Super Bowl of concerts at Market Street

LIMA — It's the super bowl of concerts, and it's happening on Super Bowl Sunday.

“This concert is always popular,” said Mary Jane Eichelberger, dean of the Lima Chapter of the Area Guild of Organists, which hosts the annual event.

“It really began as a fluke. My husband and I were the organists at Trinity and we were picking concert dates sometime in the early 1990s. We randomly picked Jan. 31 as a concert date, only to realize too late that it was Super Bowl Sunday. A committee member, Phyllis Wentz, who is always very creative, suggested we call this a Super Bowl concert, and that name has stuck ever since,” Eichelberger said.

And indeed, this concert has become sort of the Super Bowl of organ and piano music.

“We like to show off these instruments. Many people believe the organ isn't fun as they're used to hearing it perform the more serious music at church. We try to show the beautiful and serious music this instrument performs, as well as showing people that you can have fun with it,” she said.

This year, 11 performers from the guild have chosen works ranging from Bach to contemporary pieces to play on Market Street's Schantz organ and Baldwin concert grand piano.

“The church has a wonderful instrument, and it has trumpets en chamade, which is trumpets not in a pipe but sticking out from the wall. The sound really can project,” Eichelberger said.

She adds that the annual event is one the guild looks forward to hosting.

“We've done it for so many years that we look forward to it. And so does our audience,” she said.