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Organ-making family has impressive legacy

Started by KB7DQH, August 14, 2011, 08:01:16 AM

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KB7DQH

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110812/GPG0406/108120539/Organ-making-family-has-impressive-legacy

QuoteHACKENSACK, N.J. — A northern New Jersey family that has been building pipe organs for four generations showed off two of their masterworks in Manhattan last month.

The Peragallo family — who are to organ-making what the Barrymores are to acting — led a group of 40 organists from across the country on a two-stop "organ crawl."

They demonstrated the massive organ at St. Patrick's Cathedral that the family refurbished in 1993 and the newly rebuilt organ at St. Francis Xavier Church.

The latter organ was rebuilt about two years ago after a casement fell on the church's old organ, destroying the console.

"Which I think was a blessing in disguise, because they were able to collect the insurance to begin this project," said John Peragallo III, a third-generation member of the company.

Peragallo, 53, is both an engineer and a classically trained musician who serves as organist and music director at Our Lady of the Valley Church in Wayne, N.J. He played a selection of music at St. Francis Xavier.

"It's really an organist's dream to work in a setting like this," he said. "We're very proud of this organ because it includes the accumulated knowledge of four generations."

It's also the 700th organ the family has worked on since 1918.

The family also does maintenance and repairs of organs, some of which are nearly as old as the company.

For example, not long ago, John Peragallo IV was working on the restoration of a pipe organ that had been installed by his great-grandfather, John Peragallo Sr., sometime in the 1920s.

While handling the pipes, a thought occurred to the 25-year-old Peragallo, who has a degree in architecture.

"The last person to put his hands on that was my great-grandfather," he said in the woodworking shop of the family's Paterson plant. "There are a lot of cool moments like that."

The Peragallo Pipe Organ Co. was founded in 1918 and still occupies a factory space near where John Peragallo Sr. settled in the 300 block of Buffalo Avenue.

According to family lore, the senior Peragallo decided as a young man that he did not want to join his family's restaurant business. Instead he apprenticed with Ernest Skinner, a legendary American organ builder, and later went to work for another organ company.

Peragallo was part of a crew installing a pipe organ in a theater in Butte, Mont., when a telegram arrived informing him that the company had gone bust. After they finished installing the organ in Butte, Peragallo took a train back east to New Jersey, where he founded what became The Peragallo Pipe Organ Co. They've been at it ever since.

Gregory S. Scimie, artistic director of the Assisi Performing Arts Center in Summit, said he's known the Peragallos for the last 33 years.

"They make things easy," he said. "They're professional in whatever they do."

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."