The Kimball organ with its bottom panel removed for tuning in the State Office Building in Juneau on March 6, 2025. (Photo by Jamie Diep/KTOO)
A Juneau musician is giving his final organ performance in the State Office Building this Friday. T.J. Duffy is retiring after 16 years of live concerts on the nearly century-old instrument.
The theater organ concert will mostly feature holiday music, according to a press release. He will also perform Christmas carols that audience members can sing along to.
In the release, Duffy said he is retiring as a state employee at the end of the year and thought it would be a good time to retire from the organ concerts as well.
The Kimball organ is located in the State Office Building and is the only publicly available instrument of its kind in Alaska. Duffy is one of several musicians who regularly perform on Fridays.
The nearly 100-year-old instrument is nearing the end of its usable life. Repairing it would cost more than $250,000 and requires shipping it to Portland, Oregon for a year.
Duffy’s final concert will be this Friday at noon at the State Office Building.
Kristen Ford, queer singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, kicked off her North American tour for her latest album “Pinto” at the Crystal Saloon on August 30. Delivering a blend of indie rock and folk, the show was the first in her eight-stop tour spanning Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California.
Originally inspired by acts like Ani DeFranco and Blink-182, Ford picked up the guitar at 14 and has been crafting her own genre since.
In an interview with KXLL ahead of her show, Ford described her work.
“It is really freeing to be a solo artist. I do live looping, and a lot of different effects pedals to layer harmonies and guitar effects,” Ford said. “I don’t want to be one of those people that say ‘You can’t define my music,’ but I just like music.”
Juneau Symphony Music Director Brad Hogarth. Hogarth was appointed as the new director after a season-long recruitment process. (Photo courtesy of Juneau Symphony)
The Juneau Symphony has appointed a new music director for its next season.
Brad Hogarth is a conductor and trumpet player based out of the San Francisco Bay area. He made his conducting debut with the Juneau Symphony in April with performances in Juneau and Sitka.
The symphony announced the appointment on its website and social media Monday following a season-long process to find a new director.
Juneau Symphony Executive Director Charlotte Truitt said Hogarth has performed in Southeast Alaska in the past and has worked with local high school students as well.
“He’s very excited about getting more involved in the community and doing more in education outreach and really connecting as a community,” Truitt said.
Hogarth was one of four candidates the symphony considered. Each person conducted a concert and the decision was made after a vote from symphony members, supporters and staff.
In addition to Juneau, Hogarth also works for the Monterey Symphony, Art Haus Collective and Peninsula Youth Orchestra. He serves on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as well. Hogarth is working with the Juneau Symphony to finalize details for the upcoming season, which starts Oct. 18.
Rouel Dela Cruz performing karaoke at the Alaskan on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.
Every Wednesday night, the Alaskan Hotel & Bar in downtown Juneau swarms with hopefuls. One by one, they get the chance to step on the stage, mic in hand, and sing whatever they please.
The man who hands them the mic is Seth Williams. He’s been hosting karaoke in Juneau for a decade at a few bars around town. For this episode of Tongass Voices, Williams shares how he got into the role and what he loves about seeing people get their moment in the spotlight.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Listen:
Seth Williams: My name is Seth Williams. I grew up in Hoonah. But I’ve been in Juneau now longer than I ever was in Hoonah. I’ve been here 17 years.
I had been going to karaoke forever. And I had filled in a couple of times when the Karaoke Host would leave in the middle of the shift because it’s really not the easiest job.
The last person quit. I’d taken over. What was funny was it kept going on for months. Like, every time Iʼd come in, I was told this is not permanent, you know, “Don’t get comfortable doing this.”
And then one night, the owner’s wife came in for the Viking, and she asked me to sing a song with her. And so we’re singing the song, we’re having a lot of fun. It was like the random Wednesday night or something like that at the Viking. And she looks at me, she’s like, “Do you know who I am?” I was like, “I’m sorry. I don’t.” And she’s like, “I want you to know that this is your job now for however long you want it.”
And, you know, a lot of it came from just me doing what I’ve been doing. Just trying to convince people to sing, if they want to, and then kind of help them as they struggle. And I ended up keeping the position for the most part until the Viking closed.
I think one of the greatest things that’s happened since I’ve taken over the Alaskan — I call them Gen Z kids, younger people. They’re incredibly supportive. And it doesn’t matter the caliber or level of whoever is singing, if the energy is high, they’ll just be up there singing with them. And you could see the look on the person who was very nervous to sing in the first place. And then you have all these people up front singing and dancing. It makes them feel like a rock star for a moment. It’s a really fun thing to happen.
