From the organbuilder
While our firm has been very prolific as a builder of new instruments since our founding in 1973, our company also has been very significant as a rebuilder and maintenance firm. So in 2011, when our firm was invited to Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, we approached a situation that required all of our skill sets.
Situated on a hill overlooking the city of Lewiston, Maine, the Gothic Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul is visible from a great distance in any direction. Its grand architecture beckons visitors from all over. The interior of the basilica is as sumptuous as its exterior. And among the many treasures of the edifice are the organs.
The Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians (CRCCM) met in Washington, D.C., January 6–9 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (National Shrine) for its 31st annual gathering. Members of the National Shrine’s music staff—Peter Latona, director of music; Richard Fitzgerald, associate director of music; and Benjamin LaPrairie, assistant director of music—designed and directed the conference gathering with help from the National Shrine’s support staff.
Most organs have two or more manuals, and organ composers have, for most of the time that organ music has been written, been able to assume that an organ would have at least two manuals, so they have sometimes written music that expressly requires two manuals. There is also music that can only be played appropriately on one manual, that is, with both hands on the same keyboard as each other at any given time.
A show of hands
It’s the middle of March and here in the frigid Northeast we had a little tease last week when the temperature outside went up into the fifties for a day or so. But while this is a beautiful sunny morning, it’s around twenty degrees outside, and the wind is blowing hard from the northwest. It’s bone-chilling cold and so dry that joints in floor boards are wide open, and my hands feel like baskets full of fall leaves. The almond scent of Jergens™ fills the room to no avail.
David Arthur Sansome Gell, 70 years old, died March 2, 2014, in Santa Barbara, California. Born in Alberta, Canada, his musical journey began at age 8 as a boy chorister in an Edmonton, Alberta, church. After immigrating to Alhambra, California, he began organ lessons at age 13.
