The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
2019 was a momentous year and as I sit typing this account, I am not quite sure where to put the emphasis. The beginning of the year was understandably focussed on some staff changes. Our new sales manager Richard Patt had just joined and we were also making plans for long term friend and colleague…
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I have chosen this customer installation to write up in some detail as there is an interesting story to tell that involves a lot of the issues faced by our country churches in general and specifically with organ improvements. All Hallows Church is unusual in the following respects:- The speed with which the formal processes…
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I was delighted to receive an invitation to attend a gathering of organ and church music enthusiasts for a special evensong service at the Chapel Royal St James’s Palace in November. I had been there many years before when Joseph Nolan was playing for a BBC 3 broadcast evensong to act as page turner. Unexpectedly…
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Almost exactly a year ago we were asked to find a new home for a very pretty small pipe organ in a Methodist Church that was about to be converted into flats. It was a sensationally successful social media campaign finding many offers for the instrument and a post that reached over 175,000 readers. We…
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We are delighted to support St Edward’s College in Liverpool with a permanent loan instrument for the College Hall. The digital organ (Viscount Cadet 31) will allow their young organ students access to an instrument in school to practise and perform on. The organ will be used in assemblies, liturgies and concerts in the College…
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Trinity Methodist Church in Golders Green have a Compton 6 rank extension organ dating from 1939 housed in 2 swell boxes on their west end gallery. The console has the Compton ‘illuminated’ stop controls. About 15 years ago it was subject to an expensive overhaul and it again faced a further refurbishment estimate in the…
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Here at Viscount, a vitally important part of our job is to make sure we know each and every product inside and out, not just from an operational perspective, but also technical. Every now and then we will get a call or email from a customer informing us that their instrument has a problem which…
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We are living in an age where technology seems to be moving at a remarkable pace. I wonder if our Victorian forbears felt the same? I doubt it. Never before has technology so much entered our daily lives. Smart phones, video links and apps that allow us to turn off the home lights from far…
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I am delighted to tell you that September 2019 saw the addition of this important place of worship to our list of prestigious organ hire clients. Its also amusing that it seems we are constantly bumping into staff from Harrison & Harrison as they strip out the pipe organ while we install our speakers. Not…
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For the fourth tutorial in our 2019 series, Francis Rumsey discusses the registration of Franck’s organ works with Jonathan Kingston. They decided to use his Chorale in A minor as an example, because it typifies a number of the challenges faced by organists who need to create sounds similar to those Franck might have expected….
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Almost two years ago now we took an order from the United Reformed Church in Muswell Hill who were planning a £3.0 million refurbishment of their building. It is unusual to get this much notice of a firm order but the church were anxious to fix the price in the context of the looming Brexit…
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La Révolte Des Orgues, composed in 2007, originates from Jean Guillou’s conceptual design for an organ in the new concert hall in Tenerife (completed 2003). The composition came into being when he devised the distribution of the organ pipes among multiple cases arranged around the audience. The formal go ahead for this UK production of…
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Later this year we are providing a new digital instrument for this lovely little country church. The charming small pipe organ works quite well but as you can see from the pictures could do with some TLC and also good clean. Here is its NPOR entry from which you will see that the builder may…
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Earlier this year we wrote about how RTE in Ireland televise a religious service every Sunday morning. This is normally recorded in a TV studio in Dublin but there is also an outside broadcast from some church around Ireland. Generally a Yamaha grand piano is used in the studio, or the musicians bring in their…
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On Tuesday July 9th 2019 we installed a hire organ in St George’s Cathedral Southwark. The 10th instrument currently on hire and for quite an unusual reason that I will explain below. The following day I went in with my new colleague Richard Goodall to check out the installation and carry out some basic voicing….
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I was recently in Manchester for the launch concert of a Theatre Organ project I am involved with and I met Ian Wolstenholme who introduced me to an interesting programme he produces on a monthly basis for Oldham Community Radio. The programme Community Keyboards covers all aspects of the organ world from Theatre to Classical…
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In the third tutorial in our Organ Registration Tutorial series we’re using extracts from Herbert Howells Psalm Prelude. Jonathan and Francis discuss and demonstrate a challenge that most organists will have to master at some stage in their careers — what could be termed the “seamless crescendo”. Of course there’s no such thing as a…
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It seems that the need for hire organs just keeps on growing as another ‘SOS’ request came in recently from St Martin’s Church Bladon. A call on a Thursday needed an organ installed the next day for a wedding on Saturday following the pipe organ blower failure. Bladon at least is quite close also being…
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Recently I found myself travelling to Peterborough to meet a potential client. Having time on my hands I decided to revisit nearby Fotheringhay Church where almost 20 years ago now I used to meet James Parsons for a monthly lesson. This was on the wonderful Vincent Woodstock organ that resides there. These trips were really…
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If you are a regular viewer of our video publications you will almost certainly be familiar with our colleague Francis Rumsey. He is a key member of the part time team both in front of and behind the camera. Francis is organist of St Mary’s Church Witney where we have made some of our video…
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This year we decided for the first time to attend the annual MTA conference. For us held conveniently near by at Bromsgrove School. The school campus is impressive, extending to near 100 acres with numerous buildings and sports facilities spread all over the large site. The Music Teachers’ Conference Trade Fair About 100 delegates from…
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As described in part two of our welsh organ adventure we had started the day at St Peter’s Church in Pentre. This was followed by a detour to St George’s Cwm Parc where the installed Viscount Organ had some external speakers added. By midday we were back in the car and heading towards Brecon for…
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Our short drive from St German’s Church (see part one of our welsh organ pilgrimage) took us to Llandaff Cathedral. Third stop on Organ trip – Llandaff Cathedral Llandaff Cathedral now has a 4 manual organ built by Nicholson of Worcester. Substantially completed in 2010 the final solo organ stops were added in 2013. See…
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Every Sunday morning RTE in Ireland televise a religious service. Mostly this is recorded in a TV studio in Dublin but on special occasions there is also an outside broadcast from some church around Ireland. Generally a Yamaha grand piano is used in the studio, or the musicians bring in their own instruments usually in…
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