The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
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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A message from our MD, David Mason We are ready to open up our showroom to customers and wish to provide you with some information about how we aim to do this in a way that is safe for you to visit and, in time, for our staff to return to work. We know how…
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Are you researching a new organ for your church (whether pipe or digital) at the moment? I’m sure you will agree that it is a privilege which can be as daunting as it is exciting and interesting. Is your current instrument a pipe organ or a digital church organ? Your task will be less of…
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I am sure that we are all reeling from the shock of the imposed lockdown and spending considerable time now wondering what will follow on. What will the new norm be? When will we feel happy going to the pub again and when will our churches reopen. Most of us have too much time to…
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There can be few better known organists faces on the highways and by ways of the internet than Kevin Bowyer’s. He is often seen with his characteristic smiling face ‘beaming’ at the virtual audience. I first met Kevin in about 2003. He came to my home to offer guidance and advice to a young St…
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At Viscount Classical Organs we know how important it is to encourage and help young organists of the future where we can. It is important for our industry, and also for the future of the organ community in general. A digital practice organ helps with studies In January we received an email from young Leicestershire…
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The Covid-19 crisis has triggered a small peak in demand for home practice organs among the musicians who are now trapped at home and excluded from use of their church instrument. A practice organ for home is by any stretch of the imagination a ‘luxury purchase’. In more normal times it is dominated by a…
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The Grand Organ at Westminster Cathedral was built by Henry Willis III. Willis and Hill vied for position as England finest organ builders but Willis probably has the reputation for building more exciting pipe organs, with especially fine reed stops. The first scheme for a new organ was actually proposed by T C Lewis in…
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Your chance to win a pair of brand new Viscount VHD-1000 headphones! All you need to do is to answer the questions below correctly and you’ll be entered into the draw. To enter the competition please first read the rules and then proceed to answering the questions below. Remember to fill in your contact details…
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I am sure a question that none of us can resist putting to any accomplished professional organist we might meet is – ‘which organ does he or she consider to be the best they have ever played’? We all have genuine curiosity on that topic, one which of course is in reality impossible to split…
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In this amazingly troubled time for our world and this country I thought we needed something to distract us, if only briefly, from the avalanche of bad news that keeps hitting us from all directions. In my wilder moments I sometimes consider what music I might choose if I were ever to be asked to…
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We now have over 30 instruments in our range of organs. Adding a new smaller 3 manual organ to our range might have been the last thing you thought we needed. In recent years there have been increasing pressures for organ advisers to restrict the number of stops a digital organ provides, to a number…
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Recently I had the good fortune of attending evensong in the Kings College Chapel (for the second time). The first was some 15 years or so ago when David Briggs had very kindly arranged for me to have a play of the instrument after the service and then join him and Sir Stephen Cleobury for…
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We invited Holly Broadbent, one of our Australian based customers, to share her journey to choosing a Viscount Organ for practising at home. She is a student, studying Organ and undertaking an honours degree at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and she thought by sharing her story – it may help other home…
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David J. W. Murray is giving an organ recital on our custom built 3 manual Regent installed in 2014 by Soundtech Classical Organs of Irvine in Lyle Kirk. David is the Director of Music at Oakshaw Trinity Church, Paisley. Despite living in Glasgow, David is no stranger to Inverclyde and Lyle Kirk in particular. He…
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Our organ performance tutorials for 2020 concentrate on the playing of organ arrangements for weddings and memorial services. Often requested, this music is a regular feature of many organists’ work. Most of the pieces we’ve chosen to feature in our organ performance tutorials can be performed successfully on a wide range of different instruments. All…
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I set off early on the morning of Saturday January 25 to drive to Cardiff. I was the ‘guest speaker’ at the South East Wales Organists’ Associations annual lunch at the Radisson Blu Hotel. Born in Wales and until 7 years ago with a parent still living in Cardiff, this was a drive the car…
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