And so kind of similar things happened at the Sandbar on Friday nights recently. There’s a company, I won’t give the name. It’s a bunch of 20-somethings coming. And they’re very much the same way. They’re very supportive. And they make it a lot of fun, and bring this high energy. And, you know, a lot of people kind of attribute that to me, I can kind of do certain songs to get people kind of into it. But then they kind of take the energy and run with it. And so my job is actually kind of easy in that sense.
I kind of joke, you know, is it a karaoke night if there isn’t one person who doesn’t sing What’s Up by Four Non Blondes. Even though it’s a much older song in general, it’s still one that kind of gets the crowd hyped.
And depending on the mood, and, you know, Man, I Feel Like a Woman. Like, especially the Sandbar, it’s really very interesting to watch because somebody will sing it. And all the women there — and there’s quite a few women there at times. They just dance and have fun, like, age doesn’t matter. It’s just this humongous unifying song that gets everybody hyped and they have a lot of fun and it’s just really fun to watch.
Yvonne Krumrey: Have you ever sung that song at karaoke?
Juneau singer/songwriter Guy “Buddy” Tabor died in 2012. He started playing guitar at 14 and had his first paid gig at the Red Dog Saloon in the 1970s. Throughout his life, he wrote hundreds of songs and was a perennial performer at the Alaska Folk Festival. His discography includes nine albums.
Now, a group of Southeast artists is working to ensure Tabor’s music endures and finds new audiences via online streaming platforms.
A single, “Texas Blue Radio,” was released on Thursday. The single comes from his 1998 album “Blinding Flash of Light,” which will premiere on all streaming platforms on April 11 — fittingly, smack dab in the middle of the 49th Alaska Folk Festival.
Music producer Justin Smith and musician Collette Costa visited the KTOO studios on Juneau Afternoon to share Tabor’s music and chat with host Bostin Christopher.
Here’s an excerpt of that conversation. Listen to the full interview at ktoo.org/juneauafternoon.
This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Justin Smith: This project was actually born the day that a friend of mine told me that he couldn’t find any of Buddy’s music online because, you know, he switched to streaming. He had the CDs, you know, packed away in a closet somewhere. He went online to try to find one of Buddy’s records and he couldn’t. And I thought that’s, I mean, that’s not good because everybody seems to get music through streaming these days, for the most part. And so, if he’s not there, he’s going to be forgotten about when people like us that bought our CDs out of the trunk of Buddy’s car, you know, and we’re gone, you know, the music wouldn’t be around.
I played with him one time at, it was called Valentine’s Coffee House — people remember. And I was relatively new in town, and the room was full. It was my first clue of the strength of Buddy’s art when the audience room was full, and the audience was calling out songs for a long time — his songs — asking for songs of his, and everybody in the room knew all the words.
He had an amazing, rich, gravelly voice, and he was a character, and he was always around Folk Fest. He was sort of a pillar of the, you know, Folk Fest community.
Collette Costa: He was always sort of an anchor for, like a song circle. Which I had never, from Detroit, we didn’t have song circles. And we show up to have dinner, and all of sudden, there’d be seven, eight, 12 people in a circle and doing a song and passing it along, and this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. But he was always sort of an anchor of that, and he would, you know, Buddy would play music anywhere, anytime with anyone, just about.
I mean, he was a mentor to, again, untold number of musicians and particularly songwriters. And really, one of the reasons he liked these song circles is because he wanted to hear other originals. What else were other people writing and how did it reflect on what he was writing and you know, that exchange of music.
Justin Smith: The goal of the project is really just for people to be able to listen to his music — people that already love it or, you know, people that haven’t heard it yet. And so when the record goes, if a lot of people go online and listen to it again or for the first time, then it will be a success.
Collette Costa: We set up a little Instagram account, @buddytaborproject, just perpetuating it and I think this is the goal of any artist, writer, singer, songwriter, is that their work doesn’t die, that their work lives beyond them. And I think particularly in a community like this, that is pretty tight, we can make that happen. And I think with the work that Buddy did, it is definitely worth preserving and worth perpetuating.
“Texas Blue Radio” will be available on music streaming services, Thursday, March 28 Photo courtesy of The Buddy Tabor Project
Bostin Christopher hosts the conversation. Juneau Afternoon airs at 3:00 p.m. on KTOO and KAUK with a rebroadcast at 7:00 p.m. Listen online or subscribe to the podcast at ktoo.org/juneauafternoon.
