Four Young Musicians Showcased at the Organ Pavilion June 14 Show the Future of the Organ Is In Good Hands

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2026 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Yesterday (Sunday, June 14) I wanted to go to the San Diego Organ Pavilion to hear the weekly Sunday afternoon concert, which as things turned out was unexpectedly interesting. First, the main organist was Alison Luedecke instead of Raúl Prieto Ramírez (a capable musician but one with an incredibly annoying stage presence). Second, it was one of the concerts designed to showcase up-and-coming organists still in their teens or even younger: nine-year-old Misaki Enomoto, 15-year-old Elle Lester, 15-year-old Elijah “Eli” Prada, and 16-year-old Aska Enomoto. All the young players are students of local organ teacher Leslie Wolf Robb, who was there to introduce them. Misaki Enomoto played two brief pieces, “Toccatina” by David Schack (b. 1947) and “The Chase” by John G. Barr (1938-2024). The others each played one piece by Johann Sebastian Bach and one piece by a more recent composer. Elle Lester’s Bach piece was the Fugue in A minor, BWV 559, and her newer piece was the Prelude in Classic Style by Gordon Young (1919-1998). She was O.K. but the next two players were really remarkable. Elijah Prada looks like he’s going to grow up to be drop-dead gorgeous and he’s also a multi-talented musician. In addition to studying classical organ he also plays keyboards in his high school’s jazz band and guitar in its rock band. (When I went to high school in the 1960’s it would have been inconceivable that someday a high school would officially organize a rock band – but then rock has long since ceased to be the popular music of the young; it’s been replaced by hip-hop and electronic dance music.) Prada turned in stunning performances of Bach’s Prelude in G, BWV 568, and one of the adult organists’ specialties, Leon Boëllmann’s (1862-1897) Toccata from his Suite Gothique. That’s been a repertory staple of current civic organist Raúl Prieto Ramírez as well as his immediate predecessor, Carol Williams, and it’s a tribute to Prada’s skills that he didn’t sound anticlimactic in the piece but played it at least as well as the grownups.

I was wondering how Prada lost the scholarship award in the advanced division to Aska Enomoto, especially after Aska’s first piece was John Weaver’s (1937-2021) “Sine Nomine,” which was a little too lightweight especially after the Boëllmann Toccata, but her Bach piece was the Prelude in C, BWV 547, and Aska really threw herself into that one to the point that Alison Luedecke could barely compete with her own Bach performance, the Fantasie in G, BWV 572. Luedecke opened the program with a three-minute version of the big “Ode to Joy” theme from the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as arranged by Edward Broughton. Then she played a rather bizarre piece listed as “Meditation on ‘America’” by Noël Goemanne (1926-2010), which was actually a set of variations on “America, the Beautiful.” Goemanne was a native Belgian who was caught up in the racial politics of World War II; the Nazis tried to recruit him to compose for them when they occupied Belgium, but he turned them down and later got arrested for playing Mendelssohn’s music in public. In 1952, well after the war ended, he emigrated to the U.S. and for the rest of his career composed mostly sacred music for the Roman Catholic Church, including the Processional for the Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II during his visit to San Antonio, Texas in 1987. After the Goemanne “meditation” Luedecke played “Offertoire sur les Grand Jeux” (which Google Translate literally renders as “Offered at the Grand Games” but is really the music played in a church service as they pass the collection plates) by French Baroque composer François Couperin (1668-1733), nephew of Louis Couperin whose reputation in the music world has long since eclipsed his uncle’s. Later Luedecke closed the program with her Bach Fantasie and then the obligatory “The Star-Spangled Banner,” a.k.a. “To Anacreon in Heaven,” which she moved back to its traditional place at the close of the program after Raúl had moved it to the start in his concerts. All in all, it was a fun afternoon and it’s clear that in Aska Enomoto and especially Elijah Prada, the future of organ playing is alive and well in the youth of today.