Organ matters - Organs matter!

QuoteConcerts with a Cause celebrates 10 years of giving
By Kelly Jasper   
Staff Writer
Friday, Sept. 13, 2013   


In fall 2003, renowned concert organist David Higgs traveled to Augusta to play an inaugural concert on the new Dobson opus 78 at St. John United Methodist Church.

That concert, 10 years ago this month, launched and inspired Concerts with a Cause, a free concert series with the goal of bringing the world's great organists to Augusta.

"Since that day, our community has enjoyed 10 years of free concerts by both local and international stars – organists, choral conductors, singers, and other instrumentalists," said Jamie Council Garvey, the director of music at St. John.

This weekend, Higgs returns for an encore performance. The 10th anniversary celebration begins at 3 p.m. Sunday at the church. An offering benefits Child Enrichment Inc., a local advocacy organization for abused children, and a reception will follow.

Over the past decade, Concerts with a Cause has raised more than $127,000 for 38 local charities.

"It's created a precedent. It's given inspiration to other churches getting new organs," said Lynn Dobson, the president and artistic director of Dobson Pipe Organ Builders of Lake City, Iowa.

He designed the Dobson opus 78, a mechanical-action pipe organ with American black cherry case and hand-carved basswood pipe shades.

The organ is one-of-a-kind, and one of the few mechanical-action organs in Augusta.

"It was a really fun installation," Dobson recalled. "I've spent a lot of time in Augusta. The people at St. John were so fun and friendly to work with."

Dobson returns to Augusta for Sunday's concert, for which Higgs, the chairman of the organ department at Eastman School of Music, has planned a selection of "festive" organ pieces.

"Higgs is a stand-out," Garvey said. "The organ is a monstrous sort of instrument. There are so many mechanics to it. Higgs knows how to put the breath of life in those pipes."

;)
Eric
KB7DQH

QuotePosted: Saturday, September 7, 2013 12:11 am

By DIANE D'AMICO Education Writer

As audiences arrive for the Miss America Competition preliminaries and finals next week, they will be greeted by a sound that has not been heard live in decades.

The partially restored Midmer-Losh organ, the largest pipe organ in the world, will be played during the 10-minute preshow by Steven Ball, the hall's new official organist and a self-proclaimed "guardian and spokesman" for the massive instrument.

The first piece he performs will be appropriate: a march written in 1927 by John Philip Sousa titled "The Atlantic City Pageant March."

"The march, the organ and the pageant are all being reunited this year in Atlantic City," Ball said. "It's just outstanding."

Although it is only about 30 percent restored, Ball promises the organ's sound will be impressive.

"It's heart-stopping," he said. "It is the most remarkable instrument."

What may be most remarkable is that the organ still exists at all. Built between 1929 and 1932 by the Midmer-Losh Organ Co. of Long Island, the 150-ton instrument was literally built into Boardwalk Hall, concealed behind gilded grillwork to create the original version of surround-sound.

The organ was damaged by flooding during the 1944 hurricane and became a victim of benign neglect as the hall deteriorated. It was further damaged during the restoration of Boardwalk Hall in 2000 but has since been under the care of the nonprofit Historic Organs Restoration Committee.

Curator Carl Loeser has managed the restoration of the Midmer-Losh and the smaller Kimball pipe organ. With the first part of the restoration complete, the Restoration Committee is preparing for the next phase of fund-raising, a 10-year, $16 million campaign to fully restore both organs.

Ball, a Fulbright scholar and renowned organist, said he had to do his own transcription to convert the Sousa march from a piece for a full marching band to one for the organ, but he promises it was worth the effort.

"The organ has a strong personality," he said. "We've been waking it up for the last month or so. It is a national treasure."

The organ was used during Miss America pageants in the 1930s. Sharon Pearce, president of the Miss America Organization, said they are excited to have it be part of this year's events.

"It is fitting that the return of Miss America to its original home in Atlantic City will correspond with the rebirth of another vital symbol of the destination," she said.

For those who can't make it to Miss America, free concerts and half-hour tours of the organ will be held at Boardwalk Hall at noon weekdays starting in May 2014.

Contact Diane D'Amico:

609-272-7241

DDamico@pressofac.com

Generally the pageant makes an appearance on television... but will the organ be heard in the "final cut"?????? I guess we shall "see"...

Eric
KB7DQH

What caught my eye was spotting Tacoma, Washington in the excerpt of the following page in the Google Alert ;)  As the article states this instrument was removed from a church in Arizona which recently received a brand-spanking new instrument from Paul Fritts and Co...  and is now being installed by the same firm in its new home in Canada, replacing a dead electronic  ;) ;) ;)

http://www.saultstar.com/2013/08/27/willowgrove-united-brings-in-tracker-organ-after-year-long-fundraising-drive

Quote   Willowgrove United brings in tracker organ after year-long fundraising drive



Electronic sounds appear to be out as another local church opts to ring out its hymns on a genuine pipe organ.

Organ builders from Tacoma, Wash. began putting together a tracker organ at Willowgrove United on Tuesday and are expected to finish sometime Thursday.

Michael Connell, the church's organist and music director, said it is exciting to see a concert-quality instrument installed at Willowgrove.

"The congregation here is extremely supportive of music," said Connell, who teaches music at Rosedale French Immersion.

Willowgrove is the second church in as many years to bring in a tracker organ, a term that refers to a physical rather than electronic link between the organ's keys and the valve that allows air to pass through the instrument's pipes. St. Luke's Cathedral, an Anglican church on Brock Street, spent about $75,000 in 2012 to purchase one built by Germany's Rudolf von Veckerath.

Connell, who studied organ performance at the University of Western Ontario, said it is hard to match the sound of a genuine pipe organ.

"It's a real living, breathing instrument," said Connell.

This one was purchased after the electronic organ at Willowgrove experienced a prolonged outage.

It was made by J.W. Walker and Sons, of England, and Connell said it is believed to be the only English tracker organ in the city and one of fewer than 10 in Canada. It's also a one-of-a-kind creation having been custom built in 1991 for St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Tucson, Ariz., which Connell said is about the same dimensions as Willowgrove.

"That makes it a great fit," said Connell.

Paul Fritts and Co. Organ Builders, which dismantled the organ in Arizona and constructed that church's new instrument, are reassembling it in the Sault.

Connell said it would have cost St. Alban's at least $180,000 to have the organ built. Willowgrove purchased it for $30,000 after a year-long fundraising campaign and transported it themselves by rental truck to the Sault.

Busy lately, but saw these links pop into my inbox, and it looks like a local Iowa church will be the organ's new home...

http://www.cbs2iowa.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/ui-pipe-organ-going-church-20851.shtml

Quote

Updated: Wednesday, August 21 2013, 09:59 AM CDT
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- A pipe organ that faced demolition with a flood-damaged recital hall at the University of Iowa will instead be going to a church in Iowa City.
   The huge instrument will be dismantled, refurbished and then reinstalled at the new location of University Heights-based St. Andrew Presbyterian Church.
   Matthew Penning is director of music ministries at St. Andrew, and he says the organ is being donated by the contractor that will be tearing down Clapp Recital Hall. The hall was severely damaged in 2008 flooding.
   Penning estimates the organ's removal, cleaning, storage and reinstallation will cost the church $400,000.[/quote]

and...

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20130821/NEWS01/308210001/UI-pipe-organ-finds-a-new-local-home?Local%20News

Quote

One university treasure is destined for a higher calling than the dump.

The Clapp Recital Hall Casavant pipe organ will find a new home with the University Heights-based St. Andrew Presbyterian Church congregation. Although its keys will not be played until it is installed at the church's future location along Camp Cardinal Boulevard, it narrowly avoided being scrapped.

Matthew Penning, director of music ministries at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, said the congregation is buzzing with excitement.

"It's an extremely exciting opportunity for us," he said.

St. Andrew Presbyterian Church was one of six candidates representing churches, universities and music lovers across the country in the running to receive the organ before the Hancher-Voxman-Clapp building is leveled this fall. FEMA required the organ to stay at the building until the contractor, Reinbeck-based Peterson Contractors Inc., decided its fate.

If contractors could not find a suitable space, the organ was expected to be demolished with the building.

Cork Peterson, owner of Peterson Contractors Inc., originally said the plan was to seek the highest bidder for the instrument. He did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

Penning said Peterson Contractors Inc. donated the instrument to St. Andrew. Penning said news of the donation was announced Sunday, and churchgoers are coming out of the woodwork to express their appreciation for the organ and the opportunity to work with the community.

