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Started by KB7DQH, July 21, 2010, 07:38:07 AM

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KB7DQH

http://www.pipeorganfoundation.org/index.html

A non-profit organization whose purpose it is to relocate, restore, and install pipe organs from places where they are not wanted to places where they are...

Their shop is about a 2 hours drive from my home...

Eric
KB7DQH
The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."

Jonathan Lane

We need something like this in England.  I have long thought if I had a 100000sq ft warehouse it would be used to store redundant pipe organs until a new home could be found for them!! Jonathan

revtonynewnham

Hi

We already have it!  The Redundant Organ Rehousing Company has run out of storage space!  There's also lists maintained by the IBO and BIOS of available organs.  The problem in the UK is the rate of church closures/rebuilding (which only rarely seems to include provision for a pipe organ) coupled with the number of churches that are throwing out perfectly restorable organs and going totally down the church band route.

Given how history tends to work in circles, I can envisage churches who have scrapped pipe organs facing large bills in the future when things have reached a stage where the organ is recognised as the versatile and useful inatrument that it isa.

Every Blessing

Tony

Jonathan Lane

The problem with the RORC is that they don't respond to requests for information about organs they hold.  They had several instruments we could have rehoused but no-one responded and the opportunity is now lost.  They used to list the organs available but no longer, so we don't even know what they have.  As an organ builder wo would be delighted to use them, but they need to tell us what they have and then respond when questions are asked, otherwise they will continue to have no further space!

NonPlayingAnorak

Quote from: Jonathan Lane on September 07, 2010, 02:38:45 PM
The problem with the RORC is that they don't respond to requests for information about organs they hold.  They had several instruments we could have rehoused but no-one responded and the opportunity is now lost.  They used to list the organs available but no longer, so we don't even know what they have.  As an organ builder wo would be delighted to use them, but they need to tell us what they have and then respond when questions are asked, otherwise they will continue to have no further space!

Hear, hear! Their website has no details, and all emails to them go unanswered. Bloody hopeless bunch of bloody amateurs if you ask me ;D

Seriously, they need to reply to correspondence, and to have a regularly-updated stock list on their website!

Janner

Quote from: NonPlayingAnorak on October 03, 2010, 06:46:12 PM
Quote from: Jonathan Lane on September 07, 2010, 02:38:45 PM
The problem with the RORC is that they don't respond to requests for information about organs they hold.  They had several instruments we could have rehoused but no-one responded and the opportunity is now lost.  They used to list the organs available but no longer, so we don't even know what they have.  As an organ builder wo would be delighted to use them, but they need to tell us what they have and then respond when questions are asked, otherwise they will continue to have no further space!

Hear, hear! Their website has no details, and all emails to them go unanswered............... ;D

Seriously, they need to reply to correspondence, and to have a regularly-updated stock list on their website!

Interesting to read this about the RORC. I tried to contact them some months ago and had no reply at all. Has anyone managed to contact them, and if so, how? I would like to know what they may have available.

revtonynewnham

Hi

The main source of listing for redundant organs in the UK is now the IBO web site.  I don't know what's happening with RORC - are they even still operating?

Every Blessing

Tony

contrabordun

I came to the conclusion about 3 years ago that RORCL was no longer trading, but according to companies house they are still putting in their annual returns - http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/62e38d4590615d7f96d8dd8cbb90e660/compdetails  Haven't bothered to download the detailed info, but you can get copies of the returns etc for a couple of quid.

Janner

#8
Quote from: contrabordun on March 26, 2011, 03:29:16 PM
I came to the conclusion about 3 years ago that RORCL was no longer trading, but according to companies house they are still putting in their annual returns - http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/62e38d4590615d7f96d8dd8cbb90e660/compdetails  ...........

Which raises the question "Did they, or do they still, have any organs in store?" If so, what has happened to them, or what will happen to any they may still have? Just wondering, having reason to be interested in the availability of redundant instruments at the moment.

Quote from: revtonynewnham on March 26, 2011, 03:10:00 PM
Hi

The main source of listing for redundant organs in the UK is now the IBO web site.  I don't know what's happening with RORC - are they even still operating?

