This is a post written by David Jeffers of Jeffers Music, our Viscount Organ dealer based in Ireland. He had a very exciting client story to share, so we’ve asked him to write this post for us.
In Philadelphia back in August 2015 Pope Francis announced that the next World Meeting of Families, a Roman Catholic gathering organised to be held at a different venue once every three years, was announced for Dublin, Ireland for the dates of 21-26 August, 2018.
Jeffers Music Company looking ahead
We (Jeffers Music Company), in our capacity as the Viscount Organ Agent in Ireland, made contact in January 2017 with the World Meeting of Families(WMOF) 2018 office in response to their interest expressed in hiring digital organs and digital pianos for their upcoming event (this was 18 months ahead of the event).
In March 2018, Pope Francis announced he would be visiting Ireland to preside at the final two events of the World meeting of families on the Saturday and Sunday that coming August. Wow! Our little island was very excited to say the least.
In April 2018 Jeffers Music were invited by the WMOF 2018 organisation to submit a quotation/proposal to provide four digital organs and two digital pianos for hire – at various locations and hire periods for the events coming up in that week of August.
I submitted a written quotation within a few days and received a confirmation by the end of May from the WMOF 2018 Office. They confirmed that Jeffers Music had been selected as the company to provide the required instruments for hire, for the week long event.
Time to deliver
As you may well imagine – there followed a busy time of making sure the required stock was available for these hires. A three manual hire organ from Jeffers Music was available but additional instruments were also supplied from Viscount Classical Organ’s main UK office, based in Bicester. A few Yamaha digital pianos were also ordered from a different supplier for the event.
These Viscount hire organs and Yamaha digital pianos were provided mainly for the World Meeting of Families 2018 Congress, planned to be held at the RDS in Dublin. However, a Viscount digital organ was also provided for the Papal Visit to Knock Shrine in Co. Mayo on the Sunday morning of his visit. ALSO – our Viscount digital organ (and a Yamaha digital piano) was to be used for the outdoor final Papal Mass held in Phoenix Park, Dublin on the Sunday afternoon – before the Pope departed from Ireland after his two day Irish tour. It turned out to be a very busy week!
It was a great privilege for Jeffers Music to be chosen to provide these hire instruments for such a historic occasion. The last and only time a Pope visited Ireland was 39 years ago in September 1979. Believe it or not – Jeffers were also involved back then in providing the hire organ for that Papal visit, which was a Mass held outdoors at Limerick Racecourse. So, not only was Viscount to be used at this 2018 visit, but a Viscount organ was also hired also back in 1979 for the Papal Mass in the same location at Phoenix Park!
Jeffers Music Company Ltd based in Bandon, Co. Cork are an Irish company soley involved in the sales, service and hire of digital classical organs and digital pianos.
