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There will be an organist transplant in downtown Salt Lake City tonight, when the Mormon Tabernacle's five official organists travel three blocks up the street to perform at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Madeleine.

It's the first concert ever to feature the entire Tabernacle Organ staff, "no more, no less," senior Tabernacle organist Richard Elliott said.

"It seems incomprehensible that this is the first time, but it's not as if we've tried to avoid it," fellow organist Bonnie Goodliffe said, calling the concert "a wonderful catalyst." Goodliffe noted that though her colleagues' assorted duties supporting the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and its associated organizations make it difficult to bring all five of them together, the fact that each musician was responsible for only 12 to 15 minutes of repertoire made it easier for them to schedule.

The concert is the brainchild of KBYU-FM general manager Walter Rudolph, who envisioned it as a benefit to assist the cathedral's music programs and to help keep the "Pipe Dreams" series on KBYU. (Though the event will be free, Elliott said donations to either cause are welcome.)

Andrew Unsworth, the newest member of the Tabernacle Organ staff, was the Madeleine's organist for five years. "I love that space and that instrument," he said. "It's a privilege to go back. . . . [Being in the middle of that sound] is a visceral experience."

"It is a beautiful space," Goodliffe said, "but the benches are just as hard as the ones at the Tabernacle."

Clay Christiansen, like Unsworth, has a personal tie to the cathedral's Eccles Memorial Organ: He was among the consultants when the Irish firm of Kenneth Jones and Associates built the instrument in 1992. Christiansen will play César Franck's Chorale No. 3, "a piece very dear to my heart" and one he considers well-suited to the venue. In most acoustic environments, he said, "it seems wrong to hold [some chords] as long as Franck says to," but in the Madeleine, he's happy to hold them even longer and "enjoy that ring to the last drop."

Linda Margetts will open the concert with "the best-known organ piece of all," Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Goodliffe said. "There won't be anyone who doesn't recognize that." Goodliffe's repertoire includes Jeremiah Clarke's nearly as famous "Prince of Denmark's March."

Unsworth chose two pieces the cathedral's music director, Gregory Glenn, had asked him to perform in past years' Madeleine Festival concerts. "It's a tribute to him," Unsworth said. "Those are pieces I wouldn't have learned otherwise."

Elliott will close the concert with Wagner's Prelude to "Die Meistersinger" as a tip of the hat to opera-lover Rudolph.

Ranking full stop

Who Mormon Tabernacle organists Richard Elliott, Clay Christiansen, Bonnie Goodliffe, Linda Margetts and Andrew Unsworth

When Tonight at 8.

Where Cathedral of the Madeleine, 331 E. South Temple, Salt Lake City.

Admission Free.