Have you ever had dreams of taking your art to the next level but when you open your eyes, realize you’re still in Iowa? If this sounds familiar to you, maybe you should talk to Gary Verkade.

“There are many interesting things going on in out-of-the-way places,” he said.

Verkade, an internationally renowned organist, began his musical career in Iowa and proceeded to travel the world with his music. He will be playing at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Martha Ellen-Tye Recital Hall of the Music Building. The concert will be preceded by a lecture at 5:15 p.m., also by Verkade.

His presentation of “Organ Elektronica” is part of the music department’s Lipa Festival of Contemporary Music. The annual event is named after C. Buell Lipa, professor emeritus of English at Iowa State who died in 1978. He was a devout scholar with very broad interests and enjoyed playing and listening to contemporary styles of music.

Christopher Hopkins, assistant professor of music, said the festival has set its focus on electroacoustic music.

“Electroacoustic music is really custom-made electronic sounds that are used to create new compositions,” Hopkins said.

Gary Verkade specializes in this type of music and Hopkins said it pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm.

“It’s different,” Hopkins said. “It’s experimental in that it’s going to be music that explores the possibility of new sounds and how you can put them together.”

Although Friday night will be Verkade’s first performance at Iowa State, he spent a lot of time in the state when working toward his doctor of musical arts degree at the University of Iowa.

“I knew all the jokes about going to school out in the cornfields,” Verkade said laughing. “Just as an aside, I never cared about what the Hawkeyes did.”

Verkade lived in Germany for 17 years and played with an improvisational ensemble called SYNTHESE in which he performed with synthesizers and computers. Although Verkade is skilled with instruments, his musical tool of choice is the organ.

“I thought it would be really cool to play with my feet at the same time as my hands,” Verkade said. “A lot of people can play just with their hands on the piano, but for the organist, more of your body is involved.”

Although Verkade is a very experienced improvisational musician, he says the music he will be playing Friday will not be formulated on the spot.

“It may sound like it, but it is indeed not improvisational,” Verkade said. “All of the electronic sounds on the program are not at all produced by me. They are produced by the composers and my part in all of those pieces is to provide the organ part as part of the whole composition.”

During the concert, Verkade will be accompanying works by Philip Blackburn, Kenneth Gaburo, David Dunn and Jan Ferm. The pieces by Dunn and Ferm, who will be in attendance, will both be premiering Friday night.

In the pre-performance lecture, Verkade will give general descriptions of the pieces he is playing during the program. The lecture will contain general descriptions of the nature of each work, the story that it will convey and what makes it a significant performance piece.

The musical works will all be performed on the recital hall’s pipe organ. The organ was built in 1987 by John Brombaugh, one of the world’s most highly regarded organ builders. It has three keyboards and 30 pedals, which control the sound distributed to 2,326 pipes.

“Not every school can boast an instrument like that,” Verkade said.

The Martha Ellen-Tye Recital Hall, considered one of the premiere acoustic environments in the Midwest, underwent extensive renovations this summer. One of the key additions during this renovation is a new eight-channel surround-sound system. Hopkins said Friday’s concert will be the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the new system’s potential.

Verkade encourages all students to attend the Friday night performance, regardless of their extent of musical knowledge.

“It’s just like anything else you do for the first time, whether it’s going to a movie or visiting Nebraska,” Verkade said. “Why don’t you come and check out something that you won’t get a chance to hear again for a long time?”

As for the aspiring artists at Iowa State, Verkade said to not feel hindered by Iowa’s “middle-of-nowhere” location. The most important thing, he said, is working for your dreams.

“One can do interesting things and learn interesting things anywhere that you are – all you need is the will to do that,” Verkade said.