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Worcester church organist Wesley Hall finds unlikely TikTok fame
Richard Duckett
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Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
“It’s time to go inside a pipe organ,” says Wesley Hall in one of his TikTok videos.
What’s inside might be quite a revelation for many viewers over the next 60 seconds. While you may see the console, keyboards, pedals and some pipes sitting in the audience, opening an organ up reveals another world. As Hall shows, you can actually step inside and then descend.
“Pipes, ladders, winding systems, random crap, here are my car keys inside a pipe.” Descending farther, “electric stuff, more pipes …” says Hall, or @westpiper, to give him his proper TikTok handle.
There’s an invitation to follow him back up the ladder, and keep following.
Which is what thousands of people have been doing since Hall, minister of music and the arts at First Baptist Church of Worcester, 111 Park Ave., started posting videos on TikTok last year mostly featuring different aspects of the pipe organ.
As an organist and keyboardist, Hall, who grew up in East Brookfield and Spencer, has given solo concerts throughout the United States and Europe. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music, and holds an artist diploma and a master’s degree in historical performance from the Oberlin Conservatory.
But with all that work, performance and concertizing over the years, nothing has reached people quite like one of his TikTok videos, Hall said.
That they are not only necessarily brisk at the TikTok max of 60 seconds but also delivered with a sense of humor doesn’t hurt viewership.
One video has had more than 340,000 views so far, Hall said.
Organist Wesley Hall inside the the pipe organ at First Baptist Church. RICK CINCLAIR/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
A video showing the basics of an organ consul such as what the stops actually are attracted 100,000 views, also in a short period.
“I had been able to show more people what I do in one afternoon than I had my entire life, and it really took my breath away,” Hall said.
TikTok has become very popular worldwide since the video-sharing social networking service debuted in 2016. The platform sees thousands of people making a variety of short-form videos from 15 seconds to one minute, the most time currently allowed.
Hall went to Lübeck, Germany, in January 2020 for some further organ studies. He was following in the footsteps of
Organist
none other than J.S. Bach who traveled there (on foot) in order to study the art and craft of Lübeck’s famous organist, Dietrich Buxtehude.
But COVID intervened in the middle of Hall’s stay, and he found himself stuck in Lübeck for longer than expected.
The music school in Lübeck is just a block from the other side of the church where Bach stayed, Hall said.
“It was a bit tricky, but I used the time that I had and enjoyed it as much as I could.” Lübeck is also the home of marzipan, he noted.
But with some time to spare in lockdown, Hall started to try his hand at TikTok .
“At first I thought it was a silly thing … (Then) I started to learn things and be inspired.”
He made a video of himself making coffee, adding cream and taking a sip to the sound of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
“It was a bit of fun.”
And as he says on TikTok, “I’m an organist who plays fun stuff.”
He began explaining facets of the pipe organ in his videos, and “people started asking questions. I started to discover that the pipe organ is as interesting as I thought.” To put it another way, “Other people are as nerdy as I am,” Hall said.
“You take things for granted, but the things other people see become intensely fascinating. I would start making videos that address that.”
When videos were amassing 200,000, “I realized there was something to that.”
Right now Hall has about 14,000 to 15,000 TikTok followers.
The algorithms put the video creator in touch with people who might be interested in the subject matter right away, he said.
Hall’s met up with some people on TikTok who he also follows, including a harpist who plays requests.
“She played a transcript on harp, I did organ. It was a delightful duet. This becomes this fun collaboration with a great sense of immediacy.”
Another TikTok friend is RevBethany (Pastor for Youth and Mission at First Presbyterian of Birmingham, Michigan), who is committed to helping people in the LGBTQ community reconnect to
Organist Wesley Hall has found an unlikely fame on TikTok.
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Framingham chef Saba Wahid is now a ‘Chopped’ grand champion
Lauren Young
The Milford Daily News USA TODAY NETWORK
FRAMINGHAM – When Ted Allen, the host of the Food Network show “Chopped,” lifted the lid off a silver cloche to reveal a puff pastry on the chopping block, Saba Wahid felt like time stood still.
The moment she saw that it wasn’t the pastry she’d made, she realized she had won the title of Chopped Grand Champion and the grand prize of $50,000 on the popular competitive cooking show.
