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An inspirational news article describing organ projects in Michigan...

Started by KB7DQH, April 06, 2011, 12:58:07 AM

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KB7DQH

A new organ, completed restoration work and planned restoration work on some instruments are described in this news article.

Do take note of the enthusiasm expressed by various parties involved in their undertakings...

http://www.mlive.com/living/saginaw/index.ssf/2011/04/midlands_memorial_presbyterian_1.html

And this statement in particular...

Quote"Our church is a cornerstone of the community, and a lot of community dollars have gone into this," Lynch said of the organ they hope to dedicate in January 2012. "We want to have concerts here, and open it to the community. And in worship, it's kind of remarkable, what happens in the congregation when you have an instrument like this.

or even this one...

QuoteAnd while there are people who say the pipe organs are too expensive and too hard to maintain, Kuczynski says, "My advice to churches that have a decent instrument is to do everything they can to keep it."

and...

QuoteNicholas Schmelter, minister of music at First Congregational Church in Saginaw, is a believer. He was Memorial Presbyterian's organist from 2003 through 2007, around the time the Midland church realized it needed to take some kind of action.

And he was in Dearborn earlier this week, exploring possibilities as his new congregation attempts to preserve its historic Ernest M. Skinner pipe organ.

"It's interesting; you might say our instrument has multiple personalities," Schmelter said. "The challenge we face is this: In the 1960s, a company that was very good at what it did at the time converted the 38 rank organ we installed in 1928 to the 70 rank organ we have now."

In the years since, certain notes have lost their voices, including the Middle C, "and even non-musicians know Middle C is music's home base," he said. But the ones that sound good sound better than anything he's ever heard ... and there is that history. The Skinner is the only one in the region with its distinctive English style, a result of the Skinner Company's close alliance with Great Britain's Willis Company.

"I would never criticize the work done in earlier years — they were responding to a neo-classical trend. But it compromised the tonal quality," Schmelter said. "Then the church nearly burned down in the 1970s and we needed someone to clean the organ, which created even more confusion.

"The console, the organist's cockpit, is in horrific disrepair, to where a quarter of the organ is unplayable. But even if we're not able to preserve what we have, we want to embrace the Skinner and its history. We cherish this; we cherish its artistic value to the community."

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."