"People who we wouldn't think would have an interest in an organ are ecstatic about the fact that we can be a part of retaining this instrument," he said. "The first thing I always hear from them is what a great way to give back and to reach out to the community. While we have a great instrument to worship with and things like that, that's kind of second on their minds."

Penning said his desire for the organ "came down to saving the instrument." During planning conversations for the new, larger church, Penning said the organ came up time and time again.

"We became more and more interested in it when possibilities really started emerging from people and their ideas that the church is a sanctuary, not only a vehicle for worship," he said.

Penning said Heartland Express, a North Liberty trucking company, donated a semi-truck to haul the instrument from Iowa City to Dobson Pipe Organ Builders in Lake City.

A representative from Heartland Express did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

Dean Zenor, administrative and key action specialist at Dobson Pipe Organ Builders, said his shop is prepared for the instrument. Zenor said the shop regularly works with large organs, including the behemoth at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, with its longest pipe measuring at 42 feet long.

"It's quite a wonderful instrument, and we understood that if they didn't find a home for it, it was going to be taken to the dump," he said.

Zenor said a replacement for the organ would be valued at more than $1.5 million.

"It was built many decades ago, and it's a product of its time as far as what it sounds like and what it looks like," he said.

Penning estimates the organ's removal, cleaning, storage and reinstallation will cost the church $400,000, which will be sourced from donations from the church and community, and a small portion from the construction budget.

Penning said the church is looking for volunteers next week to assist with tearing it down, from handing down pipes in the balcony to labeling parts.

The mechanical and electric-stop action organ — built in 1971 — is composed of three manuals, 74 ranks, 3,796 pipes, an attached drawknob keydesk, and manual and pedal compasses in a gallery-level case. All of these pieces must be carefully dismantled, sorted, labeled and packaged before they reach the truck.

Zenor said the shop has enough room to store the instrument long term, including tall pipes that must rest upright and a litany of crates and wooden trays. The organ repair shop then will modify the instrument if necessary and install it at its permanent location.

"The fact it's been at the university and enjoyed by probably thousands and thousands of people as a recital instrument or students learning on it makes it all the more special to the Iowa City area," Zenor said.

"You don't just throw something like that away."

Eric
KB7DQH

Quote
Tara Bannow
Iowa City Press-Citizen

    Filed Under

    News
    Local News
    Hancher Auditorium

On the Net

• To view the auction listing on IronPlanet, go to www.ironplanet.com/for-sale/Other-Casavant-Freres-Ltee-Opus-3105-Pipe-Organ-Iowa/460610


If you're into bidding on used construction and agricultural equipment online, perhaps you stumbled across an interesting item recently: the organ in the University of Iowa's Clapp Recital Hall.

The massive mechanical action pipe organ, which has been collecting dust in the Hancher-Voxman-Clapp complex since the 2008 flood, is for sale on the online auction site IronPlanet at a price tag of $60,000. The building is scheduled for demolition in about two months and will be replaced with a new, $176 million Hancher Auditorium uphill and a $120 School of Music building downtown that will include a new recital hall.

UI officials left the fate of the instrument — and any other items in the building with sentimental or historic value — up to the company in charge of demolishing the building. Among those who requested the organ, an Iowa City church hopes to put it in its future building.

The project's demolition contractor has one criterion in choosing who gets the organ: getting the biggest bang for their buck.

"Wherever we can maximize our monetary return is where it goes," said Cork Peterson, owner of Reinbeck-based Peterson Contractors Inc., when asked how he'll determine who will receive the organ. He said the company will keep the proceeds.

UI awarded the contract to Peterson Contractors after it came in as the second-lowest bidder at $1.5 million — below the engineer's estimate of $2 million. The demolition will begin in early October at the latest, Peterson said.

"If we don't find an owner that is willing to monetarily compensate for the salvage value, we're just going to scrap it," Peterson said. "We don't want to do that, but we got the job because we were the low bidder, so we have to maximize our monetary return from our bid."

Matthew Penning, director of music ministries for St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, said he's hoping Peterson will decide to donate the organ to the church and take the resulting tax benefit. The congregation hopes to build a new church on Camp Cardinal Road in 2015.

The original list of six hopefuls — everything from churches, music schools and organ restoration companies — has since been narrowed, but Peterson declined to specify how many organizations or individuals still are in the running. Penning said it's just St. Andrew and Edward Zimmerman, an organ and harpsichord professor at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. Zimmerman didn't return a request for comment.

The organ was installed when the building opened in 1972. Organ experts say it was among the first of its kind to be installed at a U.S. university. At the time the Canadian company Casavant Frères built it, mechanical action organs were experiencing a resurgence over electric action organs.

The company originally tried to sell the organ on eBay, but a site administrator told them it exceeded the site's maximum price rule for infrequent sellers, Peterson said. Bidding for the organ on Iron Planet ends Friday. There were no takers as of Tuesday evening.

A major hitch for whoever ultimately gets the organ is that they'll have to pay an estimated $100,000 to remove the intricate instrument, whose pipes take up almost an entire wall in the recital hall. Penning said a consultant told him it'll be another $400,000 to clean and store the instrument. He said he thinks Peterson Contractors will have a hard time finding someone who will pay that in addition to thousands of dollars for the instrument. Organs are notoriously difficult to move from one building to another, and they're typically designed and built for specific buildings.

At the time the organ was built, it cost $125,000, money that was paid by Iowa taxpayers, Penning said. He said he thinks that's enough incentive to keep the instrument local.

"It was originally intended to be an instrument for Iowa," he said. "Not only for the University of Iowa, but to be an essential teaching instrument and an instrument for a broader sense, for Iowa City, for cultural purposes and also for the state to have a good instrument for this program to be successful."

In an April interview with the Press-Citizen, Beverly Robalino, then UI's senior design project manager, said Federal Emergency Management Agency rules required UI to relinquish control over items in the building to the demolition contractor.

"It's totally out of our hands," said Robalino, who retired. "We tell them who's interested, and it's totally up to the contractor to work with anyone on this list or not to."

But Barb Sturner, an external affairs specialist with FEMA's Kansas City, Mo., office, said there is no such rule.

On Tuesday, Rod Lehnertz, UI's director of planning, design and construction, clarified in an email that FEMA advises UI to maximize its eligibility for funding. FEMA is paying to replace the Hancher-Voxman-Clapp complex. Had UI made money from selling items inside, FEMA may have decreased the amount it paid, he said. Likewise, bidders wouldn't have factored in money they would have made selling the items, so the project may have been more expensive.

"It is the University's intent to avoid any optional actions that might lead to interpretations that could negatively impact federal funding eligibility," he said. "In the case of Hancher-Voxman-Clapp, when the University was contacted regarding interest in a component of the building, that contact was included in the bidding documents so that the bidding contractors could contract those sources while establishing their bids."

Sturner said it's unclear whether FEMA would have needed to adjust the amount of money it's paying to replace the Hancher-Voxman-Clapp complex had the demolition bids been higher.

Reach Tara Bannow at tbannow@press-citizen.com or 887-5418.

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20130724/NEWS01/307240007/No-bids-yet-organ

Eric
KB7DQH

QuotePLU's two organs are highlights of a national conference for young people this weekend in Tacoma

By ROSEMARY PONNEKANTI — Staff writer

Not many people know it, but the South Sound not only has a wealth of beautiful mechanical organs built in the style of European 17th- and 18th-century instruments, but it also is home to two of the country's most respected organ building workshops: Paul Fritts and Co. in Parkland and Martin Pasi in Roy.

This week, a technical course is bringing 18 young people from around the country, plus Japan and France, to study local organs and how they're built.

The unusual opportunity even extends to the public, with a kick-off demonstration concert Sunday night at Pacific Lutheran University.

"There's more than the usual concentration of good organs in this area that began with the ... Flentrop organ at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle," explained Paul Fritts, who since 1979 has been building organs for major churches and institutions around the country. "We want to convey to young people the vast range of ways of organ building in a way that connects with them."

To achieve that, Fritts and Pasi are helping the Tacoma chapter of the American Guild of Organists host its third Pipe Organ Encounter Technical. It's a weeklong conference where young people ages 16-23 are taken around the region to visit organs and the workshops where they're built, get behind-the-scenes tours (including crawling into organ pipe spaces), demonstrations of different instruments by leading performers, opportunities to play themselves, and hands-on building instruction, including a team project to build a tiny portative organ, just 18 inches high and with 18 keys and a hand-pumped bellows.

