Pasi Organ Builders, Roy, Washington, has completed a project rebuilding the 1961 Holtkamp organ in the Abbey Church of St. John’s Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota, an edifice seating 2,000 persons and supporting hard surfaces yielding a generous acoustic. The three-manual, 64-rank instrument was enlarged to four manuals and 112 ranks.
Editor's note: Click on the link above to view the front cover of the April 1951 issue of The Diapason and announcement of Opus 1132 for the Church of the Redeemer, New Haven, Connecticut.
The organ’s first career
In 1951 New Haven’s Church of the Redeemer, founded in 1838, moved into a neo-colonial structure designed by prominent local architect Douglas Orr. The new church was located in the city’s East Rock neighborhood and quickly took its place among Orr’s other distinguished buildings that remain popular to the present day.
Cover Feature: Orgues Létourneau Opus 135 May 25, 2021
Orgues Létourneau Opus 135
Even when measured by expansive Texan standards, First United Methodist Church in Lubbock is extraordinary in scale. The church’s Gothic bell tower is visible from just about anywhere in downtown Lubbock. The church campus sprawls over two city blocks and includes spacious wings for music, Christian education, youth, and even physical fitness. Completed in 1955, the sanctuary seats over 1,800 people, and its spectacular rose window is reportedly among the eight largest in the world. Confronted with such a voluminous space, organ enthusiasts and builders alike would be forgiven if their thoughts gravitated towards grand schemes. Nonetheless, First Methodist’s sanctuary opened its doors in March of 1955 with M. P. Möller’s Opus 8530, a positively ascetic instrument of 38 ranks spread over seven divisions and located in all four corners of the sanctuary. The organ was pl