“I was thinking, ‘Holy cow, I won?’ I was still processing it,” she said about her May 11 win on national television. She suppressed her excitement as the judges talked to runner-up Jennifer Normant, a chef from Newburyport, about why she lost.
“The feeling at that moment was like I was on another planet,” said Wahid. “I genuinely felt bad when (Normant) got chopped, but I was so glad I had won. But it’s very conflicting because you both worked so hard to be there and it was a ‘splitting hairs’ decision. It really came down to a tiny detail, and that’s the judges’ call to make.”
And at the end of Tuesday’s finale, it was Saba’s name Tim Allen called to take the grand title and prize home to her hometown of Framingham. Fifteen other chefs across New England competed on Food Network’s “Chopped: Martha Rules” alongside Wahid, and she personally beat seven of them over the span of two episodes, the first one airing on May 4.
Filmed in Kennebunkport, Maine, with Martha Stewart as one of the judges calling the shots, her accomplishment still feels surreal, said the 1998 Framingham High School grad.
In the May 4 episode, Wahid beat out the other contestants with her peekytoe crab cakes with pea tendril and spinach salad; spice-crusted flounder with heirloom tomato salsa; and carrot ice cream cake with matcha-mascarpone cream. In the last round, she went headto-head against a fifth competitor Martha Stewart introduced to the competition – Julia Cutting, a chef from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and a runnerup from a previous episode. But ultimately, Wahid came out on top.
“This was probably your best dish today, in my mind,” said judge Marc Murphy about Saba’s last dish. When judge Marcus Samuelson called it a “$50,000 dessert,” Martha Stewart agreed.
“I would make that cake, because it was light, airy, well-flavored and beautifully spiced,” Stewart said.
Framingham native Saba Wahid, a chef at Yale Appliance, talks about her recent appearance on the Food Network’s “Chopped.” Wahid competed on the “Martha Rules” segment.
KEN MCGAGH/DAILY NEWS AND WICKED LOCAL
The twist: Ravenclaw and Thea
During Tuesday’s finale, Wahid once again swept the competition, but faced a daunting task in the final dessert round. After opening her basket to reveal three ingredients — a giant whoopie pie, a melon and pork and liver terrine — Wahid and Normant wondered where the fourth ingredient was. That’s when Martha Stewart announced the fourth ingredient would need to come from Ravenclaw and Thea — two cows the contestants had to milk themselves.
“I never in a million years expected a twist like this,” said Wahid in a cutaway scene after the reveal.
Still, Wahid’s whoopie pie and bacon fritter with fresh milk crémeux with raspberry and melon divergent sauce beat out Normant’s bacon coconut almond tart with a melon cream sauce.
After Tuesday’s finale aired, the Daily News asked Wahid a few questions about her experiences on the show and what’s next on her plate.
Q: Now that you’re a “Chopped” champion, do you feel you’re closer toward your longtime goal to open your own restaurant?
A: “It’s definitely getting me one step closer — $50,000 is definitely a good start, and I’m in the process of using this opportunity as leverage to potentially gain some further investment from people that genuinely believe in my skills and talent.”
Q: What was the most memorable part of competing on the show for you?
A: “I guess the experience of competitive cooking was something that had always intimidated and scared me for a very long time and it’s mainly because I’m actually a very anxious and cautious person so I didn’t think it would work out. I worry and get in my head so I thought that would work against me in a competitive cooking environment. But I think I did enough practice training and watched enough (’Chopped’) episodes that I felt I was in the right headspace for it — it was a huge challenge to overcome. I was also proving something to myself, because there’s always those questions of, ‘Did I pick the right career? Am I doing the most with what I’m able to do?’ This was validation for that.”
Q: What was the most nerve-wracking round for you?
A: “It was probably in the first round where we had to for-
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age for our own vegetables and we didn’t get any extra time to cook, so at that end of that I was basically shaking because I felt like there was so much pressure to create something incredible — the pressure was definitely on. I felt like I did a lot but at the end I thought, ‘Oh my God, why did I do a salad?’ I had to make a quick game-time decision, because after foraging for kale and then having to wash it before you can start cooking it — that was a lot of time. I just had to make a gametime decision, and I knew I could make that work in that time frame.”
Q: What was your favorite round?
