On Sept. 18 at 2:30 p.m. in Reid Chapel Samford will present A Dedication Concert celebrating the Jane Laroque Slaughter Hardenbergh Organ—the first of three fall events related to the instrument.

Samford’s 1962 Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ was enhanced and totally refurbished by Quimby Pipe Organ Company this year and reinstalled in late August. The magnificent instrument will now bear the name of the empowering mentor, tireless Samford organ professor and cheerful church musician who chose Aeolian-Skinner to build the university’s instrument.

University Organist James Dorrah and Music major Joshua Bullock will join Samford lecturer Dr. Dan Lawhon and Charles Kennedy '92 in concert for the Sept. 18 event.

On Oct. 22 at 10:30 a.m. in Reid Chapel Samford will present a Master Class with noted organist and Juilliard professor Paul Jacobs, cosponsored with the Birmingham Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

On Oct. 23 at 2:30 p.m. in Reid Chapel Samford will present A Celebration Event featuring Paul Jacobs.

All the events are free-of-charge and open to the public.

Jane LaRoque Slaughter Hardenbergh earned a master of sacred music degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.,  and completed classroom requirements for her doctoral degree at Union Theological Seminary’s School of Sacred Music, New York City, in the 1950s.  She then suspended doctoral studies in the 1960s to raise four children, and 25 years later, repeated her work at the University of Colorado-Boulder, receiving her Doctor of Musical Arts in 1983.

She was a member of the American Guild of Organists and played numerous concerts over the years.  During later years, she substituted for services at First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.  She died in Birmingham Sept. 14, 2009, at the age of 79.