New Organ Project
NEW!
Watch video of St Mark's new organ from Channel 5 KSDK here:
After years of planning and searching for the perfect organ builders for their church, which is a favorite of architects and musicians for its ground breaking design and reverberant acoustics, the members of this St. Louis Hills Episcopal congregation are getting a new organ.
The new instrument was designed and manufactured by the Montreal firm of Juget-Sinclair , energetic young organ builders, passionate about making fine instruments for great music. They take pride in making "tracker" instruments, a style of organ which dates back centuries before electricity. Juget-Sinclair make almost everything in their organs from scratch, choosing the best hardwoods, planing and cutting them with great precision. They make almost all of their metal pipes, too, pouring sheets of metal and shaping the pipes by hand. The new instrument is almost three times the size of the old one and will allow for a wider range of music than the small, partially completed Aeolian Skinner it replaces, and be more suitable for accompanying worship and for recitals. Juget-Sinclair designed the instrument to fit the acclaimed Art Deco style of the church interior and to frame the Holy Innocents' Window designed by Robert Harmon and made by Emil Frei Studios.
The church plans a celebratory service on November 22, featuring five organists who are regular worshippers at St. Mark's and a dedicatory recital on April 18 by Clive Driskill-Smithof Christ Church, Oxford, England.
The organ project was made possible by a generous bequest from Miss Ruth Proehl who died in 2004, leaving the balance of her estate to the church.
Here is an overhead view which gives you an idea of how intricate the tracker mechanism is.
check back frequently as the process goes along. Here is a slide show of the old organ, Aeolian Skinner Op. 979, being removed. It had eight stops and nine ranks and few of these were suited to accompanying service music or playing a diverse repertoire.