The participants are mostly organists themselves, though playing ability isn't a requirement. All that's needed is a willingness to work with your hands and a desire to learn.

Students will stay at PLU, where the conference begins with a mini-demonstration concert by Paul Tegels, showing off the quality of the Fritts and Brombaugh organs in Lagerquist Hall. The concert is open to the public and will go beyond a typical recital in explaining and showing the differences between the various stops and registrations and how they're used musically.

Conference director Shari Shull — an organist herself, whose husband Bruce works in the Fritts shop — explains why the Tacoma chapter volunteered to host the third conference of its kind.

"One of the things Bruce and I enjoy is fine concerts on fine organs," she said. "We want to share that with these kids and hopefully get them involved in organ building."

The program Shull has devised definitely gives the students a thorough tour of Puget Sound's pipes. In addition to the Lagerquist organs, they'll get demonstrations of Fritts organs at the University of Puget Sound, St. Mark's and the private homes of both organist Sandra Tietjen and Fritts himself. They'll see Pasi organs at St. Mark's and in Lynnwood. And they'll see a variety of organs at Parkland's Trinity Lutheran (Schlicker and Kilgen), Seattle's St. James' Cathedral (Rosales and Hutchings-Votey), and Tacoma's Christ Episcopal (Brombaugh). They'll even visit a four-manual 1920s theater Wurlitzer with 48 sets of pipes, kept in perfect working order in a private home in Gig Harbor. At most places, they'll be shown the technicalities of each instrument, crawling into the pipes housing wherever physically possible and discovering the craft behind the sound.

It's an unusual experience, particularly because of the concentration of fine organs built in a certain historic way — mechanical action, hand-cast pipes, hand-built freestanding housing and that unique, fluting sound that you'll never hear from an electronic factory instrument.

"I don't like blowing my own horn, but there's a lot of cutting-edge organ building in this country," Fritts said. "We've influenced European building in the last 30 years. They don't build many new organs in that (historical) style because they have so many ... and we're coming up with some really good ideas."

"Martin Pasi and Paul Fritts are among the best organ builders in the country," Shari Shull said. "They've been a huge drawcard (for the conference)."

For students who might play organ but have no idea how it works, it's a golden opportunity.

"As an organist, I play lots of different organs," said Sam Libra, a University of Washington graduate organ student who holds a church organ position and is attending the conference. "But my knowledge of how they work and are built is limited. It seemed like a great opportunity to get hands-on technical knowledge about the instrument."

While Libra is mainly interested in learning how to do small maintenance work himself, there also is a possibility that the conference will inspire some participants to make it their career.

"I think there are a lot of opportunities," said Fritts, who employs six people. "As Martin and I get older, we wonder who will take over our shops."

Organ building is a career that takes a certain blend of skills: an ability to work with your hands in wood and metal, a love of design, an understanding of acoustics, some musical ability and a cooperative nature.

It also takes patience: Organs like the one Fritts is currently building for Notre Dame University can take months or years to build, with every step done by hand. Conference attendees will get to see every aspect of this, from the sawdust-scented room with precision-cutting machines, to the huge table where molten lead/tin alloy is poured into sheets for cutting and wrapping around enormous conical mandrels to make pipes; from the carpentry room where rough sawn planks are built into elegant housings and keyboard parts, to the voicing room where a small organ can test pipes for intonation and clarity.

They'll even see the computer design program used by Bruce Shull to develop the tiny portative they'll make together.

"It's all hands on, no machines," Fritts said. "It's pretty skillful work."

For participants like Libra, it's a chance to learn the engineering behind the music.

"I've never had hands-on experience like this," Libra said. "It would be easy to take this further if it whetted my appetite. And it also sounds like fun!"

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/07/19/2684202/deep-in-the-pipes.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/07/19/2684202/deep-in-the-pipes.html

Story of my life... I never find out about stuff like this BEFORE it happens  ;)

Eric
KB7DQH

http://journaltimes.com/news/local/caledonia-man-s-theater-organ-to-be-featured-on-cbs/article_aecf9960-f003-11e2-b2d7-0019bb2963f4.html

QuoteCALEDONIA — For decades, Fred Hermes has been giving tours of his old-time theater and 1920s-era pipe organ to guests at his Caledonia home.

On Friday, the "Basement Bijou," as it is known, will be on full display for a national television audience in an "On the Road" segment during the "CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley," scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Channel 58.

"They were very surprised," Hermes, 87, said of the crew that came by to film his 2,500-pipe Wurlitzer organ and mini movie palace, which can hold about 150 people.

The CBS crew visited Hermes' home on July 1 where they taped a presentation held for a tour group from New Jersey.

The feature was arranged by Eileen Arnold, group tour manager at Real Racine, who helps arranges tours of Hermes' home. She met "On the Road" host Steve Hartman earlier this year at the National Tour Association convention and trade show, for which he was master of ceremonies.

"I just knew that Fred would be a natural for 'On the Road,' " Arnold said in a news release. "Steve Hartman was very interested right away."

Hermes purchased the organ in 1955 and moved it to its current location the following year, building a home above it.

"It's fun. It keeps me going," Hermes said. "Working on it has taken me about 50 years because it's not something that you do overnight."

The organ gets a lot of publicity and attracts visitors from across the country, but Hermes said he was surprised to hear that CBS wanted to come out for the feature.

It won't, however, be the first time Hermes will appear on national television. The last time, he said, was in 1955 on Art Linkletter's "People Are Funny."

The "On the Road" segment is expected to be about 5 to 6 minutes and hosted by Hartman. For those who don't catch Friday's broadcast, it is also expected to be included on "CBS Sunday Morning," which starts at 8 a.m. Sunday on Channel 58.

How to Watch

WHAT: "On the Road" segment of the "CBS Evening News"

WHERE: CBS channel 58

WHEN: Show starts at 5:30 p.m. on Friday

ADDITIONAL AIR TIMES: The segment is also expected to air during "CBS Sunday Morning" which starts at 8 a.m. Sunday on Channel 58.

Eric
KB7DQH

QuoteOrgan pipes to usher in summer at Scotty's Castle

The public is invited for a rare chance to hear the pipe organ at legendary Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park Friday, June 21, the first official day of summer, and Saturday, June 22.

   

By Mike Bodine
STAFF WRITER
mbodine@ridgecrestca.com
Updated Jun. 20, 2013 @ 3:33 pm

    The public is invited for a rare chance to hear the pipe organ at legendary Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park Friday, June 21, the first official day of summer, and Saturday, June 22.

    This is the one and only time of year that hands touch the organ, with this year's player Ty Woodward.

    Woodward's current gig is tickling the organ at Disney's El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.

    The concert will be played on the Welte-Mignon theater pipe organ delivered in 1928 and costed more than $50,000 at the time.

    "The Welte-Mignon features 1121 pipes, a grand piano, glockenspiel, xylophone, chimes, orchestra bells, sleigh bells, bird calls and a drum and cymbal assortment," according to the park's official website.   

    The concert is being sponsored by the Death Valley Natural History Association. The association's Executive Director David Blacker said this is the ninth year of the concert. He explained that the concert series was inspired by a live recording of the organ taken a decade ago, the first recording since the 1970s.

    The instrument sounded so beautiful, it was decided to put on a concert.

    The rub is that Scotty's Castle is a museum, packed with rare and delicate treasures, not the ideal setting for a concert.

    Blacker explained it was decided to hold the concert the same weekend as the annual curatorial cleaning when volunteers are trained on how to clean the treasures. In the process, rugs, chairs, tables and other delicates are removed for cleaning, clearing up space for a concert.

    Blacker said he is well aware that Death Valley in June is not the ideal time, but the castle is well air conditioned and that if all else fails, he said he has a short stand-up routine up his sleeve if he has to entertain. 

    "You're guaranteed to have a good time," Blacker said, adding that the concert at the castle is one of the most unique and wonderful experiences a person could ever have.

    He also said that any visitor to Death Valley at night will get to experience one of the best places for star gazing on the planet. Seats are available for purchase for $45, call (800) 478-8564 ext. 10 to reserve your seat or make a donation. All proceeds go to the Scotty's Castle Organ Maintenance Fund. For more information visit DVNHA.org An event update – as of June 17, there were still seats available for both the 5:30 p.m. And 7 p.m. Shows are Friday and Saturday.

http://www.ridgecrestca.com/article/20130620/NEWS/130629976#axzz2Wr4ULCAu

Eric
KB7DQH

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130504/eu-france-notre-dame-s-organ/?utm_hp_ref=media&ir=media

Quote and many other news sites via the Associated Press :)

LORI HINNANT | May 4, 2013 02:20 AM EST | AP

PARIS — From the moment the teenage musician caught sight of the organ in France's most famous cathedral, he knew where he wanted to play. In the five decades since, Philippe Lefebvre has traveled the world to play what he describes as an "orchestra of one," but the organ master returns to the loft above Notre Dame and is never disappointed.

