Organ matters - Organs matter!

QuoteAs the First Baptist Church building provided much-needed shade, volunteers unloaded an 18-wheeler Wednesday morning carrying precious cargo.
FBC has acquired an Austin Pipe Organ Opus 1544, which will be professionally installed inside the church over the next few months. Dr. Jon Weygandt, FBC pastor, said he hopes to be able to use the pipe organ by Christmas.
"It's an ambitious goal, but it's a goal," he said, laughing. "What a blessing. We really want God to be glorified with it. It's about enhancing worship. We are very blessed. It's just unbelievable."
The organ is one of 28 of its kind in Texas and the ninth largest in the state. Once installed, it is estimated to be valued at nearly one million dollars.
"We're extremely excited. It's really a dream come true for the church," Weygandt. "They've been hoping for the opportunity to get a pipe organ for years. We have a wide range of folks showing up to help. It's a pretty exciting thing."
Weygandt said he thought acquiring a pipe organ was a "pipe dream." Once church members began searching for organs, the process simplified. Through an organ guild, the church learned about an Austin pipe organ that had been removed from a church in Glencoe, Ill.
"A man had purchased it from a church and stored it," Weygandt said. "He was going to build a 3,500 square foot building in order to put this organ at his home. It sat in storage for a few years and at 72, he didn't think it was wise for him to tackle such a project."
The man and his son disassembled the organ and got it ready for shipment to Huntsville where it was delivered Wednesday morning.
"It's a huge opportunity. We're told this will be the largest pipe organ between Houston and Dallas," Weygandt said. "A pipe organ produces a sound you feel. When you use an electronic organ it just mimics a pipe organ."
Weygandt said the organ has more than 6,000 pipes, three manuals, 30 ranks, and 21 chimes. Parts of the organ will be stored at the church, while larger pieces will be stored in a building space donated by Ben Bius.
For more information, call the church at (936) 291-3441.

QuoteSt. Charles, IL —

Since Jim Shaffer, of Aurora, joined the volunteer group Chicago-area Theatre Organ Enthusiasts in the 1950s, he's witnessed the struggle many historic theaters face to stay open.

"There's less around today," The 76-year-old said. "It's a shame."

When theaters shut down, Shaffer said the theater pipe organ usually goes, too. In the 1960s, Shaffer said some theater owners in the area didn't know the value of the organs.

But for the last 30 years, Shaffer has fought to keep the unique music of the organ alive, particularly by maintaining the 1926 Geneva/Marr and Colton pipe organ at the Arcada Theatre.

Later this month, staff at the Arcada Theatre will recognize Shaffer's efforts. A dedication ceremony open to the public will feature a live organ performance, question and answer session along with stories shared by Shaffer at 2 p.m. July 29 at the Arcada Theatre.

Shaffer, who retired from clerical work at Burlington Railroad in 1997, said he always had an interest in theater pipe organ music. Before joining the club in the mid-1950s, Shaffer recalled playing records of the organ music.

"I used to just listen to them," he said.

But he likes the historic aspect of the instrument, too. Shaffer explained that in the 1920s, organs were a cheaper alternative to a full-orchestra used as background music for silent films.

The organ at the Arcada Theatre, in particular, can play about a dozen different instruments hidden away behind the theater walls. The black and gold organ at the Arcada Theatre is decorated with figures of Flamingos and is speculated to have been painted red and silver in the 1920s.

"There's not another one like it," Shaffer said.

In order to tune the organ's approximately 1,000 pipes, Shaffer and other volunteers with the organ enthusiast group must fit through cramped, often dusty, spaces. The tune-ups can take about eight hours.

"It's a dirty job," Shaffer said.

For the last roughly two years as crew chief Shaffer has led the efforts of the organ's upkeep. As a result, the Arcada Theatre still shows silent films accompanied by theater pipe organ music played by a professional.

Shaffer was hesitant to take all the credit for the organ himself.

"A lot of people have worked on this," he said.

In addition to maintaining the organ, Shaffer plays at the Arcada Theatre before shows. He said its just another type of music people can enjoy.

"There aren't too many of them left anymore," he said.

Quote
What is the worst thing you can do to a historic pipe organ? Not play it — according to Jim Shaffer of Aurora.


Shaffer, a longtime volunteer and Chicago Area Theatre Organ Enthusiasts member, has helped preserve the 86-year-old Marr and Colton pipe organ at the Arcada Theatre, 105 East Main St., St. Charles.

"The change in weather really affects pipe organs," the 76-year-old volunteer said. "It makes notes go sour, but sometimes I like to use that as my excuse for misplaying."

A volunteer at the theater for about 30 years, Shaffer enjoys helping out with whatever there is to do. He has helped with various activities, such as painting and ushering at events. Though, his No. 1 focus is working on the pipe organ.

"Jim Shaffer is a treasure, just like the theater itself," said Ron Onesti, owner of the Arcada Theatre.

The theater is dedicating the pipe organ in honor of Shaffer at a ceremony July 29.
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Quote
"It's just one of those things," Glen Douglas told me when I pressed him to explain why he'd built one of the most amazing places in Houston: a white concrete dome, hidden on the wooded banks of Sims Bayou, that is first and foremost a pipe organ, and only secondarily Douglas' house.

He shrugged: "It started small."

Small, for him, was a little electronic organ, one of those pale imitations of the real thing, the sort of instrument that a young military doctor stationed in San Antonio would play around with. Its case left something to be desired, so Douglas thought maybe he could decorate it with a few pipes salvaged from a real pipe organ.

A military friend, John Ballard, suggested that he could do better. Ballard had worked with a pipe-organ builder, and he showed Douglas how to build the complicated pneumatic machinery that would make the pipes function. In '76, Douglas played the result for the first time.

And he was hooked. He began adding a few new pipes here, a few salvaged pipes there. He learned to build chestwork, the wooden stuff that holds the pipes in place, with the valve underneath that lets air into the pipe; he learned to manage blowers and ductwork and wiring for the electropneumatic system. To make room for more pipes, he tore out the wall between his bedroom and his living room.

