Rochester hosting a pipe organ 'parade'

[KB7DQH]

Rochester has hosted almost every kind of parade imaginable, but on Monday there was what organizer Carlos Mercado calls a "most unusual parade downtown" — a pipe organ parade.

It might also be the shortest parade in history — from a truck at the corner of Broadway and East Avenue into the nearby Christ Church at the corner.

"We have a practical need. We've got to get 1,200 organ pipes into the church," said Mercado, a longtime member of the church and its unofficial historian.

The "parade" started at 8:30 a.m. and will last as long as it takes the expected 15 to 20 church members and friends, as well as any volunteers who show up, to carry the 1,200 organ pipes from the truck into the church.

What's arriving are the final parts an 1893 Hook & Hastings Romantic Organ, trucked in from Portland, Maine. The organ — made by one of the premier organ makers of the day — was purchased by the Eastman School of Music, after learning that the organ was available because the church that housed it was closing.

Mark Austin, pipe organ technician at the Eastman School of Music, called Hook & Hastings the "Cadillac of organ makers."

"If you're playing music from the late 19th Century or into the 20th century, this organ is going to be quite adept," said Austin. "And this organ is well-suited to chorale accompaniment."

The purchase and restoration is expected to cost $250,000 to $300,000, said Eastman School Dean Douglas Lowry. No other organ of this kind is known to be in the area.

"It is just has a very unique sound — a great breath of sound and a burnished quality that is very suggestive of the Romantic period," Lowry said.

Acquisition of the organ is part of the Eastman Organ Initiative to make Rochester the global center for organ research and performance.

The organ, which should be up and running in August, will be used by Eastman students and faculty as well as the church. As it is, Christ Church, houses the East School's Craighead-Saunders Organ, a 30,000-pound replica of an 18th-century organ.

"How exciting to have this as an educational tool. For the church, it's a win-win," said Pru Kirkpatrick, 58, of Brighton, a member of Christ Church. "We get to have all this wonderful music and all the talented people that come with it."

JGOODMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com
Twitter.com/Goodman_DandC

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120715/NEWS01/307150036?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2012/07/16/Parade-moves-pipe-organ-parts/UPI-47771342458178/?spt=hs&or=on

Eric
KB7DQH