Chris Keenan lives his pipe dreams
Second-year student Chris Keenan was already an expert in organs before he got to med school.
Keenan started playing the pipe organ as a teenager at the Nashville-area church where he and his dad sang in the choir. It quickly became a passion, and he went on to Peabody Institute, the conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, before eventually earning a doctorate in organ at the University of Texas at Austin. Studying under an Austrian professor, Keenan nurtured a love of German Baroque composers.
But a new calling took hold as he moved around the country for full-time music jobs and traveled to Europe for recitals. He started spending his off hours as an EMT and later became a part-time firefighter, working closely with a team of fellow emergency personnel.
“Music can be pretty solitary, practicing alone all day,” he says, “especially for an organist, since we’re not in an orchestra.”
He also found the lifesaving work rewarding. Keenan soon made the leap to med school—but he hasn’t left the keys, pedals and pipes behind.
In 2023, he has played recitals at the famed St. Thomas Church in Midtown Manhattan, Pittsburgh’s St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland and Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clair. He returned to his native Tennessee for concerts by a choir he started there. And he maintains a part-time position as music director and organist at Mt. Lebanon Lutheran Church.
Keenan is happy to focus on the things he loves about music, rather than letting it dictate his life. “Now I just want to find beautiful spaces that are worth playing.”
The 247-foot-tall, two-spired Gothic Revival cathedral at St. Paul fit the bill—and it’s home to a towering 5,000-pipe Beckerath organ from Hamburg, Germany. In July, Keenan filled the cavernous worship area with favorite pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude and Eugène Gigout in a performance recorded by WQED.