He moved to Houston, to set up a practice in occupational medicine, and as the organ grew, it took up ever more of a succession of houses. Finally, about five years ago, he built a new one on a wooded lot not far from the Glenbrook Park Golf Course: a white, stucco-covered structure called a monolithic dome, the shape chosen for its acoustics. In essence, he hired a firm in Italy, Texas, to build a canvas balloon, then pour 900,000 pounds of concrete over it. The Aeolian Manor, Douglas calls the place.

It's more pipe organ than house. The little kitchen and two small bedrooms are wedged in at the sides, next to the curving walls. The main space - the living room/auditorium, a soaring, two-story central domed area - is utterly dominated by what is now the fourth-largest pipe organ in Houston: an organ with roughly 7,000 pipes, in 110 ranks. It's smaller than the organs at Second Baptist, St. John the Divine and First Methodist, but significantly bigger than the one at downtown's Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.

"What's a hobby?" Douglas asked philosophically, standing at one of his three consoles' keyboards. "Some people have boats. Some people have model trains. I always liked organ music."

Rescued

The Aeolian Manor Residence Organ, as Douglas calls his creation, is a cheerful hybrid, made up mostly from salvaged pipes. Among organ people, it's a cliché to say that more organs are lost to changing taste than to overuse. The pipes don't wear out. But churches decide to go with a more modern, rock-band sound. Old theaters, whose organs once accompanied silent movies, fall to the wrecking ball. Robber barons' mansions are torn down to make way for skyscrapers.

His tall wooden pipes - the tallest, in the center of the central array, rises 16 feet - came from the Manhattan mansion of steel magnate Charles M. Schwab. At the back of the room, over the front door, an array of 49 brass trumpet pipes juts out horizontally, as if to proclaim the entrance of a bride or a bishop; they're some of the rare pipes that Douglas bought new in 1973. One of his three consoles, one he hasn't hooked up yet, is from Philadelphia's long-gone Orpheum Theatre, a vaudeville house that came to show silent movies. There are pipes from First Methodist Church in Fredericksburg, from the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception in New Orleans, from estates in Pittsburgh and Mount Kisco, N.Y. One set of metal pipes, Douglas noted off-handedly, is from the Arkansas church that he grew up in.

He didn't make much of that. He's a doctor, with a doctor's professional reserve, and he'd much rather talk about the organ's technical aspects - about, say, the way that trumpet pipes use a metal reed, or the way that pulling out a stop activates a rank of pipes - than about what the organ means to him. Later, he'll tell a Chronicle photographer that he doesn't even want to be photographed along with his organ. He'd rather that the instrument speak for itself.

Still, to me there's something moving about giving new homes to all those abandoned pipes, about reclaiming all that glory lost to changing style, about not letting something beautiful end up in a landfill. As we talk, one of Douglas's three greyhounds, an elegant brindle, pads through the room. All three, he says, are rescue dogs.

Feel the sound

"Do you want to hear it?" he asked at last, after a couple of hours of trying to explain to me everything about pipe organs. It's important to him that the world understand them. That's why last year he set up the nonprofit Aeolian Manor Foundation (aeolianmanorfoundation.org) "to promote and encourage pipe-organ performance." For its inaugural house concert in November, he lined up rows of chairs in his living room, and Pierre Pincemaille, the organist at the Basilica of St. Denis, flew in from Paris to play Bach. Since then, he's hosted concerts every couple of months. For the next one, Brett Valliant of Wichita, Kan., will play theater-organ music, possibly accompanied by a silent movie.

I nodded. I was hungry to hear it.

He poured us glasses of white wine. Then, at the organ's console, he cued up one of the records of a past performance on the organ. With a digital device something like a player piano, Douglas can record the player's precise movements on the keyboard, then replay them again later on the organ. He didn't want to say who the organist was - just "someone who can really play, unlike me."

We walked toward the front door and stood facing the organ, on the tiled rectangle that marks the room's sweet spot, the place where the pipes' sound best converges.

Bach's Fugue in E-flat major swelled around us. It began with a melody like the hymn "O God Our Help in Ages Past." I could feel the sound in my sternum - large and simple and holy.

The melody then began to transform itself, shifting from one rank of pipes to another, moving around the room. As it grew bigger and more complicated, the vibrations spread outward from my ribcage, into my limbs, into all the rest of my body. And suddenly, all the clichés - about being swept away by music, infused by the spirit, taken over by something larger - seemed true.

I understood then what had gotten into Douglas, why he'd collected all those pipes, why he'd built his dome. I understood then how the pipe organ had swept him away.

lisa.gray@chron.com

Quote SOUTHAMPTON, Pa. — The Knabe baby grand did a cartwheel and landed on its back, legs poking into the air. A Lester upright thudded onto its side with a final groan of strings, a death-rattling chord. After 10 pianos were dumped, a small yellow loader with a claw in front scuttled in like a vicious beetle, crushing keyboards, soundboards and cases into a pile.


James A. Fox, left, and Bryan O'Mara with a haul. "You hate to see them go," said Mr. O'Mara, whose company was founded by his great-grandfather in 1874. More Photos »

The site, a trash-transfer station in this town 20 miles north of Philadelphia, is just one place where pianos go to die. This kind of scene has become increasingly common.

The value of used pianos, especially uprights, has plummeted in recent years. So instead of selling them to a neighbor, donating them to a church or just passing them along to a relative, owners are far more likely to discard them, technicians, movers and dealers say. Piano movers are making regular runs to the dump, becoming adept at dismantling instruments, selling parts to artists, even burning them for firewood.

"We bust them up with a sledgehammer," said Jeffrey Harrington, the owner of Harrington Moving & Storage in Maplewood, N.J.

Pianos consist of hundreds of pounds of metal, wood and intricate machinery able to channel Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, along with honky-tonk, "Happy Birthday" and holiday tunes. It is strange to think of them as disposable as tissues. Yet economic and cultural forces have made many used pianos, with the exception of Steinways and a few other high-end brands, prone to being jettisoned.

With thousands of moving parts, pianos are expensive to repair, requiring long hours of labor by skilled technicians whose numbers are diminishing. Excellent digital pianos and portable keyboards can cost as little as several hundred dollars. Low-end imported pianos have improved remarkably in quality and can be had for under $3,000.

