September 2024

September 2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the chartering of the American Institute of Organbuilders (AIO), a unique organization that has had a transformative effect on American organbuilding. Anniversaries invite us to reflect upon our past and contemplate how far we have come. Thus, this article will describe the history of the AIO, its programs, and its impact.

Schoenstein & Co., Benicia, California; Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, Virginia

Editor’s note: The Diapason offers here a feature at our digital edition—four sound clips. Any subscriber can access this by logging into our website (thediapason.com), click on Magazine, then this issue, View Digital Edition, scroll to this page, and click on each <soundclip> in the text.

Out and about

After Christmas 2019 I retired from maintaining pipe organs. With some forty-five years of racing about twice a year to get to every client during “tuning season,” I was looking forward to sitting back, watching my friends and colleagues as they blasted about doing Easter and spring tunings, but as it turned out, no one was doing any tuning that spring. In March of 2020 the world as we knew it shut down, churches closed their doors, and organ tuners across the country stayed home.

John "Jack" Sievert

John “Jack” Sievert, 94, of Summerville, South Carolina, died July 24. He was born June 13, 1930, in Lake City, Iowa. After graduation from high school, he attended Drake University, Des Moines, obtaining a Bachelor of Music Education degree. Following this he served a two-year term in the United States Army during the Korean conflict. He then attended Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, earning a Master of Music degree.