A: “Definitely the entrée round (in the final episode, where she made a spiced and butter-basted lobster with spicy red lentils and a warm corn succotash). First of all, lobster is one of my favorite proteins in the world, and I was able to incorporate my personal style into the dish using a lentil recipe that my mom taught me. I recreated it into a puree with corn but used the same flavor profiles that pay homage to my roots, while still being refined and elegant.”
Q: What was the weirdest ingredient you had to use? The flounder was definitely interesting — that looked difficult to cut.
A: “The flounder was the most challenging, but the red snapper hot dog was pretty weird. It’s very rubbery but fishy — it has a strange texture. It’s similar to surimi, which can be found in California rolls, but it’s more rubbery. The matcha terrarium and the liver was also weird — that wasn’t something you’d normally cook together.”
Q: What was the best comment you received from one of the judges on the show?
A: “When Martha Stewart said, ‘You’re elegant, you’re eloquent, and a damn good chef.’ That was absolutely amazing. At first, I didn’t hear the last part, so when I re-watched (the final episode), I was like, ‘No way did that actually happen!’”
Q: Are you getting that quote hung up in your kitchen somewhere?
A: “I’m sure we’ll figure out some way to memorialize those words for years to come.”
While cameras were always running, there were a few parts that didn’t make it to air, which included Wahid’s knee ending up in cow dung and both her and Normant’s buckets of milk being knocked over by cows startled by running cameramen. It also left out the most emotional moment for her.
After time was called to wrap up the last round before the winner was announced, Wahid said she stepped off to the side and burst into tears.
“There was just such a sense of relief there,” she said. “I was very happy the whole thing was over. It had been two days in a row of intensity and I just missed my baby so much. I had been away from her for almost a week and I just genuinely missed her — I just wanted to see my baby, but it was a small sacrifice to make for a huge career milestone.”
The weekend she reunited with her husband, Micéal Duffy, and their 16-month-old daughter, Issa, last September was “the best weekend ever,” she said.
Wahid said she plans to continue working at Yale Appliance in Framingham as a resident chef and culinary educator, and would continue to in some capacity if she decides to open her own restaurant down the line.
Lauren Young writes about business and pop culture. Reach her at 774-804-1499 or lyoung@wickedlocal.com. Follow her on Twitter @laurenwhy__.
Framingham Saba Wahidis the “Chopped” Grand Champion and winner of the $50,000 grand
prize. THE FOOD NETWORK
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Encounters with birds and ‘Alpha Birders’
Bob Muldoon
Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
It’s spring migration season, and the birds are back in full display. And so too are the birders, especially Alpha Birders, the rarest and showiest of the species.
I’m a beta birder. I’ve been birding for 50 years and have painstakingly accumulated a “life list” of 245 species. Alpha Birders turn their noses up at a paltry figure like that. They easily see 300 in a year. I stick to Massachusetts — maybe southern New Hampshire. They go to Costa Rica and Panama. A lot.
You can spot them coming. Their binoculars are longer than yours (size matters) and camouflage-green. Mine are black and battered — from boyhood. I carry a Peterson field guide purchased then with one illustration per bird. They carry their encyclopedic knowledge in large, curved, domed foreheads — and occasionally reference their “Sibley,” the au courant guide with 8 lavish illustrations per bird by gender, age, breeding and winter plumages, nest construction, behavior etc. Each page bristles with arrows pointing to various identification markers.
They wear vests with many pockets — like an angler. I favor a coffee-stained sweatshirt. Most wear a Panama hat — or a floppy one — for bugs, I think. I swat the bugs away — sometimes with a yelp. They are always imperturbable.
But what happens out in the field is what truly marks the Alpha Birder. Just yesterday I encountered one in a state forest. He came on fast.
“I’m seeing yellow-rumps,” I offered proudly, noting the common warblers flitting overhead in plain sight.
“I hear a black-throated blue,” he said, dismissing my observation, edging me aside and charging forward.
He had already asserted his dominance — using an obscure bird song from deep in the brushes to control the scene. As a beta birder, I rely mostly on sight. His was classic Alpha behavior.
In rapid-fire, he unleashed a volley of warbler identifications from the dense thicket (“black and white”; “female pine”). Nota Bene: a female sighting is another Alpha technique. Females are often drab in plumage — trickier than flashy males to identify. Ergo, such an ID reinforces dominance.