"Instead of spending hundreds or thousands to repair an old piano, you can buy a new one made in China that's just as good, or you can buy a digital one that doesn't need tuning and has all kinds of bells and whistles," said Larry Fine, the editor and publisher of Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer, the industry bible.

Used pianos abound on Web sites like eBay, driving prices down and making it difficult to sell Grandma's old upright. With moving costs of several hundred dollars, even giving a piano away can be expensive. Abandonment often becomes the only option, especially for heirs dealing with a relative's property.

Many pianos are also dying of old age. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before radio and recordings, pianos were the main source of music, even entertainment, in the home. They were a middle-class must-have.

So from 1900 to 1930, the golden age of piano making, American factories churned out millions of them. Nearly 365,000 were sold at the peak, in 1910, according to the National Piano Manufacturers Association. (In 2011, 41,000 were sold, along with 120,000 digital pianos and 1.1 million keyboards, according to Music Trades magazine.)

The average life span rarely exceeds 80 years, piano technicians say. That's a lot of pianos now reaching the end of the line.

Piano dealers also blame other changes in society for a lack of demand in the used-piano market: cuts in music education in schools, competition for practice time from other pursuits, a drop in spending on home furnishings with the fall of the housing market.

Whatever the reason, people in the piano world agree that disposals are mounting.

O'Mara Meehan Piano Movers said it takes 5 to 10 pianos a month to the debris transfer site here. The company was founded in 1874 by the great-grandfather of the brothers Bryan and Charles T. O'Mara Jr.

Bryan O'Mara and an employee, James A. Fox, drove their truck into a hangarlike structure one day last week. Inside the truck were six uprights and four grands. Several came from the Philadelphia school system and one from a retirement home. "This was Mrs. Dombrowski's from New Hope," Mr. O'Mara said, patting the Knabe.

Mr. O'Mara and Mr. Fox pushed them off the back of the truck one by one. The top of an upright popped off when it landed. Mr. Fox tossed amputated piano legs and a pedal mechanism. Sprayers from above sent out a swirl of dust-settling mist, adding to the surreal atmosphere.

Mr. O'Mara had charged the former owners about $150 per piano. The trash site charged him $233.24 for dumping them all. A recycling company would pick up the debris and separate the wood from the metal.

Beethoven Pianos, a restorer, renter, mover and dealer in New York, has a 34,000-square-foot warehouse at the base of the Third Avenue Bridge in the Bronx, with scores of pianos awaiting disposal, said the owner, Carl Demler.

"In wintertime we burn them," he said, pointing to a round metal stove. "This one has eaten many pianos."

He watched as a worker, James Williams, dismantled a grand. "Ashes to ashes," Mr. Demler said.

"Dust to dust," Mr. Williams added, unscrewing pins that held the strings.

The junking of the modern descendant of the "gravicembalo col piano e forte," the Italian precursor, can evoke strong reactions. A video posted on YouTube by one mover showing pianos being dumped drew violent remarks. Commenters said they felt sickened and called the scene barbaric, painful, outrageous, even criminal. "Stop the horror!" one wrote.

When the video was described to Madeleine Crouch, the administrator of the National Piano Manufacturers Association, she responded with a sharp intake of breath. "That makes me cry," she said. "Pianos are lovable. You wouldn't want your pet horse to be thrown out into the glue factory."

Such reactions emphasize the abyss between the emotional value of used pianos and their worth in the marketplace.

"It is the most emotionally charged piece of furniture that there is," said Martha Taylor, a rare restorer of uprights, whose Immortal Piano Company is based in Portland, Ore. "When I have to say: 'You've buried your grandmother. You have to bury her piano,' it's a really hard thing."

Many movers say they strive to find homes for abandoned pianos, making the rounds of nursing homes, schools and other institutions.

"You hate to see them go," said Mr. O'Mara, whose company tries to give away discarded pianos. Any rescued piano, he noted, is also a potential future move for O'Mara Meehan. But there is just so much room in his warehouse for adoptees. He has to cull them like a herd. Churches and schools often do not have room or the means to maintain them.

Brian Goodwin, who owns Piano Movers of Nashua, N.H., and who had 30 pianos in his warehouse ready for the dump recently, said he created the Web site Piano Adoption partly as a clearing house to find homes for unwanted pianos. He posted the video of the dumped pianos that drew such shocked responses.

When owners ask where a cherished piano is going, he said, he tries to avoid the subject or tells them it will be put up for adoption.

"The last thing they want to hear is that it's going to a landfill," he said.

But piano movers can also take a clinical view of piano disposal, since they understand the economic realities. While noting that piano disposals can be painful, Mr. Goodwin said: "To be honest with you, the guys enjoy it. They try so hard all day not to scratch anything. And all of a sudden they get to throw it off the back of a truck."

QuoteThe 143-year-old pipe organ at the St Mary's Church in Camp is in need of urgent repairs. However, lack of funds has stalled the work for its repairs. Now, the church is launching a mass appeal for generating funds for the repair.

Not only the church, which is the city's oldest dating back to 1825 and built by Britishers, even the organ has quite a history. It reached Pune (then known as Poona) in1869, when an organ chamber had to be built for its reception. In a few years, it started disintegrating, and was sent to England for repairs and a harmonium was brought in its place. Only in the 1905, was the organ, thoroughly repaired and renovated, reinstalled and launched to be played.

On July 3, the church completed 187 years in the city. Its current presbyter-in-charge, Rev Sumesh Jacob told DNA, "The pipe organ has been around since 1869, and now the condition of the organ is such that only around 60% of the pipes are working. The manufacturers in United Kingdom have estimated a cost of about Rs30 lakh for its restoration. We are appealing to the members of the church in particular and society in general to save this legacy of the church and the city."

The pipe organ at St Mary's Church is the second oldest such surviving organ. The oldest, built over ten years before this one, is in Chennai.

Christopher Grey of Walker Instruments inspected the pipe organ and opined, "We find the organ is in a bad condition. It is remarkable that it is still making any sound at all. A complete overhaul will give good quality service for the next 100 years, before any major work is required again."

Presbyter-in-charge Rev Jaco applealed, "The church is in need of Rs30 lakh. We appeal to the congregation and well-wishers to donate generously. Donations can be sent in as cheque, demand draft or pay order directly to church's bank account."

