Our renovation of a 1912 Pilcher receives yet more coverage from TV station KWWL: Story

The Bedient crew returned to Iowa City this winter to reassemble a historically curious tracker organ at Trinity Episcopal Church.

The organ was removed as part of a major renovation project at Trinity that includes raising the sanctuary building to replace the 138-year-old foundation and revising the organ chamber. While most of the organ was stored in Iowa City, the remainder was brought to our Nebraska shop where Bedient craftspeople made numerous repairs including:

• Recover key tops with bone
• Repair casework, console and bench
• Repair and repaint facade pipes
• Repair trackers
• Modify swell box
• Refit/releather pipe stoppers and tuning sleeves
• Refurbish windchests

Our repairs are the latest in a long history of organ maintenance, renovation and replacement at Trinity. According to Organist Andrew Hicks’ essay chronicling the instruments at Trinity, the congregation has enjoyed organ music since 1862 when it purchased an Estey pump organ. Trinity may have been the site of Iowa’s first pipe organ, Hicks said, when a William A. Johnson’s Opus 201 was installed in 1866. That instrument was replaced in 1894 by another tracker, A. B. Felgemaker’s Opus 591.

An electropneumatic Kilgan replaced the Felgemaker in 1954, although pipes from the old tracker were retained. Finally, Hicks said, in 1983 Trinity replaced the Kilgan with the current instrument, a 1912 Pilcher (installed by George Bozeman), which had been displaced by the closing of a Methodist church in Ohio.

Looking at the organ today, one can clearly see the patchwork the organ has endured: Bozeman pipes within the cherry wood Felgemaker case that surrounds the quartered oak Pilcher console with gold painted Pilcher façade pipes topping it all. Yet, according to Hicks, “In its ninety-sixth year, and twenty-fifth year at Trinity, the Pilcher continues to provide a reliable foundation for the parish’s music and liturgy. With reasonable care, the instrument should last for generations to come.” Bedient Pipe Organ Company is proud to contribute to the survival of this historically significant instrument.

The new 2010 Bedient calendars are available.  Contact us at jont@bedientorgan.com or 800-382-4225 to receive one.  Pictured is our Opus 75 at St. Agatha Catholic Church in Columbus, OH.

Our Opus 8, located in Cornerstone Chapel on the University of Nebraska/Lincoln campus was purchased by the Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Student Center on the UNL campus.  Opus 8 will be moved into a new worship center when it is built.  The move is only about one block away.  No time-line is available.

Specifications are here.

Please call us at 800-382-4225 or contact Gene Bedient BedientORG@gmail.com with any inquiries.

NET Radio posted this video story about its uncertain future: Story.

Bedient Pipe Organ is pleased to announce Damin Spritzer as our new company representative.

We got to know Damin in the early 2000s when Bedient returned to Dallas, TX to convert the stop action on our Opus 33 from mechanical to electro-pneumatic operation. Her years of experience playing a Bedient organ make her an excellent resource for those needing information about our company. Please contact her with any questions you may have.  From her website:

“Hailed as ‘elegantly assured’ by the Dallas Morning News, and featured as a “young talent” in interview and performances with nationally syndicated radio show Pipedreams, Damin Spritzer has performed organ recitals from coast to coast since receiving her first scholarship from the American Guild of Organists as a high school student. Ms. Spritzer’s performances are notable for varied programs that champion unknown romantic works for organ as well as new compositions by living composers, and she often collaborates with other instruments such as harp and trombone. Her commissioned work from award-winning composer Aaron Travers (Three Pieces for Organ) has been performed on at least nine separate occasions by a number of different organists.

Beginning in February of 2009, Ms. Spritzer joined the music staff of University Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas as Associate Director of Music and Organist. From August 2000 until December of 2008, she was the Associate Director of Music and Organist for Saint Rita Catholic Church, also in Dallas. She is currently working towards the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of North Texas with Jesse Eschbach. She is also a recent graduate of two of the most prestigious music schools in the country, having received her Master of Music degree in Organ Performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York with David Higgs and her Bachelor of Music degree in Organ Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, studying primarily with Haskell Thomson.”

Please visit her website: http://www.daminspritzer.com/index.htm

Our Opus 37 has another new home.

In 2008, the organ was moved from Oklahoma to Berlin, NH, after its owner, Susan Ferre’ and her husband moved to the neighboring town of Gorham, NH.  Ferre had loaned the organ and other vintage instruments to Chapel Arts, a private performance space and art gallery.

The 10 stop tracker organ was moved again this fall and now resides at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Berlin, where Ferre serves as organist.  The Berlin Daily Sun featured the organ on its front page:

“(the organ) will be used for Sunday services, as well as for concerts, demonstrations and special programs. ‘It will enable us to expand our musical offerings in worship and to the wider community,’ says the Reverend Fran Gardner, rector of St. Barnabas.

A crew of three, headed by Paul Lytle of the Bedient company in Lincoln, Nebraska, spent a week disassembling, moving and reassembling the instrument. Gene Bedient, the organ’s designer and head of the company arrived on Monday to help with final tuning. The interior of the case, weighing about 1000 pounds, was moved with help from church member, Larry Jenkins of Randolph, along with help from friends and neighbors, including Tom Dyar of Gorham, Charley Lang of Berlin, and especially from Edgar and Norman Thibodeaux of Berlin who also made their Great North Woods Container Services truck available for the final haul.