“Pine on the ground,” he announced. “Won’t be there long.” Another Alpha technique! Noting anomalous behavior (pine warblers typically dwell in treetops), he was lassoing in wider species knowledge than mere recognition.
A final technique — the coup de grace — was the maddeningly imprecise description of the bird’s location — in stark contrast to the pinpoint precision the Alpha invariably deploys in noting, say, a breast speckle marking.
“Behind the log?” I beseeched, almost wailing, my black binoculars scanning wide swaths of ground in frantic search. The nebulous location leaves the inferior birder in a highly agitated state, pleading for more precision. It’s a form of taunting. Cogito Ergo Sum (Ornithological translation: “I see it but you don’t; I identify it but you can’t.”)
“On the moss,” he said—but no more.
The whole encounter lasted less than five minutes; his dominance asserted in the initial 30 seconds. In wolf behavior terms, he bristled, sniffed my haunches, then forced me into a supine position, underbelly exposed. Textbook alpha encounter. I felt I owed him. Textbook submissive response.
Shyly I offered a small bit of intel: “I saw hermit thrushes earlier.”
He didn’t acknowledge it. Maybe my observation was too mundane? Maybe he hadn’t seen them — and wouldn’t admit it? Or maybe he simply heard them already? Thrushes are accomplished songsters. I’ll never know. Already he was heading off elsewhere, clutching his high-powered binoculars. I was left to wonder, my binoculars hanging impotently from my neck. Was he off in search of other birds? Or just other birders like me?
A Carolina wren, left, and a woodpecker share a bird feeder as it snows. GENA RIDER
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their spirituality and God. “We found we have a lot in common,” Hall said. First Baptist Church of Worcester is a welcoming place of worship for the LGBT community.
Pipe organ subjects that Hall has tackled so far include “Why are keyboards black and white,” “How the organ gets pumped,” “Organ shoes” (special shoes are recommended for organists because of all the pedals), and “Organ Jokes” (including one about “Why did Bach have 20 children … “).
A video “Where I work” proudly shows off First Baptist Church and its beautiful setting, while also observing the added perk of having three Dunkin’s nearby.
“There’s a very strict limit on time so you have to be really creative. The upside is that videos don’t take as much to create and produce,” Hall said.
“YouTube takes a lot of time and effort, and if no one sees it it’s very demoralizing.”
In contrast, “On TikTok it’s really a democratized process in my opinion. You create it, send it out in half an hour, and then instantly get people’s ideas about it.”
While 60 seconds “really focuses you,” Hall can make videos on a subject in several 60-second parts and say, “follow me and see me in part two,” he said.
“You don’t have to worry about crafting a bespoke page, just create content that’s interesting to you and people will find it. People will comment on mine, ‘Oh this is where pulling out all the stops comes from.’ “
That leads to the “inevitable question” of when will Hall make a video pulling out all the stops, “Which I haven’t done yet because it would be too loud,” he said.
For all the fun he has on TikTok showing the pipe organ, “I do think it’s an educational service,” Hall said. “That’s not the only reason I do it, but it’s certainly the reason I keep doing it.”
There are ways to monetize TikTok videos, including product placement and going live, he noted.
“I would not do one (live) unless I had over 20,000 followers. Below that would feel egotistical and strange, but who knows?”
Hall took the TikTok name Westpiper, an old nickname from playing the bagpipes when he was a little bit younger and the fact people would often mispronounce Wesley as West.
He returned to the area to join First Baptist Church in 2015. In 2016 he received the Diapason Magazine’s 20 Under 30 Award as an innovator in the organ and church music field.
Back in the Worcester for six years now, “the change is unmistakable,” he said. People such as Mark Mummert, Cantor at Trinity Lutheran Church, have helped transform the music scene, he said. “So it’s a pleasure to be back.”
Hall finally got back here from Germany last September. But he was traveling with some new friends on TikTok.
“When you’re an organist you can feel you’re the only person in the world who does what you do,” he said.
But when he gets messages such as “ ‘Keep making these videos,’ to hear that it means a lot. It’s something I didn’t expect and I’m very grateful for and very humbled by.”
Wesley Hall
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