Steven Blackmon’s fingers danced across the organ keys as he joyfully played a snippet of Charles-Marie Widor’s “Toccata,” whose powerful but melodic notes floated through St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church in New Orleans on an otherwise quiet Wednesday afternoon.
The piece, composed in the late 19th century as part of the French composer’s “Symphony for Organ No. 5,” is mostly heard at weddings. The joy it brings Blackmon was momentarily transcendent, and he felt 15 again, attending a wedding back in the church in his South Carolina hometown.
“I was absolutely entranced,” Blackmon recalled.…