Regal organ battles to retain its crown.

(From AP Worldstream)

Byline: JOHN FLESHER

Colin Doherty strides to the console of the Chapel Organ at Interlochen Center for the Arts and plunges confidently into the Menuet from Leon Boellmann's "Suite Gothique" _ a lively piece often used as a wedding recessional.

It's the first organ recital for the 17-year-old high school junior _ and a mission accomplished for his teacher, Tom Bara, who had persuaded the piano major to give the pipe organ a try.

"If it weren't for the program here, he wouldn't have had any exposure to it," Bara says after Doherty and five fellow students play for an enthusiastic audience. "Seeing how much they enjoyed performing, the whooping and hollering from their peers _ that's thrilling."

In the four years since becoming organ instructor at Interlochen, a prestigious boarding school and summer music camp in the northern Michigan woods, Bara has taken on another role: salesman. Like many professional organists, he is worried about the long-term prospects for "the king of instruments," as Mozart proclaimed it.

Nowadays it's battling to keep its crown. The number of organ students nationwide has fallen sharply since the 1950s, and many churches say they can't find competent musicians to play the hymns, choral accompaniments and solo works that have been a staple of worship services for centuries.