He has none of the infamy of Notre Dame's bell-ringer and is invisible to the thousands of visitors Notre Dame receives each day. But Lefebvre said he never misses the direct contact with his audience that so many musicians crave. For the 64-year-old, it is enough to be the caretaker of what he considers an almost otherworldly instrument.

He first saw it when he was 15, as a young piano student.

"I thought that there were many more possibilities than with a piano. Even though I find the piano magnificent, this is just a whole new world," he said.

A few visitors may notice the biggest pipes above the entrance, but most turn their eyes no higher than the stained glass windows along the sides. Lefebvre, when he plays, is hidden even further – behind the brand new wooden-paneled console that he compares to a cockpit – five cascading keyboards and more than 200 stops.

A century ago, six strong men were needed to pump enough air for the music. Now, there is an air compressor behind the scenes, and the newly rebuilt instrument itself has a touch-screen panel that can note "favorite" stop combinations like a browser bookmarks a Web page.

Despite the advances in organ technology, Lefebvre feels the weight of history in his job. There are deep gashes in the wood carvings of the organ loft – a legacy of revolutionaries from the late 18th century who slashed away the fleur-de-lis symbol of the monarchy. But, Lefebvre said, they refrained from melting down the metal pipes into bullets during the war after heeding pleas from Notre Dame's organ master, Claude Balbastre, who had adapted to new political realities by composing variations on the Marseillaise anthem.

Notre Dame briefly opened its organ loft on Thursday to show off the new instrument – refurbished for the cathedral's 850th anniversary this year. Each of the nearly 8,000 pipes – some of which date back to the 18th century – was individually cleaned and returned to its place. The new electronic panel, the five cascading keyboards and more than 200 stops were installed.

Lefebvre began his musical career on piano, but he says "the piano is an industrial product. Each one is basically like the other. Every organ is unique, made for a particular place."

In cavernous Notre Dame, the organ's location is unparalleled. When Lefebvre plays the opening of "Piece Heroique" a few tourists turn toward the sound. By the end of the grandiose piece, the wooden floor of the loft is vibrating, Notre Dame's arched ceiling echoes with the sound and below, flashbulbs flare upwards. A pigeon that had been roosting on one of the horizontal pipes took flight for quieter territory.

"Notre Dame's organ is particular because it is one of the only organs that has retained the traces of centuries. As the cathedral itself. So at the same time you have tones from before the Revolution, some from the 19th century similar to a symphonic orchestra, and also all the recent inputs of the 20th century. You have three or four authentic centuries of music," he said. "It resonates in the stones of the cathedral."

The big organ is played on weekends and for major ceremonies and holidays, the playing shared by three organists who have held the job since 1985.

Because organs employ the sounds of a multitude of instruments, it is usually up to the organist himself to decide the combination of stops he wants for any given piece. That decision can change according to the organ, the space and improvisational whim.

"Since sheet music didn't exist in the early years of the organ, organists improvised. This tradition continued in Europe, and especially in France," he said.

Each key, Lefebvre said, is like a letter on a computer keyboard. The stops and pedals, he said, elaborating on the metaphor, are like a font. And he can bring back 5,000 different combinations of stops with the new electronic memory. Things have changed since the keyboard that connected to the pipes by long mechanical arms. But even the most advanced organ, he said, is not built by programmers and engineers alone. "You also must be a musician."

And organists themselves are untethered to any one instrument. Lefebvre said he has played thousands of organs around the world, gleaning something from each one.

Still, Notre Dame remains his ideal as it was when he was young.

"Here in Notre Dame when you play a tone, it resonates for eight to nine seconds. It is exceptional – the sound spreads across the whole structure and you feel it when you play," he said. "The sound just comes back to you."

Eric
KB7DQH

Quote
The pipe organ at St. John's church.

To celebrate the upgrade of its century-old pipe organ, St. John's Church, Secunderabad, will organise a concert on Sunday at 6.30 p.m. The organ, built in 1908, was upgraded by organist from UK, Timothy J.Vellacott. He installed a new rank of pipes on the occasion of the bicentenary celebrations of the church.

Another pipe organ in India plays on...

Eric
KB7DQH

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20130518/NJNEWS/305180012/Kirkpatrick-Chapel-s-historic-pipe-organ-goes-silent-as-electronic-replacement-signals-changing-times?nclick_check=1

Quote
NEW BRUNSWICK — Visitors to Rutgers University's Kirkpatrick Chapel this year still will hear breathtaking musical tones echo off the building's soaring ceilings during weddings, baptisms and memorial services.

But no doubt unbeknownst to some, those tones won't be coming from the hundreds of pipes that together make up the chapel's historic Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ — described as one of the finest classical examples of the instrument anywhere in the state.

In about as obvious a signal of changing times as they come, a state-of-the-art electronic organ hooked up to an array of discreetly placed speakers was installed less than two weeks ago — a replacement, officials say, that only will remain in place until enough funding can be freed up either to renovate the existing pipe organ or replace it entirely.

"It couldn't be used anymore," Rutgers' Mason Gross School of the Arts Dean George B. Stauffer said of the original instrument, parts of which date back to 1917. "But this (the electronic organ) is an interim instrument. This is not a replacement by any means."

Issues with the original have persisted for years, according to Rutgers organist Antonius Bittmann, who has played and taught the organ at the university since 1999, having also at various times served as chairman of the Music Department. Factors as simple as temperature and humidity variations have been enough to cause problems, but the matter came to a head during a winter concert held several months ago.

In the middle of a performance, one of the pipes got stuck, leaving it continuously producing the same loud tone. And it wasn't the first time that happened.

"When pipes sound (and get stuck), you can't turn them off without climbing up into the chamber and physically removing the pipe," Stauffer explained. "Obviously you don't want that situation to go on."

There is no concrete timeline regarding when a renovation or replacement of the existing pipe organ might occur; much of that depends on how the university's continuing campaign to raise capital funds unfolds. A renovation would cost at least $1 million and possibly considerably more, according to Stauffer, who said a replacement instrument could run about $2 million.

But the existing instrument is so integrated into the structure of the historic chapel, which dates back to 1873, that any such work would have to be part of a broader set of necessary renovations that should cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million to $5 million, the Clinton Township resident added.

"We wouldn't do either one (a renovation or replacement) without renovating the interior of the chapel as well. It just wouldn't make sense," he said. "And we really wouldn't want to (make a decision) before we have a consultant come in and really look over the instrument and appraise how much it would cost to renovate it versus replace it."

Either way, though, Stauffer conceded, "it's a lot of money."

"This is one situation where we need to bide our time a little bit," he said.
Impressive sound

In the meantime, as Bittmann pointed out during a demonstration last week, the stopgap replacement is an impressive piece of technology that generates a similarly impressive sound.

For one thing, music from an existing pipe organ anywhere in the world can be recorded, sampled and digitally emailed to Rutgers, where the recording can be downloaded onto a flash drive that can be plugged directly into the electronic organ's console via a USB port — allowing it to replicate any existing pipe organ's unique sound. The electronic instrument also has nearly 50 unique tones of its own, and should Bittmann find some combination that sounds particularly pleasing to the ear, he can "save" it and come back to it later. And if one of Rutgers' two students studying the organ nail a recital or performance piece — one is a doctoral student, the other an undergraduate — he or she can play the entire rendition back from square one at any time.

"When you turn on this organ, you're actually booting up a computer," Bittmann said, shortly before playing a short classical piece by Bach. "We're still working out all the technical details ... but I'm really amazed by how far the technology has come."

Bittmann, 50, is a native of Germany who started playing the organ at the age of 10. He grew up playing the pipe organ and was classically trained on it, earning five degrees in Germany and the U.S. He has been playing Kirkpatrick's instrument for more than a decade, but after just a few days using the electronic version, which only took a day and a half to install — it previously was a demonstration piece at Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pa. — he already sees the appeal (Stauffer declined to comment about the cost, but he labeled it a "very fair price," calling that a product of an "institutional discount").