QuoteOne local church will be singing to a new tune, as a large, handmade pipe organ is scheduled to arrive in the area on Sunday.

First Presbyterian Church's organ committee began the hunt for the colossal instrument when water leaks, as well as several parts on the instrument stopped functioning. Visiting many organ companies, the group was in search for an organ that would not only accommodate the size and sound needed to fill their sanctuary area, but also one in their price range.

"We knew we had to do something, so we formed a committee and the committee began looking at what we would do," Larry Dodd, director of worship and music ministries said. "We contacted over a dozen companies from around the country and in Canada and asked them to come look at the situation and give us what their plan was, what they think we should do. Almost everybody was unanimous that we should go with a new instrument."

Dodd, and First Presbyterian's organist, Laura Cates, said the high cost estimated for the repairs that needed to be done to the organ swayed their decision to find another one.

After an extensive search in places such as Chicago, Wisconsin, California, Georgia and Tennessee, the Berghaus Pipe Organ Company, in Bellwood, IL. was finally commissioned for the job.

Happy with their decision, Cates said the organ coming in later this week cannot be easily duplicated and has a specific amount of craftsmanship.

"What we've had to educate our congregation (on) is this instrument is totally handmade. From the tiniest pipe to the tallest pipe, which is going to be 16-feet tall," she said. "It's really hard to put a price on craftsmanship and quality like we're getting from Berghaus, but they were able to work with us to help us get the most instrument for the amount of money."

The organ, complete with 2669 pipes, 48 ranks, a console with three manuals and pedal board, will take some time to install, but the church is willing to make the space for the instrument.

"It'll take probably eight to twelve weeks to install and there will be then a period of time for voicing, because they will tune and voice every single pipe to this space, so that it'll sound correctly as she pulls the stops," Dodd said.

Playing the organ has always been a passion of Cates, and she said she is very excited for its arrival.

"For a lot of organists, this is really a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's a great privilege to work with this congregation and a church that's very supportive of this endeavour," she said. "It is quite a responsibility because we have worked so hard to make sure that this instrument will stand the test of time, as far as getting as much instrument as we can at this time, for the money and the quality, because we want this organ...to be in use for the next 100, 200 years or longer with minimal maintenance and repair."

Dodd said the new organ will also be a way to build community within the community.

"We have several groups in the community that are very excited about the organ coming and (have) already scheduled concerts here and are make plans with it in mind," he said.

After the noon service on Sunday, Dodd said the parish community will have a dinner on the grounds and will await the truck bringing their new musical instrument to the church.

"The last conversation I had with Berghaus, they anticipated that it would take about six hours to unload it. We'll see how much help we have. It may go a little faster," he said. "We really are hopeful that the entire church family, from the littlest one to the most senior of them, that there will be something for everybody to carry. It's really going to be a big event in the history of this church."

Cates said she hopes the arrival and installation of the new instrument will be memorable for all for many years.

"We're creating memories," she said. We're just very hopeful and prayerful that this instrument is going to help us glorify God in the best way we can in our worship services on Sunday morning. We do have very high hopes for this instrument. It will bring a lot of joy to a lot of people."

Read more: http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?id=101520#ixzz21vAa8AOq

QuoteSunday, September 2, 2012 From 8 Am To 8 Pm Internationally-Recognized Organist Dr. Carol Williams Makes World Record Attempt On Balboa Park's Spreckels Organ

Posted: Friday, July 20, 2012 3:30 pm

Internationally recognized organist DR. CAROL WILLIAMS will play the great SPRECKELS ORGAN in Balboa Park for 12 hours straight on Sunday, September 2, 2012 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in a special benefit for OPERATION REBOUND.

For this special one-day event, San Diego's Civic Organist has prepared a vast repertoire of almost every kind of pipe organ music, including compositions of her own, and invites the public to share the musical and community energy throughout the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend. If she is successful, Williams will have played the longest performance on an outdoor pipe organ.

More information on the Marathon can be found online at www.melcot.com.

During the Marathon, representatives of OPERATION REBOUND will greet the public and explain first-hand the nonprofit organization's mission of supporting disabled vets by providing the means to pursue an active lifestyle through physical fitness and athletics, an important part of daily life to many who have served their country.

"For a long time I have wanted to do something with my talent and the Spreckels organ to benefit humanity," Williams said. "Operation Rebound is truly an amazing organization. They dedicate their work to helping people who have sacrificed so much for us."

The Challenged Athletes Foundation's OPERATION REBOUND was established in 2004 and is managed by Nico Marcolongo in San Diego. OPERATION REBOUND provides unparalleled sports opportunities and support to those who serve in any branch of the armed services as well as first responders who have suffered permanent physical injuries in the line of duty. Its Military Medical Center Physical Training Program provides coaches for running, swimming, biking, and strength and conditioning at military facilities, serving athletes in concert with resident prosthetists, recreational therapists, and medical hold unit commanders. A grant program for athletic competitors, sports clinics, and an online forum for wounded service members expand the reach of OPERATION REBOUND. The group was honored in San Diego's 2010 St. Patrick's Day Parade as Service Organization of the Year. Learn more online at: www.operationrebound.org

The direct link for tax-deductible donations of $10 or more:

http://operationrebound.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=471167&supid=358491335

QuoteLOCAL people in Enniskeane are being given the chance to put their name on a piece of parish history by sponsoring the pipes of a pipe organ currently being  installed in Enniskeane's Church of the Immaculate Conception.

The organ was originally housed in the Sisters of Mercy Convent in Clonakilty which was its home from1878 until 2008 when the convent closed.

Built in 1866 in London by Bryceson Brothers and Ellis the organ was disassembled and stored in 2008 by Enniskeane parishioner Pádraig O'Donovan who remained committed to finding a new home for it.

Now he is installing it, following refurbishment, in Enniskeane parish church which has never housed a pipe organ in its 141-year history.

The gallery of Enniskeane church has been carefully reinforced using local skills before the organ installation began, without compromising the historic integrity of the church.

The fabric of the organ has also been restored to its original condition, the timber panels have been stripped and restored in Cork, the large main bellows has been rebuilt in England, the pipes have been revoiced by specialists in Belfast and the decorative stencilling has been redone in Clonakilty.

