Memorial Day strikes a chord for organist at Arlington National Cemetery

ARLINGTON, Va. (OSV News) — She’s played the organ for U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices and military veterans being interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

She’s performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington accompanying Roberta Flack. She’s played on the largest pipe organ in the world, won national competitions and performed solo organ recitals in renowned churches. And she’s brought music to life for the next generation of students at Marymount University in Arlington.

But for Kimberly A. Hess, it’s all about doing what she loves.

With Memorial Day around the corner, Hess reflected on the service she and the federal government provide to families of veterans at Arlington National Cemetery. As assistant organist at the cemetery, she has performed at 1,000 funerals in the past five years. And with her contract renewed for another five years, she expects to continue comforting the grieving.

“It’s a very valuable service. Music can deepen our spiritual connections during worship services and allows us to work through emotions such as grief during funerals,” Hess told The Arlington Catholic Herald, the news outlet of the Diocese of Arlington.

Though she doesn’t usually know the people for whom she plays, she admitted, she cries.

She helps out at several Arlington diocesan churches and in the Washington archdiocesan pastoral center as needed. She has played at a funeral for a baby with a heart condition who lived only a few days and a 101-year-old veteran, “who lived a happy, long life.”

“The stories are really interesting, especially the Greatest Generation,” she said. “The eulogies from the families are amazing to hear how these people lived through the Roaring ’20s, through the Depression and served in the military during World War II.”

A recent funeral was for a man who died in the Vietnam War but his remains had not been found until recently. His son and daughter were there, but she realized how sad it was that they never knew their father.

“I cry all the time. And sometimes, you laugh with the families,” she said. “There are heart-wrenching stories and uplifting stories.”

Hess said the funeral for U.S. Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23, who was killed in a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2021, was difficult. “It was one of the saddest funerals I have ever played,” she said. “Sometimes it’s very difficult to do it, emotionally.”

When playing military funerals, Hess said she much prefers the Old Post Chapel at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington. Most funerals are held there, unless they draw a larger crowd, or the cemetery is double-booked. Then the modern-looking Memorial Chapel, near the cemetery’s front gate, is used.

Hess gushes at the traditional Old Post Chapel with its steeple, beautiful windows, center aisle and “excellent acoustics” for the pipe organ.

She knows her way around many an organ. She’s got a 1980 Visser-Rowland organ — two manual, full pedal board tracker action with one rank (set of pipes) with a soft flute or gedeckt — in her living room. “It’s so cute,” she said. And it’s next to her Steinway baby grand piano.

When prepping for a recital, she practices four hours a day. When she is filling in at diocesan churches for funerals or weddings, she can “sight-read a whole Mass and not miss a note.”

One of her favorite organs is at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington. “It has (a) nice mellow sound to it, and the room is amazing, the acoustics.” But she most enjoys practicing at the Old Post Chapel.

She’s played at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City — “It’s amazing” — and at the Cadet Chapel at West Point, “the world’s largest all-pipe organ in a church,” and the world’s largest organ (by pipe number) a Midmer-Losh with more than 32,000 metal and wood pipes at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J..

Hess prefers the organ to the piano — no doubt with her master’s in sacred music with a concentration in organ, and a bachelor’s and doctorate in organ performance.

But her second love, after the organ itself, is academics. “I’m really passionate about the campus ministry side of academia,” she said. Her full-time gig is as liturgical music and spiritual life events coordinator at Marymount.

She’s been teaching at the college since 2009, but she took a full-time position there last year. She worked to get academic credit for students in the school Chamber Singers and the Pep Band, she started a “Great Composers” class, and her efforts resulted in a music minor being added to the curriculum.

The Altoona, Pa., native has an extensive resume. She’s worked at Georgetown University in Washington, West Point, Stonehill College in North Easton, Mass., and she earned her master’s from Notre Dame.

“It’s such an honor to be an organist at Arlington,” she told The Arlington Catholic Herald. “Every time I get there, I get very nostalgic to hear the bands, see the horse-drawn caissons. It’s an honor to help the military’s mission of honoring veterans through music. It never gets old.

This story was originally published by The Arlington Catholic Herald, the news outlet of the Diocese of Arlington. Ann Augherton is managing editor.

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