That was the case for Kim Lasavio and Chris Bakes, both members of All Hallows Parish in Sacramento.

Lasavio, who is organist for All Hallows and St. Peter parishes, dreamed of inspiring parishioners with liturgical music played on a grand pipe organ.

A Catholic convert, Lasavio, who recently joined All Hallows, discovered others shared her passion for liturgical music played on a organ, an instrument the church did not own.

One of them was parishioner Chris Bakes.

Bakes, a classical pianist, is a graduate of All Hallows School where he learned to play the organ by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary who then staffed the school.

This past October, Lasavio had just finished praying to St. Cecilia, patron saint of musicians, when she received a call from Bakes, whose younger brother Bill, also an All Hallows parishioner, had died two weeks earlier.

It seems one of Bakes’ friends had just called to inquire what the church needed that would serve as a memorial to Bill.

“I unhesitatingly said, ‘an organ,’” Chris Bakes said. “It was divine intervention.”

Lasavio and Bakes set about listening to digital pipe organ music and fell in love with a Viscount digital pipe organ made in Italy.

This cathedral-sized organ, purchased from Saints Peter and Paul Basilica in Lewiston, Maine, will be formally dedicated at a two-concert series planned on April 21-22 in All Hallows Church.

Featured guest organists are Kevin McKelvie, organist and choirmaster for St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Park Ridge, Ill., and David Deffner, director of music at Davis Community Church, who will be joined by the All Hallows Concert Orchestra and Chorus.

Pete Nowlen, professor of music at California State University, Sacramento and the University of California at Davis, will be the conductor and 12-year-old Joseph Brooks, a member of St. Joseph Parish in Vacaville, will be a featured soloist.

The CSUS chamber music ensemble “Camerata Capistrano” will also be featured in both concerts.

Musical selections for the two concerts will display the musical and historical roles of the organ in music over four centuries, music that Nowlen said “lifts the spirit.”

“There will be the organ with voices and symphony, splendid music…classical music audiences really relish,” he said.

Lasavio expects concert audiences to be overwhelmed with the beauty of the William Bakes Memorial organ.

“It has a grand Italian cathedral sound, giving a shimmering character to celestial sounds,” said Lasavio of the Viscount organ, which has also been installed at the Vatican. “It’s a dream to have real pipe organ in the church.”

Nolan said the new organ will continue to enrich liturgical music for the All Hallows Parish community, and the All Hallows-St. Peter concert series begun in 2003 by All Hallows School alumni Lynda Strubing and Bakes.

“It will give us a dimension we didn’t have and will be featured at most concerts in the future,” Nowlen said.

For more information or to purchase tickets for the April concert series, call (916) 456-7206 or visit www.ticketweb.com.