The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
Recently I wrote about Ian Higginson and one of his latest published composition – Organ Sound Colours – Volume 1. Ian is not only an accomplished composer who has written numerous choral, organ and instrumental works that have been widely performed & published in the UK and the USA. He is also active as an…
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Pipe organ projects are known to take many years in the planning as they are always complex and expensive, often involving structural alterations and extensive fundraising. By contrast digital instruments are usually agreed and installed in less than 12 months, and often as quickly as a few months when replacing an existing digital instrument. St…
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We recently had the pleasure of meeting Reverend John Collins who was brought to Bicester by his daughter to choose his first home practice instrument. During our meeting I learnt that John had done his undergraduate training at Kings College Cambridge where he was student during World War II. He had played the organ there…
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With our offices unusually quiet again in the second lockdown I resorted to exploring YouTube for material to pass some time. I also wanted to find a film clip I remember from the 1990’s of a remarkable home organ in the USA which I saw on one of the series ‘Howard Goodall’s Organworks’ Not all…
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From time to time when we receive a used organ, it comes with a ‘stash’ of it’s previous owner’s sheet music. These are more often than not sad acquisitions, as the music belonged to the musician who has died and there is no family member who wants or can use the library that has been…
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Last Saturday I dropped my phone and smashed the screen. So careless of me but as the phone was 6 years old I was pretty philosophical about it as a trigger to get the latest all singing and dancing iPhone Apple had to offer. By mid-Monday after about 4 calls with my network provider, each…
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There are very few bonuses flowing from this pandemic in the world of performing arts. So it has been a very welcome sight to see many performers grasp the opportunities the internet provides using social media to present music to us while our concert halls and churches are closed. It’s probably fair to say that…
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We recently supplied and installed a new digital organ in St Mary & St John the Divine Balham. We replaced a 3 manual Makin pictured above installed in the early 1990’s. This instrument had done well over 25 years’ service but had been deemed beyond economic repair by a visiting engineer. About 4 stops would…
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Ever since I was a very young child I have gone to bed with a radio on all night at low level. In the beginning this was a tiny Perdio Radio that I would take under the covers so my parents in a nearby room were not aware I was still awake. Eventually of course…
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James Parsons invites students, friends and organ enthusiasts for an inspirational organ day at St Mary’s and All Saints’ in Fotheringhay. It is an opportunity to unlock the secrets of the organ but also to unlock your organ playing skills. During this fun and exciting day full of organ music you will: Play to each…
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In August 2020 we delivered a new Chorum 40 organ to Prendiville Catholic College. The organ was shipped from the UK to our dealer in Perth, Western Australia for final delivery to the school. We are of course hoping this will inspire students at the school to take up this magnificent instrument and give them…
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The fourteenth annual Andrew Chamblin Memorial Concert will be given by Margaret Phillips FRCO ARCM at 8pm in Christ Church Cathedral on Tuesday 29 September 2020 and streamed live online this year due to the pandemic (no physical attendance will be possible). Ms Phillips will play an hour-long programme of organ works by Bach, Böhm,…
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In 2019 we were invited to quote for the organ that would be required after the complete rebuilding of the Methodist Church in Driffield East Yorkshire. It’s not often in a career that one has the opportunity of working with a brand new church building. It is therefore quite remarkable that this organ installation followed…
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It is always nice to hear from from our church organ customers on occasions. A few weeks ago I received a lovely message from John Hay from St Mark’s Church in Barnet Vale, where we had installed a Viscount Envoy 33-DFV in March 2019. The email also helped me resolve a little mystery! I had…
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I think its fair to say that St. Mary & St. John The Divine, Balham has had more than its fair share of bad luck in recent times. History of St Mary and St John The Divine Founded around 1805 by dozen wealthy residents of Balham including William Wilberforce, they came together to build a…
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After what seems like months and not weeks we have brought back our organ installations team to start the backlog that has inevitably built up during lockdown. We have about eight churches ‘in waiting’ and last week saw two digital church organs finally get installed. First church organ was installed at Moravian Church We hit…
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In recent weeks and months there have been few opportunities for us to go out and gather information and stories of general interest. So it was a pleasure to be able to respond to a request for help from Ian Higginson. I’m struck by the contrast between social media and what I shall describe as…
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The COVID-19 Pandemic has had a huge impact on the lives of musicians. Their opportunities to play instruments dropped significantly with the closure of churches and schools, but also in all paid-playing opportunities for events being stopped almost overnight What we had to consider With the lockdown, and then the announcement of stage easing of…
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As I am a child of the 1960’s (born 1955), you might reasonably expect that I spent my teenage years listening to the music of the major bands of those days. Perhaps ‘The Beatles’ would be considered the highest profile, but it was also the time of Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, the Who. In…
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To try and answer this question and figure out how Bach might have regarded a modern, digital organ, we need to try to understand the man’s personality and get into his head. By all accounts Bach: Got into at least one knife fight with a bassoonist, after calling said bassoonist an ugly name Spent time…
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From time to time I am extraordinarily flattered to receive personal emails in reply to our regular monthly newsletters. If you are one of our newsletter subscribers (Subscribe here, if you haven’t already), you will already know that we work hard to fill them with juicy, interesting information based on musical interests, stories about the…
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We have a number of overseas customers, and it is always a great story to share how we get our instruments to the far corners of the world safely. I particularly enjoyed working with St Andrew’s Church in Nairobi who ordered a large 3 manual organ. In this modern world that we live in, we…
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The third piece in this organ performance tutorial series is Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring by J.S. Bach. It’s a useful and relatively gentle piece that’s popular for weddings, perhaps at the signing of the registers, but could equally well be used for memorial services. < “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” is a popular and…
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The Royal College of Organists (RCO) has generously made its considerable library of online video tutorial material available for free during the ‘lockdown’. If you care to take a look, it is extensive and of course of very good quality as you would expect. iRCO is the RCO’s virtual campus – an online environment where…
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