The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
The RSCM produces guidance on fees and remuneration of Church Musicians. They now invite you to take part to help refresh and overhaul this work. The purpose of this survey is to inform updated guidance on church musicians’ fees to be issued by the RSCM, often known as “RSCM rates”. Church music is of course…
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You may have read my recent post introducing myself, if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, I invite you to catch up on this now: Meet Cassian Southwick: Another team member with a longstanding passion for organs. In that post I touched on my time as an Organ Scholar at both St…
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Hello, I’m Cassian Southwick, the newest member of the Viscount Classical Organs team. I’d like to thank David for asking me to introduce myself to you all. I’ve written from the beginning of my love of organs, all the way to the present day. A young enthusiastic musician It took me a little while longer…
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The organ world by nature is bound to be served by small companies. This applies equally to the pipe organ sector and the digital side of the industry. Many of these suppliers may only be single worker entities earning a modest living from their specialist knowledge and skills. A few grow to be more significant…
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It scary to realise that almost 5 years have passed since I was at All Hallows Church in Hargrave concluding this installation just a few months before the pandemic hit. Local organist Nicholas Pollard achieved what is quite a rare feat obtaining permission to install a large 3 manual instrument in a relatively small church….
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To encourage more musicians to take up the organ and existing organists to develop their skills and grow their confidence, the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) has relaunched Church Music Skills (Organ). This programme could be a great tool for our customers, or anyone who might be interested in learning to play this fantastic…
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2023 has been a very encouraging year. The effects of the pandemic seem now to be truly over with our important church customer market back at full throttle. Possibly even at an elevated rate as the high cost of repair of pipe organs seems to be tipping the decisions in favour of a lower cost…
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Ian Higginson, a composer, conductor, organist and teacher living and working in Gloucestershire UK, has released a new book of organ music. Christmas Organ Sound Colours Vol 1 is an organ publication from Parish Publications and now available to purchase as a physical copy or digital download. Ian Higginson has previously published other books in…
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I am sure at the beginning of 2022 we were all feeling justly happy for the future. Covid was finally a disease that could be managed thanks to our amazing vaccines and the level of take up. Life was surely back to normal to stay. Recording another organ tutorial series My first ‘event’ of the…
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While the world of YouTube and other online streaming platforms have an abundance of organ video material, it is seldom if ever presented in any detail on mainstream TV. So I was delighted to learn a few days ago that a video documentary made in 2021 by James Dawson will be shown on BBC 4…
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Yesterday I made a new friend in the organ world and I don’t understand why it took me so long to be aware of him. I am delighted to introduce you to Fugue State Films and its clearly passionate organ enthusiast owner Will Fraser. Continue reading to find out more about Will and Fugue State…
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Your chance to win a 12 month membership to the Royal College Organists (first prize) or a pair of Viscount headphones (second prize)! 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…
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A little while ago, a Facebook group dedicated to promote interest in pipe organs published post critical of Anna Lapwood doing a recital on one of our digital instruments. I will happily admit dismay that anyone could take it upon themselves to have a pop at one of the most energetic and visible ambassadors promoting…
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While there have been huge advances in ‘organ tone’ generation over the last 50 years I believe it fair to say there has not been a similar scale of improvement in speaker technology. This recent discovery shows that at least one person years ago was giving attention to the speaker end of the system. Perhaps…
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We have been asked by a church to find a new owner for their small 3 rank single manual and pedal pipe organ shown in the photographs. It was made in the 1970’s by renowned builder Peter Collins of Melton Mowbray for a home customer. The rather austere lattice front is a later addition that…
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Any thoughts that 2021 would be a normal year were quickly dashed by the Christmas 2020 lockdown. I am sure as a consequence we all started the Year in a sombre mood. Once more I sat behind my desk unable to make plans and quickly took the decision to furlough the majority of our staff….
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(This instrument is no longer available!) Some weeks ago now we were contacted by Nikki Pelmear to ask if we could help her fulfil her late father’s wishes for his Norwich Organ and music collection to find its way to a place of worship school or college. She had contacted us because of our quite…
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I am sure just like me many readers will have wondered when if ever they were going to be able to travel again. We have all become accustomed to ‘managing’ in new ways to run our lives. Customers in significant numbers had been buying organs without visiting to play and explore options. Business meetings that…
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When I came into the warehouse earlier this week I could not believe my eyes. I was greeted with the sight of a Philips Philicorda that we had been asked to scrap when we supplied a new Chorum 20. “What do you want to do with it?” quickly came the question from colleagues, hoping no…
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Many importers were rightly worried that Brexit would seriously disrupt goods flow from Europe into the UK and we were among those concerned. We took steps to ensure the warehouse was full pre-Christmas and achieved that rather well. But not as well as we did earlier this week! This is our second post Brexit delivery…
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One of the pleasing things about managing our business is the huge number of connections we make within the wider musical community. This often has nothing to do with ‘business’ in its strictest sense as the story below illustrates well. I make no secret of my Welsh roots and although I left home to live…
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It is usually with enthusiasm that I sit down about now each year and look back through our web site to remind me of all the past year’s achievements that I would like to talk about and share with you. And perhaps speculate a little about what is lining up for the year ahead. As…
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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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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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