Now, the parishioners and friends of Enniskeane & Desertserges Parish are being invited to make this moment in the parish's history their own by sponsoring one of the organ's pipes.

Each pipe in the organ plays a unique note, some are made from wood while most are metal.

The 2012 Pipe Organ Sponsorship Programme involves dedicating each pipe in the organ to a named individual or family.

A pipe may be dedicated to a parishioner or to someone who is not a parishioner; it may be dedicated to someone who is living or it may be dedicated in memory of someone who has died.

A donation of €30 per pipe is requested and the parish will also record the name and address of the person(s) who has given the donation to sponsor the pipe(s).

The dedication and the sponsorship will both be recorded in the parish records and also printed in a special volume which will be stored in the organ gallery of the church.

The sponsor will receive a certificate in the post (showing which pipe has been dedicated) and a receipt for the donation.

You can sponsor a pipe either by sending a postal donation or online on the parish website.

Visit enniskeaneparish.ie for more detai

Quote
THe Sunday Times Logo   
Sunday, July 15, 2012 by
Ramona Depares
Restored to former glory

Wayne Marshall's performance at St Augustine's church will officially inaugurate the recently restored Mascioni pipe-organ. Restorer Robert Buhagiar tells Ramona Depares about the work involved in returning the organ to its original state.

When I interviewed conductor and organist Wayne Marshall he only had words of praise for the pipe-organ at St Augustine's church, Valletta, which he is known to play regularly when in Malta.
The restoration required a particular skill due to the complexity and special design features of this particular model

"It's a nice Mascioni that responds incredibly well to the organist's demands."

Now, this stamp of approval has been stepped up a notch or two as the organ will be officially inaugurated after a long process of restoration carried out by Robert Buhagiar.

The inauguration, part of the Malta Arts Festival programme, will see Marshall – who was recently appointed artistic director for the V18 project – performing a selection from Bach, Mozart, Bonnet, Schmidt and Messiaen next Sunday.

The pipe-organ, Buhagiar tells me, is a rather fine specimen that was built by one of the most renowned Italian pipe-organ firms in 1829. Mascioni is currently the oldest surviving organ building firms in Italy and their signature carries substantial cachet in organ playing circles.

"This particular instrument was built in 1952. It's not the only Mascioni in Malta; most notably, the firm also built the organ in St John's Co-Cathedral in 1960. What makes the St Augustine's church specimen remarkable is its particularly beautiful tonal characteristics, apart from the fact that it is a relatively large instrument for Malta's standards, and features a highly responsive transmission, typical of Mascioni organs."

The restoration process started in December 2009; although it was still in playing condition, many parts showed obvious signs of decay and the full potential of the organ was not available to the organist.

"The situation was far beyond normal routine maintenance. One of the most severe problems was the failure of certain leather components. The transmission of Mascioni organs from this period relies extensively on leather components, of which there are well over a thousand in this case. With age these leather parts fail, giving rise to leakages and problems in the wind chests and bellows, reducing the efficiency of the transmission."

The Augustinian community decided to take action and restore the organ before it become unplayable. The restoration required a particular skill due to the complexity and special design features of this particular organ, and Buhagiar, who has trained with the Mascioni firm, working on various organs all over Italy, was appointed.

"Apart from the extensive re-leathering operations, the restoration also involved two other main areas – the electromechanical switching and memory systems, and the voicing and tuning of the pipes."

One of the many interesting aspects regarding the restoration of this organ, Buhagiar explains, is the treatment given to the original electro-mechanical switching and memory systems. These rather bulky and complex systems are the interface between the console and the various wind chests in the organ; the memory systems allow the organist to 'record' up to four stop combinations, which can then be recalled by pressing a button.

"Of course, nowadays it is acceptable and sometimes even advisable to replace all the original systems with new solid-state (electronic) systems. But in this case it would have been a pity to discard Mascioni's high quality electro-mechanical workings. These types of switching systems are no longer produced nowadays and are a legacy from a particular era in the history of organ building."

In fact, Buhagiar retained and restored them – cleaning, repairing and regulating thousands of electrical contacts in the process, bringing them back to full working condition.

The restoration of the pipes was another delicate process that involved the dismantling of all the pipes for much-needed cleaning and repairs. The timbre of the pipes was then corrected as necessary as per the original characteristics of each individual pipe and finally the organ was completely tuned.

With 1,441 pipes – the largest being 4.8 metres long and the smallest with a speaking length of a couple of centimetres – the process was complex.

Now, the results of Buhagiar's works are set to be enjoyed by a packed church as the organ is put through its paces with some of the most well-loved classics. An inauguration fit for the noble instrument that it is.

The restored organ will be officially inaugurated today at 9 p.m. Entrance to the event is free but tickets are required.

www.maltaartsfestival.org

Quote

A restored British antique pipe organ will tonight herald the birth of Baby Jesus at the Maria Regina church in Marsa.

The organ, about 150 years old, was restored by engineer and musician Brian Bugeja over the past three years.

The church service will start at 11 p.m. with Frederick Scerri playing the organ.

Dion Buhagiar, Maestro di Cappella at St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta, described the work done by Mr Bugeja as "a miracle".

"When one takes into account the fact that the first restorer who was asked to examine the organ had concluded it was only fit for the scrap heap, Mr Bugeja's achievement gains in its stature," Mro Buhagiar said.

The organ was the most complex instrument invented by humans. The bravura of any restorer was to attain the sensitive control between the performer and the sound source, Mro Buhagiar noted.

"Brian managed to change the organ's mechanism from scratch, a complicated process that takes a genius to complete.

"People with such talent ought to be respected and given more incentives to showcase their skills," he added.

Fr Paul Bugeja, Maria Regina parish priest, said the parishioners were extremely pleased with the way the instrument was brought to life.

When contacted, Mr Bugeja said when one took on such a challenge, one was amazed how craftsmen so many years ago managed to achieve such levels of virtuosity with the use of simple hand tools.

"It is important for an organ restorer to be also a musician to be able to hear with a sensitive ear so that he can voice the pipes. Such restoration is at times given to foreigners when locals need to thrive to retain their skills," Mr Bugeja said.

The organ was made by the firm Frederick Rothwell of Harrow, London, which started out in business in 1858 and wound up in 1961.

