Final verse: Riverside Methodist organist retiring after more than 50 years

Gail Leven Pollock’s fingers have scaled the treble clef on “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.’’

Her ears have a permanent playback button for all six verses of “Amazing Grace.’’ Her eyes are poised for “When Morning Gilds the Skies’’ in the key of B-flat … even at a moment’s notice.

“Sight reading is my life,’’ she said, laughing. “People always are sticking things in front of me, asking me to play. It’s all in how you look at the spots on the page.’’

Gail has looked at those spots, dots, flats and sharps as a church organist since the year the Volkswagen Beetle became the best-selling car in the world, back in the days when you could feed a family of four at McDonald’s for under $4.

Today is her swan song at Riverside United Methodist Church, where she has sat at the Schantz organ for more than 50 years. She has played “Crown Him with Many Crowns” and “Holy, Holy, Holy” under 10 different ministers of music.

Her final Sunday morning playlist includes “All Creatures of Our God and King,’’ a hymn based on a poem by St. Francis of Assisi. She will perform a duet accompanied by Helen Adams on the piano. Her prelude will be Bach and, by special request, she will finish with the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah.’’

Although she will be familiar with the musical order of worship, she has no idea how she will feel when she reaches the last note on the page. No doubt a few tears will fall at her feet on the pedals below.

“I probably will be emotional,’’ she said.

Her musical gifts have provided a metronome for her life since she was 8 years old.

“My mother noticed I would always sit down at other people’s pianos,’’ she said. “We didn’t have a piano, but we got an old upright because of me.’’

She took piano lessons from Ollie Tippett on Thomaston Road, then began learning the organ from Helen Rich at Mercer when she was 15.

She graduated from Miller High for Girls in 1965. That same year, she was paid professionally for the first time, playing piano for the musical “Oklahoma” at Macon Little Theatre.

She taught business communication at Macon State College and Mercer. The late Earle Barnette, who was serving as Riverside’s choir director, convinced her to take the job as organist at the church in October 1971. Barnette was a local music legend, a trombone player who was instrumental in starting the elementary school band programs in the Bibb public schools, as well as the programs at Stratford and Covenant academies. He also was music director at the Macon Little Theatre.

Riverside Methodist was chartered on November 3, 1957, and the first worship service was held on December 18, 1960. Gail played an electronic keyboard when Riverside’s congregation worshipped in the fellowship hall in the years before the sanctuary opened on November 13, 1977, which also was the first day on the job for the new Schantz organ.

“It was intimidating when we first moved to the sanctuary,’’ she said. “It was high church. I felt like any mistake I made was going to be magnified.’’

Gail teaches piano as an adjunct professor in Mercer’s Townsend School of Music. She has 33 publications and arrangements for organ, piano, duets and choir anthems published under major names such as Shawnee Press, Warner Brothers, Lorenz and Abingdon Press.

She has played for thousands of worship services and hundreds of weddings and funerals at the church on the hill between Pierce Avenue and Riverside Drive. She has accompanied choir concerts and opera productions, recitals and live theatre productions.

“She has provided music for every occasion from carrying the weight of a worship service, prelude to postlude, and all the calls for music in between,’’ Adams said. “She has played many a bride down that long aisle and back again with a new name. And the countless funerals and memorial services have been blessed by her choice of uplifting and comforting music which endeared Gail to the grieving hearts of an aging congregation.’’

The church will pay tribute to her today with these words:

Gail Leven Pollock

With appreciation for your faithful and loving devotion to excellence as you have served in raising worship to a more profound alleluia through your amazing gifts of music.

October 1, 1971 – May 15, 2022

Riverside United Methodist Church

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.