The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
Every so often we get to work in exceptional buildings and extraordinary circumstances. The Jesuit Chapel at Stonyhurst College managed to combine both these attributes in a single commission. On entering the chapel at Stonyhurst College you would be forgiven for thinking it was the work of Augustus Pugin, but it is actually that of…
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All of us in the organ world are no doubt tired of the age old joke, Question: ‘Whats the difference between and organist and a terrorist’? Answer: ‘You can negotiate with a terrorist’ It no doubt stems from the probably correct recognition that if the congregation want to go in one direction and the organist…
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About 13 years ago now we supplied one of our very first 3 manual drawstop instruments to a customer in South London. Its often after a period of ownership of this length that a number of customers have thoughts of exploring a newer instrument. This may offer an improved sound platform or just as in…
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Keen readers of Viscount’s tales will know that the company jumped to attention on a Bank Holiday when the call came for an emergency hire organ at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel in Greenwich. A few months later, in September 2021, I was asked to voice a Regent 356 at the chapel. This new…
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It was on almost the eve of the first lockdown in March 2020 that Richard Goodall and I visited Lambeth Palace Chapel to explore the options for a digital organ there. Here 15 months later is the story of the installation in this most important historic London building, which is also the residence of the…
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The musical world is slowly waking up and it was lovely on a very sunny Friday to travel to Cambridge to voice and regulate a Viscount Organ in a very special location. Oxford and Cambridge must due to the large number of college chapels possibly have the greatest number of pipe organs to the square…
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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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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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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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Now that Covid-19 lockdown is beginning to ease we have been able to undertake some installations which had been postponed. It is great news for the churches, as they are now able to resume some services and revitalise their music with brand new instruments. Last month we also wrote about how we resumed our organ…
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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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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 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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We were contacted by Haslemere Methodist Church in July 2019. They were in search of a new organ to replace their ageing and slightly unreliable two manual Ahlborn organ which was purchased from new around 30 years ago. The instrument had given great service, but the old electronics were causing interference with their new PA…
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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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As many organists will no doubt be aware, Buckfast Abbey in Devon has recently benefited from the installation of a remarkable new pipe organ by Fratelli Ruffatti. This dramatic new instrument sports two beautiful consoles and a gallery organ, the whole thing playable from either end of the church. As part of the completion of…
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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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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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We are always delighted when a church chooses to purchase a Viscount organ. Especially having done their own lengthy research into the various brands available. A decision to purchase a Viscount Envoy 35-F It is exactly what happened earlier this year when we were contacted by Reg Huxtable from Our Lady and The English Martyrs…
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Traveling with colleague Richard Patt to meet a potential customer in Suffolk recently, I had the opportunity to pass close by one of our recent installations in a very fine country church. So I took the opportunity to break the journey and pop into St Mary’s to listen to our instrument. St Mary the Virgin…
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About a year ago now I learnt that Miller’s Music of Cambridge had provided a Cadet Compact 31 which was installed in the rooms of the senior organ scholar. I was aware that many college organ scholars often had a piano in their rooms and had wondered why none (to my knowledge) at either Oxford…
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I thought you might like to read an update on the instrument installed in 2011 at St Augustine’s Church. New place for the organ console and speakers The church closed in 2017 for a major refurbishment and redecoration which was completed earlier this year. We removed the instrument and took it into storage while the…
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