Originally, the organ was at the Immaculate Conception church in Burnt Oak in London. It was bought for the Maria Regina church in 1982 by then parish priest Fr Valent Calleja.

Quote

Rochester is trying to become the pipe organ capitol of the world, and the Eastman School of Music and EROI or the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative say they're on track to make it happen.

The goal is to get Rochester a pipe organ from every country and musical period.

"I would say with another four, four to five (more) organs," Mark Austin with the Eastman School of Music said.

Christ Church just got the newest addition to a citywide collection. In the sanctuary sits large pipes from a 19th century Hook and Hastings Romantic Pipe Organ.

"Hook and Hastings was noted for just really exceptional craftsmanship in building pipe organs,"

It's originally from Portland, Maine and was built in 1893.

A few hundred pipes have already been put in place but there are more than 1600 pipes in the organ. Some of the smallest are thinner than a pen and make a very high pitch sound. The biggest looks like a brown box and is 16 feet long.

In total, the Eastman School of Music and the EROI have brought about 30 organs to Rochester.

"Organs from France, England and Germany and America," Austin said. "We're just trying have a beautiful example of every style and every period."

The Memorial Art Gallery and Rochester churches house the instruments. Pipe organs that make beautiful music and teach.

The Hook and Hastings Romantic Pipe Organ should be completed in a month. It will have a grand showing in late November.

QuoteRochester 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

QuoteVALPARAISO | The melodic strains of a pipe organ filled St. Andrew's Episcopal Church on Monday morning as listeners soaked in the sound.

More than 400 members of the Organ Historical Society had come to hear the church's organ, built in 1889 and restored in 2007 by Scot Huntington, society president.

"We celebrate the culture of the American pipe organ from its origin to the present day," Huntington said of his organization.

Originally built for the Baptist Church of West Harwich, Mass., on Cape Cod, the organ was purchased by St. Andrew's through an "organ clearing house," Huntington said.

The oak casework, hidden under three layers of paint, was stripped and refinished, and the facade pipes were redecorated in the original earth-tone colors popular in the Victorian era.

Huntington said he used a picture of the organ taken in 1889 as his guide.

"This may well be the first modern restoration project to use the old medium of milk paint as opposed to latex," he said. "This organ will look like this 100 years from now."

The event at St. Andrew's Church was part of the organ society's national convention, which took place in Chicago this year.

Members are traveling to various locations in the Chicagoland area to hear organ demonstrations and lectures on topics such as the ethics of proper organ restoration.

Founded in 1956, the organization has 3,000 members worldwide, about 2,800 of whom hail from the United States. Members come from all walks of life and no musical experience is required.

"A lot of them can't play a note," Huntington said. "They just love the sound and how it speaks to their souls."

The society boasts the largest organ archive in the world, and its guidelines for conservation are used by organ builders throughout the world, Huntington said.

St. Andrew's parishioners Lynn O'Neill and Constance McManus were among those attending the recital, performed by a member of the organ society.

"We're so thrilled with our organ," O'Neill said. "We were delighted to hear it played today. This was a special treat."

For more information about the organ historical society, visit www.organsociety.org.

Quote

Angela Tipps used to worry about rock bands taking over the church.

Tipps, a music professor at Middle Tennessee State University and longtime church organist, knows that church musicians often are under pressure to switch to more contemporary music, especially when attendance at services goes down.

But that kind of switch is not a cure-all, said Tipps, the organist and director of music at St. Paul's Episcopal in Murfreesboro.

"Sometimes if a church is not doing well, the easiest thing is to blame the music," she said. "People think, 'If we only did our music like World Outreach Church, then we'd have more people.' That's not true. Each church has to find its own identity."

At St. Paul's, that identity includes traditional hymns and church music. The congregation recently bought a brand-new, $600,000 organ from Orgues Létourneau Limitée in Montreal, which should be ready to play by mid-July.

That new organ at St. Paul's is one of several installed at Nashville churches in recent years — a sign that traditional church music is here to stay in Middle Tennessee.

The region is home to a thriving chapter of the American Guild of Organists, which has more than 200 local members. That local chapter recently hosted the guild's biannual convention, which brought more than 1,500 organists to town for workshops and concerts this past week.

Among convention-goers were Faythe Freese, an organ professor at the University of Alabama, and Christopher Henley, organist at First Methodist Church in Pell City, Ala.

It was the first convention for Henley, a high school senior who's been a church organist about four years. He said he was thrilled to be at the convention.

"To see organists that I have heard legends about — to be able to hear them and meet them in person — is wonderful," Henley said.

While places such as Nashville are awash with church musicians and it is hard to find a job, that's not the case in other parts of the country, Freese said.

Freese said there's still plenty of room for young organists, especially at smaller congregations that want traditional music but can't afford a full-time organist.

"It's a tough business, but not an impossible one," she said. "There are jobs out there in churches — if they haven't gone praise band. A lot of them can't find organists. It can be pretty tough to keep a bench filled."

Tipps hopes the new organ at St. Paul's will encourage more young people to study the instrument. It's hard for her students to learn without having pipe organs to play on, and MTSU has only one. She's arranged for her students to be able to use the new instrument at St. Paul's to help address that need.

"It's really difficult to make a living as a full-time organist without being a choir master or giving private lessons," she said. "If we can take piano majors and young folks and make them part-time organists, I think that really is the way things will go in the future."
Music that moves

Bill Davis, the organist at Woodmont Baptist Church in Nashville, says he's glad his church has stuck with traditional music.

Davis, who is in his 50s, first started playing in church when he was 12. An IT project manager for Nissan, he spends about six hours a week at the church — two hours on Wednesday night and four more on Sundays.

He moved to Nashville about six years ago and had thought about retiring from playing in churches before coming to Woodmont.

"I like to be in a place when the music I select and play really ministers to someone," he said. "Rarely a Sunday goes by without someone saying thank you."

Carl Smith, senior lecturer of theory and composition, organ and harpsichord at Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music, said churches that want traditional music are in a quandary.

Today's organists are more accomplished musicians than the ordinary church musician of the past, he said — but there are fewer of them, and the places for them to play are getting scarcer.

"In the places where the music is really good, it keeps getting better," he said. "And the number of places where it is good keep(s) getting smaller."