Every Blessing

Tony

Thank you Tony. Yes, I have been watching the IBO Redundant Organs List closely. It is indeed a good resource, but trawling around on the internet still throws up the occasional reference, sometimes indirectly, to the odd one which appears not to be listed there, so it would seem that it's still worth casting the net as widely as possible.

revtonynewnham

Hi

Other sources for redundant instruments are, obviously, organ builders - I know of one who has 4-5 smallish pipe organs in stock awaiting restoration and buyers - and I suspect most firms will either have something, or know what's around.  Diocesan organ advisers will also know what's available (and even if you're not Anglican, they're approachable!)  For instance, i know of a 3 manual Bishop (and early Bishop at that) rebuilt by Conacher and then by Andrews (Bradford firm - in the Binns tradition) that might be available locally.  In need of a thorough overhaul - or possibly returning to an earlier state.

Every Blessing

Tony

Janner


KB7DQH

 8) 8) 8) Article in the Issaquah Press about their latest project...

QuoteCovenant Presbyterian Church's organ is among four of a kind

December 6, 2011

By Tom Corrigan

Hiding behind the church's altar, these pipes, and quite a few more like them, are crammed into a small space reachable only by ladder. By Tom Corrigan

With Jim Whitman behind the three keyboards and numerous foot pedals, the instrument seems easily loud and strong enough to rattle the windows of Issaquah's Covenant Presbyterian Church.

A few minutes later, Whitman is playing the church's new organ — actually four organs combined — while being accompanied on the horn by Assistant Pastor Luke Morton.

Morton plays with no microphone, but the church's huge organ not only doesn't overpower his horn, the two instruments seem to greatly compliment each other. One of at least two regular organists at the church, Whitman notes Covenant also has a flutist who plays alongside the organ that was six years or so in the making.

A semiretired neuropsychologist, Carl Dodrill is the president and founder of the Mercer Island-based, nonprofit Pipe Organ Foundation. Over the past several years, Dodrill estimated the foundation and church volunteers spent 6,000 hours installing Covenant's new instrument. In celebration of its completion, the church held an inaugural public concert last month.

Formally founded in 2000, the Pipe Organ Foundation has helped install six organs at spots in Washington and Oregon. Dodrill can talk fluently about what seems to be an impressively complex instrument, especially in terms of its installation. According to Dodrill, each of the organ's keyboards and the foot pedals actually control what is technically a separate instrument.

The top keyboard controls what Dodrill called the "swell," the biggest organ in the church. The pipes are stuffed into a small, cramped room of their own above and behind Covenant's altar. Middle keys control the "great" organ. The instrument's foot pedals control a pedal organ consisting of what Dodrill called "big, honking pipes" hidden in the front of the church. The lowest keyboard plays the large antiphonal, or rear organ, the pipes of which tower above the pews in the back of the church.

"It's really intended to supply the congregation with surround sound," Dodrill said, adding the antiphonal organ helped bring a sort of Dolby sound effect to the church.

Whitman said it's the only antiphonal organ in the area.

According to Dodrill, almost all of the pipes used at Covenant were recycled, that is salvaged from other organs. For example, the wooden pipes in the antiphonal organ were first installed in a Seattle church in 1911. He said the average age of the restored pipes is between 80 and 90 years.

"We went way out of our way to be especially green," Dodrill said.

The foundation had worked with Covenant Church in the past, putting a much smaller instrument into the much smaller building the congregation used until Christmas 2005. At that point, Covenant moved into its present building in front of its older home. Initially, the older, smaller organ was installed in the new building.

"We knew that other organ was not going to be adequate," Dodrill said.

"The foundation has really given us something we never could have afforded," Morton said.

Dodrill figured if the organ had been installed with new parts, the cost would have been around $400,000. As it is, the church raised about $40,000 for the instrument. Morton went on to compare the organ with a "high-end F-16 fighter plane." Dodrill added the instrument took a lot of pre-planning, the placement of each pipe and the shutters that control the air moving through those pipes thought out well in advance.

Was all the work and effort worth it? Whitman said the instrument is a joy to play. Morton had a theological answer, saying the organ is a wonderful means for the congregation to express its gratitude to God through music. He said he also believes the organ provides the church with a vibrant sense of history and "rootedness."

"The church really values its musical heritage," Morton continued.

Dodrill put it another way.

"God is worth it," he said, "worth us busting our backs on this thing ... to make the best music possible."


http://www.issaquahpress.com/2011/12/06/covenant-churchs-new-organ-is-four-of-a-kind/

Eric
KB7DQH
The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."