"There are a lot more possibilities with it," Bittmann said. "It can do pretty much everything this instrument (the pipe organ) did, and much more."

Still, he admitted, it's a little different, even if the consoles of the two organs are close to identical.

"What I like best about this (new) instrument is that it works," Bittmann said. "I would come to the chapel on a Saturday afternoon for a wedding praying it (the pipe organ) would be OK. I no longer have that anxiety walking in here."

And as for the sound?

"I expect not to be asked," he said regarding whether he anticipates having listeners mention anything about the new instrument (Kirkpatrick Chapel, which is available for private rental, hosts an average of about 90 weddings annually, plus memorial services, lectures, choir concerts, lectures, and more).
Other views

Yet not everyone is thrilled with the new instrument.

"Yes it is," David Drinkwater said when asked whether an inquiry into which he would prefer — the electronic organ or the pipe organ — might constitute a dumb question. "I can't describe it to you. But there's just an electronic sound to it I don't care for."

It's doubtful that anyone ever got to know Kirkpatrick's pipe organ better than Drinkwater, 84, of New Brunswick. He was the Rutgers organist succeeded by Bittmann, having played and taught for the university for more than four decades when he retired in the late 1990s.

"It's my baby," Drinkwater said of the Opus 255-C, the name given to the pipe organ following a series of thorough renovations to it he personally oversaw in 1961. "I loved it very much."

Drinkwater said he recently received a phone call from Stauffer informing him of the change, and he stopped by the chapel last Wednesday to speak briefly with Bittmann.

The conversations left him with an explanation, but not much solace.

"I am disappointed," Drinkwater admitted. "That sound cannot really be duplicated. And they've tried everything."

The former organist said he doesn't play anymore; weakness in his legs has made it impossible to work the organ pedals to his satisfaction. But he still loves music.



"I think both should be looked into," Drinkwater said when asked whether he hopes to see Kirkpatrick's pipe organ renovated or replaced in the future.

Drinkwater isn't the only person with something of a sentimental attachment to the pipe organ, either. Don Lewis of Highland Park, a longtime member of the Rutgers choir back when Drinkwater also served as its director, fondly recalled a tradition in which Kirkpatrick Chapel would host screenings of the 1925 version of "The Phantom of the Opera" around Halloween each year.

Drinkwater would play the classical score of the famed play as the silent film played on a large screen, at first via a projector reel and later with a digital projector.

"It got pretty wild sometimes," Lewis recalled. "It almost got to be like the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show,' where they (the audience) would shout out the lines and throw stuff."

Lewis, a librarian at Newark Public Library, said some world-class organists have performed recitals on Kirkpatrick's pipe organ, but it also got a workout during frequent performances by students over the years. Drinkwater himself performed more than 200 recitals on the instrument, Lewis added.

"An awful lot of people say they've been to weddings there (at Kirkpatrick) and heard the organ," he said. "I know David is always running into people saying they remember it."

Lewis added that he too is saddened by the notion that the old pipe organ is no longer being played, even if it is just a temporary situation.

"I think very few people know," he said.

Nor do many likely know the full story behind the history of the instrument itself. The installation of the original, a three-manual, 32-rank organ, received the personal attention of Ernest M. Skinner himself, who at the time was the foremost figure in American organ building, according to the university's website. There's no denying that it's still a selling point for rentals of the chapel; New Jersey Bride indicates in its promotional materials for the venue that the instrument's "brilliant sound is guaranteed to make your wedding ceremony unforgettable."

Yet Stauffer, an accomplished organist in his own right, said he is sensitive to the concerns of Drinkwater and others. The dean of Mason Gross served as the university organist for Columbia University in New York City for 22 years, having currently been playing for more than five decades.

"No. Absolutely not," Stauffer said when asked if there is any chance the electronic organ eventually could come to be considered a permanent replacement. "But I'd like to think I've got pretty good taste in organs ... and this is the perfect interim solution."

One hopes this doesn't go the way of Trinity Wall Street....

Eric
KB7DQH

http://rbth.ru/arts/2013/05/19/bolshoi_theater_unveils_new_organ_26107.html

Quote The Bolshoi Theater has replaced its electronic organ (in use since the 1970s) with a new and compact pipe organ. The instrument is essential in a number of operatic scores and in many symphonic works.

Organs aren't only the preserve of concert halls – opera houses need them too. An organ is often scored for in religious scenes in operas, such as Gounod's Faust, Verdi's The Force of Destiny and Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans.

In addition to all this, symphonic works are often performed in opera theaters, and the organ is needed for these too. Some examples are Scriabin's Prometheus and Richard Strauss' An Alpine Symphony.

In Tsarist times, there was an organ in all the Imperial theaters. The one in the Bolshoi remained in use until after the Second World War, but fell into disrepair, and was replaced by a grim electronic organ.

Today, however, comes the rebirth. The new organ by the German builders, Glatter-Götz, is being unveiled on the Bolshoi's historic main stage.

Glatter-Götz also built the organ for the Svetlanov Hall of the Moscow International House of Music – a considerably larger instrument.

By comparison, the new organ at the Bolshoi is an elegant chamber organ, which cannot fill the theater's dry acoustics. Even so, it possesses some charming, delicate timbres.


These were featured in whimsical fashion during a performance by the German organist Martin Zander, who played an organ transcription of  the overture to Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, where the organ not only imitates the orchestral woodwind, but also the strings.

The organ cannot be seen on stage; just like the Flying Dutchman (a legendary ghost ship), it is tucked into the left-hand wings of the stage, with a remote keyboard installation on stage for the player.

It turns out that an onstage organist was needed in a theatrical video performance staged by director Vladislav Kolpakov.

The organ was also seen in a more popular performance by Yekaterina Melnikova, who played Saint-Saens' The Swan, with the melody transferred to the organ pedals.

But there were earnest musical performances too: Kazan Conservatoire Rector, Rubin Abdullin, played a time-honored rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in addition to performing his own transcription of four of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.


Yevgenia Krivitskaya played Boëlmann's Gothic Suite, while St. Petersburg organist, Daniel Zaretsky, enchanted the audience with his performance of music by Vierne.

The Bolshoi Theater's "small" organ has 1,819 metal pipes and 100 wooden pipes. There are 31 stops, with two manuals and a full pedal-board.

The instrument weighs eight tons. It stands out of sight in the left wing and cannot be seen on stage. The installation and setup took two years, allowing for voicing to suit the specific acoustics of the Bolshoi Theater's historic stage.

Eric
KB7DQH

Pay particular attention to the last paragraph ;)

QuoteHYDERABAD: Adding melody to choir recitals during the Sunday mass or providing ethereal symphonies for weddings, pipe organs have been an integral part of church gatherings and one of the most prominent cultural legacies of the British Raj. Though only a handful of churches in the state house these instruments, the Church of St John the Baptist at East Marredpally not only owns the only functional organ in the twin cities but can now proudly claim to have a grander version of it. A musical concert will be held at the church on Sunday to showcase the upgraded version of the 105-year-old pipe organ.

"The pipe organ at our church originally had ten stops. Post upgradation, 56 pipes have been added, constituting a two-feet stop and the new rank of pipes is called 'fifteenth' in organ parlance. The addition has enhanced the tonal qualities of the instrument," said Commodore TMJ Champion, who was actively involved in the improvisation.

Incidentally, the organ lay defunct at the church for 20 to 25 years until Commodore Champion initiated the restoration process in 2003. Since then, the instrument has been regularly used at various church occasions. The addition of the new pipes was done by Tim Vellacott from UK, who will also be performing at Sunday's recital along with Commodore Champion.

The 105-year-old instrument has an interesting history. A Muslim artisan from Misquith & Co., Madras, had put together the organ in 1908 using various parts imported from UK. Despite the long phase of disuse, the organ remains as sturdy and magnificent as ever. "This pipe organ must be treasured and treated as a divine and historic object. It has managed to retain its strength and beauty and has stood the test of time," Champion said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/105-year-old-pipe-organ-gets-new-look/articleshow/20008826.cms

http://www.southernminn.com/owatonna_peoples_press/arts_and_entertainment/article_a1bec4f8-1a6c-5f5e-bfdf-ce29bb6b669e.html

Quote

Posted on May 1, 2013

    Stacie Rions

    by Stacie Rions

Musicians throughout the world will observe World Pipe Organ Day on Sunday, May 5, 2013. There will be concerts in most major cities as well as smaller communities throughout the world. St. John Lutheran, 1301 Lincoln Ave. SE, will be the site of the local concert. At 3 p.m. the first of three organists will perform: Brian Williams, followed by Dr. James Hammann and then Matt Lehman. The concert is free. It will be followed by a reception in the St. John Lutheran Social Hall.

