me by teachers who have worked me hard in the disciplines of the Art. Much has been given me by students who, in discovering the joy of making music, have made my work so worthwhile, and in the teaching have taught me so much.

Much has been given me by congregations who have taken music and this musician into their hearts. They have even called me, if you can imagine that, to be a caring, healing messenger of Gospel and Song during a time of cruel chaos in the Lutheran family. Choirs, both children and adult, who have endured endless hours of rehearsal, have given me much. Organ stops are one thing, but the people of the choirs have also been leaders of song with their voices. Friends for whose encouragement and support I will forever be grateful have given me much.

And my wife, who in truth has made the real music in my life, now for 62 years, has given me much. Without Ruth, I would not have applied for a Fulbright Scholarship in the mid-1950s, to study with Flor Peeters in Mechelen, Belgium, and Helmut Walcha in Frankfurt, Germany. As a wise friend observed, without her I would probably be playing in a piano bar somewhere.

Ruth has been the Cantus Firmus in our home and for our children, whom I treasure, while I practiced and taught and played and wrote.

It is a high and holy honor to stand in the rich tradition of Lutheran organists — Pachelbel, Buxtehude, Bach and countless other Old Masters. These, along with so many bright names of the present, have made the story of salvation singable. Isn’t it a marvel? Music has a way of reaching the mind and heart far deeper, far more richly, than these poor words ever will. Music gives wings to words. So, you see, it is all about Grace.

Thank you for the grace of singing with me across the years in good times and in bad, when our words have stuck in our throats and when our eyes have overflowed with joy. It has ever been a Song of Grace: “Love to the loveless shown that we might lovely be.”

Thank you for letting me play…

— Paul Otto Manz