The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
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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David has kindly asked me to introduce myself as the new part-time member of staff based at our Bicester office. Most of my career has been spent in the musical instruments industry, although for five years during the 1990s I worked in the publications department of the Royal School of Church Music, located in the…
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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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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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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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Those of you who have kindly read many of my blogs will know that I grew up in Wales moving away to work in London at 21, well before my now obsessive interest in the organ took hold. And so perhaps it is not altogether surprising that the number of Welsh pipe organs I have…
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Leeds International Organ Festival brings some of the world’s finest players to the city, performing on Leeds Cathedral’s fine four-manual Klais organ in the lunchtime recital series, and leading classes for some of the young pupils in the Organists’ Training Programme in the local area. This year, a particular highlight will be the renewed composer…
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Our newest recruit, Richard Patt, talks about how his father’s love of the organ influenced him and how a chance meeting in a music shop led him to marrying the love of his life. My interest in the organ started when I was eight years old. My father, a green grocer and ice-cream maker, felt…
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This is a post written by Richard Lowe who is an Organ Consultant and Organist . He had a very exciting and interesting story to share from Christ Church West Didsbury where he works as Director of Music. So we’ve asked him to write this post for us. Christ Church West Didsbury is rather unusual amongst…
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Early last December we published what turned out to be our most far reaching Facebook Post ever. We were trying to find a new home for a very pretty little pipe organ about to be ejected from a Methodist Chapel that was in the process of conversion into flats (see a picture at the bottom…
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For the second time in recent years we are providing a hire instrument for the magnificent St Bride’s Church in London. Last time the pipe organ was decommissioned while the church was redecorated. This occasion is far more serious as the Compton pipe organ is now silent following a massive lightening strike that destroyed quite…
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I do not expect that many of us will have a clear memory of the first organ we ever heard, or perhaps even played. I can be fairly certain that for me it will have been the Llandaff Cathedral instrument sometime in 1960, as from the age of 5 I was a pupil at the…
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I was in the Minster twice last year. First in May for a delightful hour or so locked in alone with the Minster pipe organ and then in October to join a group celebrating the 100th birthday of former Minster organist Francis Jackson. Had I known at the time that we would be providing 2…
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It is a vexed question – how long should you expect a digital church organ to last and how do costs compare with repairing your pipe organ? On a great many occasions on social media I see comments that digital organs will last at best 15 years while a pipe organ lasts a life time….
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Not since I was in school in Somerset have I set foot in Wells Cathedral which I hate to consider let alone write is 44 years ago. In those days my organ tutor David Ponsford was the assistant at Wells Cathedral and so I managed to get an hour or so at the organ console…
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Recently we supplied a hire instrument to St John’s Berkswell to cover the renovation of their Willis pipe organ and the discovery of this small Warwickshire church was a revelation in more ways than one. I will write up in detail information on the hire later including a lot of images of the very fine…
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Join this Organ Recital and Presentation in the fabulous Christ Church Welshpool on Sunday 24th September 2017. James Parsons welcomes you to an afternoon of Organ Music to raise awareness of the 200 year old pipe organ and to launch the organ restoration appeal. Christ Church in Welshpool Christ Church Welshpool is the prominent Victorian…
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The Astwell Benefice located on the extreme southern border of Northamptonshire with Oxfordshire comprises 6 churches in the villages of Helmdon, Syresham, Radstone, Whitfield Whappenham and Weedon Lois. They are typical small village churches that seat between 100 and 200 if absolutely packed with Sunday services attracting between 10 and 50 depending upon the time…
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Those of you familiar with St John’s Smiths Square or steeped in knowledge of the pipe organs of the British Isles will know that SJSS has a very fine Klais pipe organ and so should not be in need of a hire organ. However, things do not always go to plan and so it was…
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Towards the end of September we were making another DVD in Selby Abbey and staying near York so it was too good an opportunity to pass by visiting some of the very fine churches in the city. Also never having played York Minster it seemed an ideal time to see if we could have some…
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Everyone who is involved in church music will have their own view about a pipe organ and its use in church life, most likely based on how they use the organ in their own worship. Ask 100 people and you’ll get 100 different answers. Here, I’ve tried to give a little historical context based on…
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I had great fun playing the newly restored Willis organ at St Mary & St Giles in Stony Stratford in September this year. The organ has just had a £250,000 major overhaul by F H Browne & Sons which included adding 4 stops that had been prepared for, but never made, and also replacing a…
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OK, so this is partly an excuse for me to bang on about Italy and all the lovely places I visit there but I am just beginning to realise the very different style the small town and country churches in Italy have that is greatly to the advantage of the music making. There is no…
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