Within the City of Owatonna there are no less than ten unique pipe organs. The oldest one is in the First Baptist Church. It is a Steere and Sons Pipe Organ and it was installed and dedicated in 1893. It is on the National Historic Register of Tracker Pipe Organs. The smallest pipe organ in the city is in Our Savior's Lutheran Church. It is a Jon von Daalen (Minneapolis, Minn.) instrument and it was dedicated in 1979. The largest of the local pipe organs is the Hendrickson Pipe Organ at St. John Lutheran and it was designed and built specifically for the church by Charles Hendrickson of St. Peter, Minn. It was dedicated in 1976.

Most musicians think of a pipe organ as The King of Instruments. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Parish had a pipe organ in use in the 1300s. There is evidence that the ancient Greeks, 3rd century BC, were familiar with rudimentary forms of the pipe organ. Around the 7th century bellows were used to supply the wind pressure to sound the pipes. By the 17th century most of the sounds used on the modern classical pipe organ had been developed.

When musicians talk of pipe organs they talk of manuals (number of keyboards on the console), pipes (the van Daalen in Our Savior's has 242 pipes – the Hendrickson in St. John has 2,682 pipes...some pipes are as small as a tiny ballpoint pen – others like one at St. John Lutheran is 22 feet long – pipes can be made of metal or wood), ranks (usually sets of 54 or 66 pipes – First Baptist has 14 ranks – the Trinity Holtkamp has 46 ranks - the one at St. John has 51 ranks) and stops (a group of pipes permitted to play when a stop is activated – the Redeemer Reuter has 13 stops – the Trinity Holtkamp has 42).

These are the Owatonna pipe organs with name of church – builder of the organ – dedication year:

Associated Church – Reuter (1986)

Emmanuel Lutheran Church - unknown

First Baptist Church – Steere (1893)

Our Savior's Lutheran Church – van Daalen (1979)

Redeemer Lutheran Church – Reuter (1971)

Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church – Bennet (1921)

St. John Lutheran Church – Hendrickson (1976)

St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church – Kilgen (1929)

St. Paul Episcopal Church – van Daalen (unknown)

Trinity Lutheran Church – Holtkamp (1990)

Unfortunately, four unique pipe organs in the Owatonna area have been destroyed by fire: St. Joseph Roman Catholic lost two, St. Paul's Lutheran in Meriden lost one and St. John Lutheran in rural Claremont lost one.

Article submitted by the Rev. Rudolf, a retired Lutheran pastor.

Sidebar:

QuoteHistory - World Day of Organ Recitals

    World Day of Organ was created to celebrate the 850 years of the organ at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. Since the beginning of the organ in the 13th century, there have been more than 50 organists playing beautiful music that reverberates throughout the cathedral.

    Famous organists at Notre Dame include Couperin, Daquin, Charpentier, Vierne, Dupré, Duruflé, Cochereau, and so many others. Organ recitals held each Sunday at the Cathedral has given over

    2000 organists from every continent an opportunity to interpret organ classics.

    Today in a 24 hour time period, throughout the world there will be over 850 live organ concerts.

Eric
KB7DQH

http://www.indianaeconomicdigest.net/main.asp?SectionID=31&SubSectionID=135&ArticleID=69607http://www.courierpress.com/news/2013/apr/24/cp/

QuoteJessie Higgins, Evansville Courier & Press County Government Reporter

EVANSVILLE— In a time long gone, crowds gathered in Evansville's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Coliseum to hear the city's great organ play.

Soldiers home from the Great War took their sweethearts to shows. Choirs sang in harmony with the organ's 4,000 pipes. Orchestras drew pitch and rhythm from their melody. Performers acted within their chorus.

But all that was a long time ago. It's been five decades since the Tinker Memorial Organ roared to life. The old instrument no longer makes music. Decades of neglect have taken their toll.

"Gradually, the organ was used less and less and less, and nobody was taking responsibility for it," said University of Evansville organist Dr. Douglas Reed. "The organ needed repair, and nobody was taking responsibility for it. A big organ like that takes a lot of attention."

Today, most have forgotten — or never knew of — the organ. It's a remnant of a time, a town and a community long gone.

"An organ symbolizes community," said the Rev. Tammy Gieselman, University of Evansville chaplain, gazing at the once-thunderous pipes lining the walls of a backroom in the Coliseum.

"It can move a people, really," she said, without taking her eyes off the instrument. "When I look at this pipe organ in disrepair, I see someone lying in hospice."

Reed estimated it would cost Vanderburgh County, which owns the organ, up to $1.5 million to restore it inside the Coliseum. That's money the county doesn't have. So Reed and Gieselman have proposed another solution.

They have asked Vanderburgh County to give the organ to the university. With a little luck, a lot of work, and a great deal of community support, the two plan to restore the old instrument and have it rebuilt in the campus' Neu Chapel.

There, it will bring to life a part of Evansville's history, and continue the nearly 100-year-old memorial to Milton Z. Tinker.

A memorial

Milton Z. Tinker became the music supervisor for Evansville's public schools in 1868. He remained in the position until his death in 1914, and many at the time credited him with instilling in Evansville's community a sense of musical awareness and pride.

His impact on the community was so great that long before the city even had a place to house an organ, the community planned to buy one in his honor.

That opportunity came with the construction of the Coliseum. It was built in 1917 as a memorial to local soldiers who died in The Great War. Evansville dedicated the new building Easter Sunday that year. The next day, the community launched a weeklong fundraiser to buy a municipal pipe organ. They called it a Fanfaronade.

On April 9, 1917, The Evansville Courier wrote: The Fanfaronade "will afford those who attend, which is expected will include every person in the city and neighboring points, varied programs of high class entertainment every afternoon and evening of the ensuing week. At the same time it will enable them to contribute their mite toward the fund with which the Coliseum authorities intend to install in the main hall a pipe organ, equal to any in the country, this is to be a memorial to the late Prof. Z. M. Tinker, for years supervisor of music in the local public schools."

The Fanfaronade ended a success. And the Milton Z. Tinker Memorial Pipe Organ turned out to be more than equal to the average municipal pipe organ, Reed said. In fact, there are few like it in the world.

The Tinker Organ was built in Columbus, Ohio, to make music for the Methodist Church's 100th anniversary celebration. After the celebration ended, Evansville bought that organ, had it retrofitted and installed in the Coliseum in 1919.

50 years of music

"Remember, in 1919 you didn't have loud speakers," Reed said. "One of the only ways to get music into a loud space was to build a large pipe organ."

The organ comprises around 4,000 pipes housed in four different rooms around the edges of the Coliseum. The largest is 32 feet long, taller than the building. It is essentially a long wooden box that folds back and forth across itself. The smallest is little more than a whistle.

Each pipe can only make one sound. Some are booming, almost overpowering, others can barely be heard. It's only when played together they create symphony, Gieselman said.

"It's just like the complexities of a real orchestra," Gieselman said. "There are so many sounds, voices, coming out of the organ. It is just a grand instrument."

She gazed at a pipe-filled backroom in the Coliseum. Many of the pipes are still positioned as they were nearly a century ago. Others lay discarded on the floor.

It was uncommon such a grand — expensive — instrument be built in honor of a common man, Gieselman said. Most organs, if they were named for someone, were named for a rich person who donated the money to have it built.

"This was built and named for an ideal," Gieselman said. "So much money is being cut from the arts. This lifts up the arts."

Gieselman and Reed hope that the Evansville community will unite once again over the Tinker Memorial Organ, this time to save it.

The University's Neu Chapel has raised enough money to remove the organ — pipe by pipe — from the Coliseum to a safer storage facility. Then Reed and Gieselman will begin raising money for its restoration.

Eventually, they hope to install the grand instrument in a remodeled Neu Chapel, which Gieselman said will be rebuilt and expanded to welcome people of all faiths.

That project may be years from completion, but the two can already hear the music.

2013 The E.W. Scripps Co.

Eric
KB7DQH

Quote
Be advised this notice is for market research purposes only and does not constitute a Request for Quote or Request for Proposal.  The Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this sources sought.  All costs associated with this sources sought will be solely at the expense of the respondents.  Additionally, all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.  No basis for claim against the Government shall arise as a result from a response to this sources sought.

Seehttps://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=eba074126b7db3226f480b9020f88b5a&tab=core&_cview=0 for details...

