PERU – Timothy A. Blodgett II, 17, son of Tim and Erica Blodgett, has just completed an organ internship with the Young Organist Collaborative of Portsmouth, N.H.

The collaborative was instituted in 2001 with the purpose of encouraging young people to play the pipe organ. The program supports the students with 16 lessons with a qualified organ instructor. All monies are donated by individuals, corporations and churches.

Usually scholarships are given to those who live within a 25-mile radius of Portsmouth. After an audition and board approval, it was decided to allow Blodgett to receive one of the scholarships.

Blodgett will perform with other scholarship winners for a final concert at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at the St. John’s Church in Portsmouth, N.H.

He has been traveling to Brunswick to take lessons since September 2006. He practices at the First Parish Church in Brunswick under the instruction of Ray Cornils, municipal organist for Portland. He is also an organ teacher at the University of Southern Maine.

Blodgett has been taking piano lessons from Gail Dorr of Pine Knoll House Studio in Mexico since he was 8. At age 13 he performed Handel’s “Messiah,” arranged by John W. Schaum in a set of piano pastels for the public at the First Baptist Church in Mexico.

Blodgett has also performed in two Christmas concerts with Jennifer McPherson, a musically gifted young adult from Eliot, at the First Baptist Church. He has also performed with McPherson at the Congregational Church in Eliot and at the Missions at the Airport in East Dixfield.

Blodgett has also performed with RAAPA. He accompanied Gail Dorr for two selections during a Christmas concert at Mountain Valley High School and played with Judith Kuhn at a dinner theater. He has played the piano at the Rumford Community Home.

Blodgett has been playing at the First Baptist Church since the age of 11, accompanying Donald Haines, a 96-year-old organist who has also been playing at the church since he was 11. Blodgett has played for the children and adult’s choir and he has accompanied soloists and plays the keyboard for the worship team.

Besides piano and organ, he has played the saxophone at the Dirigo Middle School and with Mountain Valley High School and with the jazz and pep band. He is taking guitar lessons in Farmington and plays bass guitar with the worship team, under the direction of Tony Rea.

Blodgett has been home-schooled by his mother and his grandmother, Lilla Mae Thomas. He will graduate on June 8. This summer he will work at Camp Good News in Livermore Falls in the College Bound program. He intends to major in church music in the fall.