‘The organ is a fine new addition to the Berlin organ scene,’ said Susan Ferre, organist at St. Barnabas. ‘It will join with the historic St. Kieran’s organ and the organ at St. Anne’s, among others, in dazzling our sensibilities and heightening our awareness of the great technical achievements of former generations.’ She added, ‘The organ was not conceived to play all music, but is conceived after Renaissance prototypes and makes early music come alive in very special ways.’”

A Bedient pipe organ now resides in the St. Saviour By The River Anglican Church in Eagleport, OH, but we did not build it.

“Our” Opus P-21 is one of about 20 Positif organ kits sold in the mid-1970s via small ads in Popular Science magazine. These one stop, one manual tracker organs are powered by a foot-operated wedge bellows and feature 56 Gedeckt pipes.  Originally priced at $970 plus shipping, the kits arrived in four crates that included pipes, bench and precut casework parts made from oak, redwood, mahogany or walnut. 

John Porter of Silver Spring, MD was one of the adventurous souls who successfully negotiated the 90-page instruction manual to complete his walnut kit.  After John died last year, his wife Katherine contacted us about selling the organ, which had been used for living room performances for 30 years.

Acting on a friend’s tip, Brian McKee, organist and vestryman at St. Saviour, read about the kit organ on the news page of Bedient’s website.  Brian explains what followed:

“I had been looking for a small pipe organ for our church for about two years until I found this organ.  Our small country church’s nave is only 40 x 45 feet so we needed a small organ.

Gene e-mailed me the address of the owner so I could write her a letter.  Knowing it was a Bedient pipe organ I purchased it for the church from the pictures alone and discussions by phone with the owner and Gene’s advice.

The organ will be used for accompanying the singing of Hymns, accompanying the Anglican Chant, as well as instrumental music.  I particularly love to play works by J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, and W.A. Mozart.  The wonderful tones of this organ are such that it is as though it were literally built to play works by Bach.”

According to Brian, the small 174-year-old church lays claim to historical significance.  On July 23, 1863, the church was caught in the crossfire between Union Militia and Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s Confederate Cavalry during a Civil War skirmish.  During the battle, Morgan allegedly entered the church to pray. A Methodist congregation built the church in 1835 and worshipped there until 1972.  Brian said it was later purchased by a group of transplanted Anglicans and continues to serve a small but vibrant 25-member congregation.

More stories: here.

Organist Thomas Bara performed a recital on our Opus 81 at First Congregational Church, Sioux Falls, SD as part of their Third Annual Organ Festival Weekend. 

Jack Mohlenhoff, Minister of Music and Arts called the performance “amazing”.  “The Martinson piece was an amazing vehicle for the Harmonic Flute,” he said.  “The Sweelinck and Dupre also showcased a variety of the organ’s colors, as well.”  Bara also conducted a master class for organ students and played during Sunday.

THOMAS BARA is Instructor of Organ and Class Piano at the Interlochen Arts Academy and Arts Camp, Interlochen, Michigan, and is Choirmaster at Central United Methodist Church, Traverse City. Prior to Interlochen, Mr. Bara was Assistant Organist at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, serving under Gerre and Judith Hancock. Mr. Bara studied organ at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where he was awarded the Fine Arts and Young Artist awards upon graduation in 1987. He then earned degrees from the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music. At Eastman, Mr. Bara received the prestigious Performance Certificate and the first Harold Gleason Emerging Artist Award. Mr. Bara won first prize in the Arthur Poister National Organ Competition and was a finalist in the National Young Artist Competition and Fort Wayne National Organ Competition. As soloist and as accompanist with The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, he has performed widely, including concerts at the Royal Cathedral, Copenhagen; King’s College, Cambridge; Saint John’s Smith Square, London; and Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London. His teachers include Robert Glasgow, Arthur Haas, Gerre Hancock, David Higgs, Robert Murphy and Russell Saunders. (Courtesy East West Organists.com)

The program:

Étude Symphonique                              Marco Enrico Bossi

Concerto in D minor (after Vivaldi)             Johann Sebastian Bach

            Allegro – Grave – Fuga 

Largo e spiccato

Allegro

Variations on “Est ce Mars?”                        Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck 

Fantasy in F Minor, K. 608                            Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Concert Variations on the Austrian Hymn Op. 3 No. 1 John Knowles Paine

Aria on a Chaconne                                       Joel Martinson

Pageant                                                          Leo Sowerby

Suite Brettone, Op. 21                                Marcel Dupré

            Fileuse

            Les Cloches De Perros-Guirec

Symphonie I, Op. 14                                      Louis Vierne

The artisans of Bedient Pipe Organ Company are experienced problem solvers who are happy to consult with you regarding any pipe organ issue.

We have 40 years experience consulting with churches regarding:

Case design

Tonal design

Mechanical/electrical design

Sanctuary acoustics

Pipe organ chamber renovation and requirements

Pipe organ storage and reinstallation

Inspection of used, nonworking or discarded pipe organs

Fundraising for pipe organ construction or refurbishment

Determining compatibility of components from different builders

Estimating the value of pipe organs

Our craftspeople are ready to travel nationwide to consult with you.  Because, regardless of your pipe organ’s pedigree or your church’s denomination, preserving the tradition of the pipe organ has always been our focus.  For immediate assistance, call 1-402-420-7662.