Eric
KB7DQH

...................stained, blown glass pipework?  A recent post here got me to thinking, as I have had this concept rattling around in the back of my alleged mind for quite some time now... and I thought to finally present the "collaborative concept" which in many respects combines two of the art-forms commonly found within the "worship space" which normally would in some (many?) instances ordinarily present a practical and aesthetic conflict... for which after resolving some "technical difficulty" might instead present an intriguing opportunity? 

And it so happens that one of the premier, globally-recognized blown-glass artists (Dale Chihuly)  as well as two of this country's most respected organ builders (Paul Fritts and Martin Pasi)  happen to have their fabrication facilities located within the same county?

??? ??? ??? ???

Eric...
KB7DQH

Here is a case where "public outcry" has prevented the dumping of a significant pipe instrument into a skip :o 8) ;)

http://onwardstate.com/2013/03/11/farewell-to-the-schwab-pipe-organ-part-2/

Quote

Farewell to the Schwab Pipe Organ, Part 2


About a month ago, we bid adieu to the Schwab Pipe Organ, the class gift of 1936 and certainly, in some small respect, a part of President Atherton's vision. The organ watched over decades worth of Penn State commencements and cultural events in the Schwab Auditorium and was the perfect tribute to the charitable Charles Schwab. Unfortunately, the organ became unplayable in 1977 and has been in storage ever since. Geoff Hallett, the Penn State assistant director of annual giving, announced that the organ would be destroyed due to the expensive nature of the repairs.

"The pipe organ is no longer in working order and repairs, salvage, and/or storage in an off-site location is cost-prohibitive," Hallett said at the time. "The Office of Annual Giving is currently investigating ways to appropriately recognize this portion of the 1936 Class Gift."

As it turns out, plans have changed.

Late last week, the Schwab Pipe Organ was listed on Penn State's eBay page, which is most frequently used to sell surplus items from the various academic departments. With a starting bid of $1,000, the historic organ, which includes over 2,000 pipes, will be salvaged.

"The organ has been a topic of discussion for decades since it has not worked since 1977," Hallett said. "The first discussions were to refurbish the organ, but in the 1970s the estimates were over $100,000. This cost was not funded at the time. Right now the organ program in the School of Music has three working, regularly maintained organs, which is more than what is needed based on student enrollment and programmatic demand."

The decision to move forward with a private sale instead of destruction, as was the original plan, is the result of "multiple interested parties in purchasing the organ," according to Hallett.

You can see by the comments on our original article that there was significant interest in saving the organ. Even though the artifact will no longer be in possession of Penn State, its history — and indeed, the Schwab Auditorium has seen its fair share of historical moments —  will live on

I will add, if the prospective buyer restores and installs the instrument.......

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M-P-M-ller-Pipe-Organ-Moderate-Sized-English-Romantic-Style-PSU-/370774045897?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5653daf4c9

Eric
KB7DQH

This is likely the best article of its type to show up in the mainstream press, published on the WWW, and found by the Google webcrawler...

http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2013/03/oberlin_college_researcher_hel.html

QuoteThe pipe organ is the most humanlike of musical instruments.

With a great whoosh of breath from the leathery lungs of its bellows (or, as technology has improved, from steam engines, and finally electric blowers), the organ fills its towering pipes with air. The sounds spilling from that choir of metallic throats can be anything from the pew-rattling thunderclap of a bass chord to a nightingale's high, delicate trill.

Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that these prodigious artists can develop life-threatening cases of throat cancer.

The pipes in some of the world's most historic organs are rotting. Aggressive corrosion is gnawing away at the centuries-old lead and tin larynxes that give the instruments their distinctive voices, causing the pipes to flake, fracture and eventually collapse. More-modern organs aren't immune, either.

Oberlin College chemistry professor and avid organist Catherine Oertel is part of an international research effort to confront the corrosion threat. Using sophisticated diagnostic tools, including X-rays and ion beams that probe the atomic structure of the decay, the small band of scientists has fingered an unexpected culprit for the damage. As in an autoimmune disease, the organs are attacking themselves.

"It's a very complex environment because of all the metal and wood," Oertel said, "and the interaction between the two is the problem."

The research, which is ongoing, is suggesting solutions that may spare further harm to these irreplaceable artifacts.

Funny-sounding pipes raise the alarm

In the early 1990s, the organist at 'St. Jakobi Church in Lubeck, Germany, began noticing problems with the parish's renowned organ.

"Some of the pipes started to sound funny," said Carl Johan Bergsten, a research engineer at Sweden's University of Gothenburg Organ Art Center who's also a church organist. "He could hear something going on because the pipes were out of tune."
Graphic.jpg View full size 

The oldest pipes in the organ were incorporated from an earlier, Gothic instrument constructed in 1467. The remainder were installed when master German organ-builder Friedrich Stellwagen enlarged the church's organ in 1636.

Inspection of the out-of-tune pipes revealed extensive, powdery white corrosion inside their lowest part, called the foot. The pipe feet rest in channels atop the organ's airtight wooden "wind chest." The pipes protrude from the chest like straws poking through a soft-drink top.

Normally, when the organist presses a key, air flows from the wind chest into a pipe, where it creates a musical tone either by passing over a whistlelike slot or vibrating a metal reed. But corrosion had riddled the Stellwagen organ's pipes with cracks and holes. Air leaks and the resultant pressure drop inside the pipes caused them to fall out of tune.

Europe's churches and concert halls are home to most of the world's oldest surviving pipe organs -- as many as 20,000, according to estimates. They date as far back as the Renaissance and Baroque periods, when organs consisting of hundreds or thousands of soaring pipes, encased in elaborately carved and gilded wooden cabinets, were constructed as awe-inspiring centerpieces of the continent's cathedrals. For their time, they were among the most complex machines to be built.

European composers such as Bach, Handel and Mozart wrote some of their most memorable pieces for pipe organ. The instruments remaining from that time are a cherished part of European cultural heritage. America's considerably younger historic organs replicate European design and craftsmanship.

(Ancient Greece claims the honor of inventing the instrument in the second century B.C. -- a water-driven device called the hydraulis that provided entertainment in palaces, coliseums and public festivals.)

Research project looks to determine cause

After the discovery of the Stellwagen corrosion, checks of other historic European organs showed similar damage. In some cases, the only option was to replace the pipes with modern ones, which altered the organ's sound, diminished its pedigree and reduced its links with the past. "All these incremental changes take away from what was heard and composed for by historic composers," Oertel said.
stellwagen.jpg View full size The historic Stellwagen organ in Lubeck, Germany's, St. Jakobi Church helped alert researchers to the problem of pipe corrosion. Courtesy of Catherine Oertel 

Facing an apparent corrosion epidemic, the governing European Commission in 2003 authorized a research project called COLLAPSE -- for Corrosion Of Lead and Lead-tin Alloys of organ PipeS in Europe -- to figure out what was going on. Bergsten, who'd spent much of his career at the Swedish automaker Volvo, coordinated the effort, which involved scientists from three Swedish and Italian universities, a Danish organ manufacturer and the St. Jakobi parish.

Oberlin's Oertel wasn't a formal COLLAPSE partner but collaborated with some of its Swedish researchers, as well as conducting her own studies funded by the National Science Foundation while a postdoctoral student at Cornell University and later as an Oberlin faculty member.

Oertel had played piano as a child and took up the organ while majoring in chemistry at Oberlin. The highly regarded liberal-arts college is well-stocked with pipe organs, including three large ones used for performances and about a dozen more for practice sessions. (They're all corrosion-free.)

Oberlin's science faculty often does music-related research. Studying organ pipe corrosion was "a really exciting way to merge these two interests of mine," Oertel said.

Need for frequent repairs dates to the 16th century

Finding the corrosion's cause was the scientists' first priority; that would dictate the strategies to preserve the decaying organ pipes. The COLLAPSE researchers launched comparison studies of affected and corrosion-free organs in Italy, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. They collected and analyzed bits of corroded pipe, sampled the air in and around the instruments, and tracked temperature and humidity readings for a year.

At first, the researchers suspected some relatively recent, modern phenomenon -- maybe industrial or agricultural air pollutants, or upgraded church ventilation systems -- was to blame for the corrosion. After all, the pipes had seemed fine for hundreds of years, only to be felled lately.
stellwagen interior.jpg View full size An interior view of the Stellwagen organ shows the variety of the instrument's pipes. The base of each pipe rests atop a wood wind chest, potentially allowing acidic funes from the wood to enter the pipes and cause corrosion. Courtesy of Catherine Oertel 

But a check of old literature found accounts of frequent organ pipe repairs, especially in Germany, as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries, Bergsten said. (Apparently, there was less concern at the time about altering what were not yet historic instruments.) German texts called the damage "bleifras," which translated as "lead-eaten."