These days organists often work longer hours for less pay, Smith said. And they often clash with clergy who are under pressure to bring bigger crowds in to church. That's caused some churches to embrace what he calls "Je-zak" music.

Still, Smith said, organists offer something of value at a time when young people's exposure to music is limited to whatever is on their iPods.

"The biggest struggle for organists is to wrestle with this unbelievably rich legacy that we have in an increasingly secular and ephemeral world," he said.

Tipps hopes the new organ at St. Paul's means the church will have traditional music for a long time to come.

The new organ is about four times the size of the current one. The older instrument had been designed for a smaller space and there wasn't enough money to buy a new organ when the church built a bigger sanctuary, Tipps said.

"It is like having a child's voice in a man's body," she said.

The new organ was built at the Létourneau workshop in Montreal and recently shipped to Tennessee. When it arrived, congregation members pitched in to unload the truck.

"I can't put into words what a spiritual experience this is," she said. "It's really enlivened our congregation to know that the organ is here. It really is a work of art."

QuoteRobert Nicholls won with his musical interpretation of a sacred biblical passage, but his pipe organ riffs on a snarky Fox TV cartoon's theme put him in position to take the top prize and $3,000 in the American Guild of Organists' national improvisation competition.

For the semifinals, the music director for First Presbyterian Church created a pipe organ prelude and a fugue on the theme from "The Simpsons." It took him to the final three in the guild's national organ improvisation contest, conducted last week in Nashville, Tenn.

More than two dozen organists from across the country entered the competition, first with a CD recording, then in the "whittling down" at the national convention. He won the finals with an improvisation inspired by a biblical passage from 1 Kings 19:12.

It was Nicholls' seventh time to enter the biannual competition and his third time to make the finals, he said Wednesday. "It finally went my way."

Regardless of where he finished, Nicholls always has stood out in this national gathering of American organists. As his crisp British pronunciation reflects, Nicholls grew up in England, where between ages 8 and 13 he lived, studied and sang in London's Westminster Abbey, in the choir school, performing regularly for members of the British royal family and international heads of state.

He studied organ in high school and graduated from Cambridge University's Gonville & Caius College as a "choral exhibitioner."

Nicholls had trans-Atlantic, Tri-State ties, however, through his mother, who was born and raised in Carmi, Ill., before marrying a British farmer.

Nicholls studied organ at the University of Evansville and played in an Evansville church in 1991 during a year off between high school and college. He knew about the organ at First Presbyterian and when he learned of the music director's opening in 1996, he applied for and got the job.

He was not a natural improviser, he assured. "I think my experience shows with study and hard work and lots of practice you can learn to improvise pretty well, however.

"Every Sunday, I improvise some part of the service," he said. "It could be the prelude, the postlude, the introductory to the hymn or during the offertory or the communion."

He's also employed his improv skills to entertain. Last October, he improvised the music for a public screening of "Nosferatu," F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent vampire movie. He got the idea from another contestant he'd met in the improvisation competition, he said.

Nicholls will come up with his own organ accompaniment again Oct. 19 for a public screening of "The Phantom of the Opera," he said.

QuoteYou could say that the pipe organ brought one Northfield couple together. Ernie Milbrandt likes to listen. His wife, Phyllis, likes to play. Soon, they'll have more chances for both, as they install their very own pipe organ inside their home.

When they met, they were both single parents, both working in Rochester and attending many organ recitals. She took organ lessons and he sang in the church choir and served on the pipe organ committee. They often saw one another at these recitals. With the help of a mutual acquaintance, a shared love of music and a little curiosity, they got to know one another. Today, they have been married for nearly 22 years.

They built their home in Northfield in 1999. Their living room was great for entertaining, with a fireplace, couch and a beautiful view out the back windows. But something was missing — an organ.

"It was a pipe dream, you might call it," said Phyllis, laughing.

For years, they had hoped to buy a pipe organ. Ernie said that they would hear of one every so often, but it might be far away or rather expensive. They finally found one at a catholic church in Arcadia, Wisc. The church had disassembled it and replaced it with a digital organ. After some careful thought and negotiation — ensuring that their living room could bear the weight and that it could be put back together — Ernie surprised Phyllis with the news.

"I was so excited," she said. "We had kind of given up."

They had to move their piano down a flight of stairs to make room and stored the organ's pieces in the garage for a few months.

"It's slowly coming together," said Ernie.

David Grandall was in their home on Thursday, assembling the instrument.

They hope that it will be a nice activity to share when they get older. Phyllis said that retirement gives her more time to practice.

Their interest in music is shared by others in the family. They have six children between them and 10 grandchildren and have musically-gifted grandchildren on both sides. All of the grandchildren who are old enough have begun to take piano lessons. One plays the bassoon. Another plays in a jazz band. Phyllis's mother was also a church organist.

Quote

23 July 2012 | last updated at 12:59AM
The 'Grand Lady' to make sweet music again
By LOOI SUE-CHERN | penang@nstp.com.my



GEORGE TOWN: THE "Grand Lady" will soon be flawlessly in tune again. In fact, she will be as good as new.
.   


At 98 years old, the English-made pipe organ at the Church of the Assumption, here, will be undergoing her second major restoration since the 1970s.

The Catholic church had just received the large sum of money to fund her expensive repairs on Monday.

Air Asia Expedia had donated RM200,000 and the Star Foundation had chipped in with RM50,000.

On its own, the church had managed to raise over RM20,000 through donation drives.

The money collected has put the church on track to foot the pipe organ's restoration bill expected to cost between RM280,000 and RM300,000.

[Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen, who was at the cheque presentation at the church, lauded the two organisations for their donations.

Both had shown exemplary "Heritage CSR (corporate social responsibility)" and hopefully, more organisations would follow in their steps, she said.

Describing the pipe organ as "the oldest in Southeast Asia", she said it was a gift of history that was everyone's duty to preserve.

"I congratulate the church on its persistence in trying to save the pipe organ. Not many understand why it is so important to keep the instrument.

"The organ is part of the city's heritage in the Unesco World Heritage zone. Hopefully, more people would be interested to come and see it," she said.

Dr Ng, who played a role in the Grand Lady's restoration, shared how she got into the picture.

