Peragallo Organ Company Our 100th Year: A Look Back View the stoplist By John Peragallo IV In the words of Ervin Drake, and as sung by Frank Sinatra, “It was a very good year.” Our centennial year 2018 was filled with so many wonderful moments that we will remember for years to come as we celebrated relationships, new and old. As the story goes, John Peragallo Sr. was installing the American Master Organ Company’s theater organ in Butte, Montana, in 1917, when he received word that the young company back home had gone bankrupt. At this point, he made the brave decision to set up his own workshop in Paterson, New Jersey, and began a journey of what would be 100 years of continual organbuilding. So, appropriately, we began … [Read more...]

Central United Methodist Church Fayetteville, Arkansas Buzard Pipe Organ Builders Champaign, Illinois by John-Paul Buzard View an enlarged cover View the Stop List   It has been a privilege and honor to have designed and built this new organ for Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Particularly humbling was that music director Frode Gundersen and organist Scott Montgomery selected our firm after lengthy auditioning tours to instruments made by many other fine organbuilders. I believe it was a combination of outstanding constructional quality, tonal sophistication, honorable business practices, and personal “chemistry” that won the day for us. In addition to selecting an organbuilder, Frode and … [Read more...]

The New Dobson Organ at St. Thomas Church In New York City By John Panning and Jonathan Ambrosino View the new case View the 1913 case View the Stop List Lovers of church music have long made St. Thomas Church, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan’s swank Midtown, a place of pilgrimage. Within its landmark Gothic Revival walls, the parish has forged a unique musical perspective, combining a high Anglican choral tradition with organs of French inspiration, a musical practice that strongly informed the tonal design of our recently completed Opus 93. The two basic requirements demanded by this tradition—color and discretion for choral accompaniment, grandeur and panache for solo performance—are found in few historic styles. On the face of it, … [Read more...]

Two Tales of Two-Manual Organs By Patrick J. Murphy View an enlarged cover Stop List Organbuilders dream about having the opportunity to construct fine large instruments that stunningly display their creative ethos. The realities of today’s market, however, more often challenge builders to create highly flexible instruments in very limited spaces and budgets. Many congregations give in to these limitations easily, threatening the extinction of quality music in their worship life. But there are many parishes, even small ones, that understand the value of quality music in their services and find ways to overcome the perceived limitations. Patrick J. Murphy & Associates recently had the fortunate opportunity to provide modest … [Read more...]

St. Paul’s Memorial United Methodist Church South Bend, Indiana Berghaus Pipe Organ Builders Inc. • Bellwood, Illinois View an enlarged cover Stop List By Jonathan Oblander Situated on the corner of Colfax and LaPorte avenues in South Bend, the Gothic St. Paul’s Memorial United Methodist Church was designed by architect S.R. Badgely and dedicated on March 15, 1903. The church and furnishings were generously funded by the Clem Studebaker family, whose wagon and then automobile manufacturing business operated for 115 years. Although Clem Studebaker helped lay the cornerstone of the church in 1901, he unfortunately died before seeing its completion. However, he is memorialized as a member of the crowd listening to the apostle Paul … [Read more...]

Multum in Parvo The New Schoenstein at Church of the Redeemer Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts By Jack M. Bethards and Michael S. Murray View an enlarged cover View the Stop List Working within strict space or budget limits is the intriguing challenge of organbuilding. My fascination with it began with this description of the 1899 Willis at St. Bees Priory in James B. Jamison’s marvelous book Organ Design and Appraisal. “The scheme resembles an athlete trained down to hard muscle, without a superfluous ounce of flesh. The specification disdains ornaments and concentrates on essentials. I can also state that its color flexibility is astonishing, largely because of the individual stop beauty (there never were lovelier voices) and the way … [Read more...]

Northrop Auditorium and its Reconditioned Aeolian-Skinner Opus 892 by Mike Foley View an enlarged cover View the Stop List       Completed in 1929, Cyrus Northrop Memorial Auditorium was named after the University of Minnesota’s second president and remains an iconic structure on the university’s Minneapolis campus. The Aeolian-Skinner, Opus 892, was installed in four sections between 1932 and 1935. We were called to survey the organ in 2009. Northrop seated 4,847; it was a distance of 206 feet from the stage to the balcony’s rear seats. From there, one almost needed binoculars to see the console. I was used to seeing a theater’s organ chambers in the side walls aiming the sound squarely at the audience. … [Read more...]