The corrosion's location turned out to be an important clue. It began at the bottom of the vertical pipes. And, significantly, it started on the inside, not the exterior. If the corrosion's origin was external, as an enveloping cloud of pollution would be, the decay should first appear on the pipes' skin, progress inward and extend all along the pipes' length.

"We quite soon realized the source of this problem is coming from inside the organ," Bergsten said.
SEM corrosion.JPG View full size Under extreme magnification using a scanning electron microscope, the components of corrosion forming on a sample of lead-tin alloy look like a forest of treetops. Courtesy of Catherine Oertel 

What's inside an organ? Wood, mainly. And wood, especially oak and walnut, is known to be corrosive to lead. The gradual breakdown of wood's cell walls releases tiny wisps of acetic acid. Curators at the British Museum had seen historic lead coins and seals begin to crumble while stored in wooden cases.

Constructed of oak and airtight by necessity, pipe organs' wind chests are an ideal place for acetic acid to build up. The pipes' feet are constantly in contact with the acid vapors. Firing up the organ's blower and pressing its keys to play inadvertently injects acid fumes higher into the pipes. Eventually, the metal rots.

Some pipes have managed to withstand centuries of exposure unharmed, for reasons that aren't clear. Over time, as the organ wood ages, its acid output should diminish. But when organ builders refurbish an instrument with a new wind chest, the fresh wood revives the emission process.

Worse, the white glue that's been used since the 1960s to strengthen joints and seal wind boxes also emits acetic acid. That combination of new wood and glue may help explain the recent wave of pipe failures in ancient organs, as well as corrosion in modern ones. "We have a quite strong correlation between these problems and restoration and repairs 10, 20, 30 years ago, where new wood was introduced into the organ," Bergsten said.

Lead-tin samples prompt discovery

Renaissance-era organ builders didn't have many options when it came to pipe material. Gold and silver were too expensive. Iron was too hard to allow the hand-rolling and incremental re-adjustments that produce the proper pitch and timbre. Copper and brass produced too resonant a sound.

Lead, and alloys of lead and tin, struck the right combination of malleability and tone.

The COLLAPSE project focused on pure lead organ pipes, which clearly were highly vulnerable to corrosion. But some researchers believed that lead pipes containing tin additives gained some protection. Oertel set out to test the tin concept, working with fellow scientists at Cornell and Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology.
chamber1.jpg View full size Inside a sealed laboratory chamber, researchers expose samples of the metal used in organ pipes to acid vapor under varying environmental conditions. Courtesy of Catherine Oertel 

In glass canisters, the researchers placed stamp-size samples of lead alloyed with as much as 15 percent tin. They pumped in acetic acid fumes and let the samples sit as long as a month. The humidity in some of the canisters was set at a comfortable 60 percent, comparable to a modern, climate-controlled church. Other canisters were a tropical 95 percent.

At low humidity, the lead-tin samples showed dramatically less corrosion than pure lead ones, confirming that tin had some protective influence. But the lead-tin squares exposed to high humidity were covered with cauliflowerlike crusts of corrosion.

Oertel and her colleagues used a tightly focused ion beam to cross-section the corrosion layer without destroying it, as a normal cutting tool would. A powerful scanning electron microscope and X-ray analysis identified the corrosion's components. The presence of tin particles in the debris showed that its protective ability was swamped in high-moisture conditions.
Copy of DSCN0140.JPG View full size Catherine Oertel, center, and Oberlin College organ perfornance majors Nick Capozzoli and Katelyn Emerson stand in front of the pipe organ at Peace Community Church. Oberlin students practice on the organ, which was built in 1984 in the style of 18th Century the German organ builder Gottfried Silbermann. John Mangels, The Plain Dealer 

That's important to know, since organ caretakers sometimes use humidifiers to keep the instrument's wood from drying and cracking, Oertel said. Without careful monitoring, the heightened humidity could spur aggressive corrosion, even in pipes that were thought to be immune.

Other protective strategies include avoiding the use of oak and white glue when doing refurbishment and installing ventilation fans -- as has been done with the Stellwagen organ in Lubeck -- that can prevent the buildup of acid fumes in organs' wind chests.

Some of the Swedish and Italian researchers are experimenting with coatings made of tiny nano-particles that can be applied to the wood in an organ to neutralize acid before it can reach the pipes. Bergsten and his colleagues are developing sensors that can be installed in organ pipes to detect acid emissions and other harmful conditions.

Oertel is continuing her corrosion research, looking at other combinations of metals that are at risk. "There are pipes that have 90 to almost 100 percent tin, and some of those are suffering from corrosion," she said. The pipes in a historic French organ in Bordeaux, for example, are "virtually pure tin, and you can see they're suffering from some holes. So there's a lot more of the composition [questions] for us to explore."

Last summer, the Ohio scientist was in Germany and had a chance to play the ancient Stellwagen organ. "That was a really special experience," she said. "It's an instrument that's been part of the life of the church for so long, and it's been played by people who are contemporaries of [German composer Dieterich] Buxtehude and Bach.

"In Germany in the 1600s and 1700s, there would have been hundreds of organs like this," in almost every church and village, Oertel said. Now, "these organs are the endangered species of the musical world." Helping save them "is a deeply satisfying project."

8)
Eric
KB7DQH

Stolen from a redundant, closed church...

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/03/01/pipe-organ-stolen-from-recently-closed-mt-washington-church/

Quote   

Ralph Iannotti   

Reporting Ralph Iannotti
Filed under
Local, News, Syndicated Local   
Related tags
Boggs Avenue, Fr. Manuel Osiqwe, Mount Washington, Mt. Washington, Musical Instrument, Pipe Organ, Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese, Ralph Iannotti, St. Justin Roman Catholic Church, Stolen   

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Less than a month ago, St. Justin Roman Catholic Church on Boggs Avenue on Mount Washington, celebrated its final mass before merging with St. Mary of the Mount.

Now, Pittsburgh Police and the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese confirm that the church's pipe organ has been stolen from the second-floor balcony.

Denise Chappel, who was baptized at St. Justin, and made her first communion there, said: "I can't believe someone would do that to the church. [Whoever stole it] would have had to come down the stairs with it, I don't think it could have come down in one piece."

Dolly D'Alessio, 90, was one of the hundreds of worshipers who attended the final Mass at the church on Feb. 10.

"I can't believe it, how could they do something like this?" said D'Alessio. "It's impossible."

A priest who celebrated Mass at St. Justine regularly, Fr. Manuel Osiqwe, said he was shocked that such a large musical instrument could be stolen.

But he quickly added he was confident that police would work hard to recover it because he said "that organ was used for the glory of God."

and recovered by police... from... the former organist of the closed church :o :o :o

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/art-architecture/missing-pipe-organ-recovered-from-former-st-justin-musician-677859/

QuoteMissing pipe organ recovered from former St. Justin musician
March 4, 2013 2:44 pm

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh police have recovered a pipe organ worth an estimated $200,000 that was taken from St. Justin Catholic Church.

Police said they received a call Sunday and learned that the church's former organist removed it Feb. 22 for safekeeping. The church in Mount Washington closed two weeks ago after it merged with St. Mary of the Mount Parish.

Detectives said the organist, whose name was not released, had a key to the church and was worried that the organ would be damaged in the cold of winter and the heat of summer if left unattended.

Extreme temperatures cause the leather on the organ bellows to become brittle and crack.

The organist, who will not be charged, according to police, told investigators that he talked with a church officials about his desire to maintain the organ.

But police said the man had not received permission to remove it.

Police said in a news release that the man told detectives he was "thinking with his heart and not with his head" when he removed the organ.

In its own written statement, church representatives said not pursuing charges was the right thing to do.

"In this Lenten season of repentance and transforming mercy, one Pittsburgh church now has an opportunity to show the healing power of God's love and forgiveness in action," according to the statement.

The church's pastor, Father Michael Stumpf, said the organist promised to return the organ in the same condition it had been when installed.

"In our estimation, this was an imprudent and terrible mistake but not fully criminal," the pastor said in the statement. "There was no intention to sell, and there seemed to have been no malicious intent meant toward the parish community."

;)Eric
KB7DQH