She said one night, she could not get to sleep, so at 2am, she had got up to watch a Discovery Channel programme which featured Leonard Selva Gurunathan, the church's organist, performing a public recital on the pipe organ at Dewan Filharmonik Petronas.

She shortly learnt about the condition of the church's pipe organ in Penang, which Leonard played regularly. She picked up the phone and called the bosses of a few corporations.

The rest is history and in Easter next year, when the repairs are completed, one would be able to listen to the beautiful organ music that the "Grand Lady" is famous for.

Dr Ng, who was on a working visit in Penang, earlier met with members of the tourism industry in Batu Ferringhi. She later toured the House of Yeap Chor Ee in Lebuh Penang.

Read more: The 'Grand Lady' to make sweet music again - Northern - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/streets/northern/the-grand-lady-to-make-sweet-music-again-1.111312#ixzz21QD8AQt9

QuoteMURFREESBORO — Angela Tipps used to worry about rock bands taking over the church.

Tipps, a music professor at Middle Tennessee State University and longtime church organist, knows that church musicians often are under pressure to switch to more contemporary music, especially when attendance at services goes down.

But that kind of switch is not a cure-all, said Tipps, the organist and director of music at St. Paul's Episcopal in Murfreesboro.

"Sometimes if a church is not doing well, the easiest thing is to blame the music," she said. "People think, 'If we only did our music like World Outreach Church, then we'd have more people.' That's not true. Each church has to find its own identity."

At St. Paul's, that identity includes traditional hymns and church music. The congregation recently bought a brand-new, $600,000 organ from Orgues Létourneau Limitée in Montreal, which should be ready to play by mid-July.

That new organ at St. Paul's is one of several installed at Nashville churches in recent years — a sign that traditional church music is here to stay in Middle Tennessee.

The region is home to a thriving chapter of the American Guild of Organists, which has more than 200 local members. That local chapter recently hosted the guild's biannual convention, which brought more than 1,500 organists to town for workshops and concerts this past week.

Among convention-goers were Faythe Freese, an organ professor at the University of Alabama, and Christopher Henley, organist at First Methodist Church in Pell City, Ala.

It was the first convention for Henley, a high school senior who's been a church organist about four years. He said he was thrilled to be at the convention.

"To see organists that I have heard legends about — to be able to hear them and meet them in person — is wonderful," Henley said.

While places such as Nashville are awash with church musicians and it is hard to find a job, that's not the case in other parts of the country, Freese said.

Freese said there's still plenty of room for young organists, especially at smaller congregations that want traditional music but can't afford a full-time organist.

"It's a tough business, but not an impossible one," she said. "There are jobs out there in churches — if they haven't gone praise band. A lot of them can't find organists. It can be pretty tough to keep a bench filled."

Tipps hopes the new organ at St. Paul's will encourage more young people to study the instrument. It's hard for her students to learn without having pipe organs to play on, and MTSU has only one. She's arranged for her students to be able to use the new instrument at St. Paul's to help address that need.

"It's really difficult to make a living as a full-time organist without being a choir master or giving private lessons," she said. "If we can take piano majors and young folks and make them part-time organists, I think that really is the way things will go in the future."
Music that moves

Bill Davis, the organist at Woodmont Baptist Church in Nashville, says he's glad his church has stuck with traditional music.

Davis, who is in his 50s, first started playing in church when he was 12. An IT project manager for Nissan, he spends about six hours a week at the church — two hours on Wednesday night and four more on Sundays.

He moved to Nashville about six years ago and had thought about retiring from playing in churches before coming to Woodmont.

"I like to be in a place when the music I select and play really ministers to someone," he said. "Rarely a Sunday goes by without someone saying thank you."

Carl Smith, senior lecturer of theory and composition, organ and harpsichord at Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music, said churches that want traditional music are in a quandary.

Today's organists are more accomplished musicians than the ordinary church musician of the past, he said — but there are fewer of them, and the places for them to play are getting scarcer.

"In the places where the music is really good, it keeps getting better," he said. "And the number of places where it is good keep(s) getting smaller."

These days organists often work longer hours for less pay, Smith said. And they often clash with clergy who are under pressure to bring bigger crowds in to church. That's caused some churches to embrace what he calls "Je-zak" music.


Still, Smith said, organists offer something of value at a time when young people's exposure to music is limited to whatever is on their iPods.

"The biggest struggle for organists is to wrestle with this unbelievably rich legacy that we have in an increasingly secular and ephemeral world," he said.

Tipps hopes the new organ at St. Paul's means the church will have traditional music for a long time to come.

The new organ is about four times the size of the current one. The older instrument had been designed for a smaller space and there wasn't enough money to buy a new organ when the church built a bigger sanctuary, Tipps said.

"It is like having a child's voice in a man's body," she said.

The new organ was built at the Létourneau workshop in Montreal and recently shipped to Tennessee. When it arrived, congregation members pitched in to unload the truck.

"I can't put into words what a spiritual experience this is," she said. "It's really enlivened our congregation to know that the organ is here. It really is a work of art."

QuoteSubmitted by Stephen Keyl St. Alban's Music Director


A new pipe organ is coming to St. Alban's Episcopal Church near Sabino Canyon and River roads in Tucson.

The organ is expected to be delivered Saturday and installed over the following weeks.

The builder, Paul Fritts of Tacoma, Wash., is one of the leading organ builders in the world today, with instruments at the University of Notre Dame, Arizona State University in Tempe, Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma and St. Joseph Cathedral in Columbus, Ohio, as well as other major institutions.

The St. Alban's organ has many distinctive features, including the use of mechanical ("tracker") action to connect the keys to the pipes. This principle was used in all organs until pneumatic and electric systems became prevalent around 1900. Several organ builders have returned to the earlier technology, and many musicians prefer it because it gives the organist greater control over the "speech" of the pipes.

The Fritts organ at St. Alban's will be the first large-tracker organ in Tucson. It has casework of clear fir, embossed facade pipes and carvings by the builder's sister, Judy Fritts.

The new organ is most suited for music of the Baroque era but will capably perform more modern music as well. It will be dedicated at a special service on Sept. 23. On Nov. 4 the first of a series of recitals will feature Kimberly Marshall, director of Arizona State University's music school.