Music Industry Seminar to Focus on Sweden, the U.S. and the Role of Music and Branding

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

The Centennial Sentinel
America’s heaviest president, William Howard Taft (cousin of Frank Taft, art director of the Aeolian Organ Company), was inaugurated on March 4, 1909. Apache Chief Geronimo died on February 17. Isaac Albéniz died on May 18, and organist Dudley Buck died on October 9. Giacomo Puccini was fifty-one years old, Claude Monet was sixty-nine, and Camille Saint-Saëns was seventy-four (he would live twelve more years).
Author Eudora Welty was born on April 13, and inventor of the electric guitar Leo Fender was born on August 10. George Gershwin, Louis Vierne, and Charles-Marie Widor still had twenty-eight years of life ahead of them—all three died in 1937. Gustav Mahler wrote Das Lied von der Erde, Richard Strauss wrote Elektra, and Will Hough and Frank Adams wrote I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now. The City of San Francisco banned the residential ownership of cows.1
And on December 1, 1909, the first edition of The Diapason took newsstands by storm. The lead article praised the new Casavant organ at Northwestern University: “Canada has shown that if it is in any way behind United States enterprise, it is not in the field of organbuilding. . . . Casavant Brothers claim the proud distinction of never having built an unsatisfactory instrument in the fifty years they been in business.” (Wow! I wonder what Ernest Skinner thought when he read that! “Dear Editor: Please cancel my subscription.”)
Twelve hundred issues. The October 2009 issue is on my desk. The masthead proclaims “One Hundredth Year: No. 10, Whole No. 1199.” The heritage of the pipe organ covered in the magazine’s early days is the stuff of today’s legends. On page twelve, I read snips from seventy-five years ago (1934) under the heading “Looking Back.” The death of Edwin Lemare is mentioned, as is the work of T. Tertius Noble, David McK. Williams, and Pietro Yon. I suppose one had to choose between Sunday Evensongs at St. Thomas’s, St. Bartholomew’s, and St. Patrick’s, those great New York churches where Noble, Williams, and Yon held forth.
After church you could have dinner at Alexandra (8 East 49th Street: serves a champagne cocktail with dinner; price $1.10 to $1.50), something a little fancier at The Tapestry Room (Ritz Tower, Park Avenue at 57th St.: a small, intimate, charming place to lunch or dine; dinner $2.50 to $3), or go whole hog at Iridium Room and Maisonette Russe (Hotel St. Regis, Fifth Ave. at 55th St.: home of “High-class entertainment”; dinner $3.50 to $4).2 Note the convenience of my travelogue—all three churches and all three restaurants are within five blocks of each other. In three weeks you could attend each service and eat at each restaurant. You’d be out less than ten dollars a head, not counting what you put in the offering plate.
What about the organbuilders? It seemed that all important American organbuilders had showrooms in midtown Manhattan. Leave St. Thomas Church and find the Skinner Organ Company showroom across the street (Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street). One block north was Welte-Mignon (Fifth and 54th, across from the Hotel St. Regis). The Aeolian Organ Company had three Fifth Avenue addresses (at 54th across from Welte, at 42nd, and at 34th), which allowed easy access to the famed Aeolian Music Library. Aeolian patrons could borrow rolls from the library—some organ contracts included extensive “complimentary” library rights. It made sense to have a showroom every twelve blocks.
The Estey showroom was at Fifth and 51st, and the Los Angeles Art Organ Company was at Fifth and 34th, the same intersection as the southernmost Aeolian showroom. M. P. Möller was a block east in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at 49th and Park, no coincidence as there was a Möller theatre organ in the hotel’s ballroom. Each of these showrooms had at least one organ.3 You could walk past all these addresses in half an hour.

A trusted companion
The Diapason has chronicled a very active century. Its history spans almost the entire lives of both E. Power Biggs (1906–1977) and Virgil Fox (1912–1980), who together personified the two sides of a great twentieth-century debate. It includes the last fifteen years of Hook & Hastings, almost all of Skinner and Aeolian-Skinner, the last eighty-three years of Möller, the entire history of the Organ Historical Society (founded 1956), and all but thirteen years of the American Guild of Organists (founded 1896).
In the last century, the American pipe organ industry has gone from building more than 2,000 new instruments a year to fewer than one hundred. Attendance at Christian churches has plummeted.
E. Power Biggs spoke of the time when more Americans attended performances of live classical music than professional sports events. Today the pressure for ice time has decimated youth choir programs, as it seems more important to many families (at least here in New England) that the kids be playing hockey at six on a Sunday morning rather than getting ready for choir practice. Non-profit organizations are struggling to survive. Countless technologies have been created and evolved to distract the public from the fine arts. And technologies have been created and evolved to supplant the pipe organ. It’s a pretty grim picture. So what’s to celebrate?

A mid-century renaissance
I have written frequently about the Revival of Classic Principles of Organbuilding (caps intended), which roughly parallels my lifetime. The year of my birth saw the founding of the Organ Historical Society and the death of G. Donald Harrison. The Flentrop organ in the museum formerly known as Busch-Reisinger at Harvard was installed in 1958. At the same time, Charles Fisk was working with Walter Holtkamp as Holtkamp installed an organ with a Rückpositif (on a pitman windchest) at the school formerly known as the Episcopal Theological School in Harvard Square. Since then C. B. Fisk, Inc. has completed more than 130 organs, many of them monumental in scale. Sounds like a lot for a half-century of work, but it pales in comparison to Möller producing five or six thousand organs in fifty years earlier in the twentieth century. (Fisk has built their organs with around twenty-five workers—Möller had hundreds.)
By the time I caught the pipe organ bug, the revival was in full swing. Growing up in Boston, I heard E. Power Biggs play many times, most often at the Busch-Reisinger Museum. I was surrounded by the new organs of Fisk, Noack, Bozeman, and Andover. There were new tracker organs by foreign builders such as Casavant, Flentrop, and Frobenius. And of course there was the nineteenth-century heritage of organs by Hook, Hutchings, and Johnson, among many others. I was mentored and encouraged by the people who built, played, and envisioned all those instruments. There was one fascinating restaurant dinner (at The Würsthaus, formerly in Harvard Square) at which it was noted that nine of the people present were organists at churches with new Fisk organs. My lessons and all my after-school practice were on Fisk organs, and my first real job as a church organist placed me at a three-manual Hook built in 1860.
Ironically, it wasn’t until I was a student at Oberlin that I played regularly on an organ with electro-pneumatic action (a Holtkamp practice organ and the Aeolian-Skinner in Finney Chapel, since replaced by Fisk). But at Oberlin I was exposed to the international movement of early performance practice that was breathing new life into the music of J. S. Bach and his seemingly countless predecessors. We practiced scales using the middle three fingers of each hand. We limited registration changes to follow the major architecture of the music. We didn’t think twice about the absence of expression shutters. And we played the masterworks of Romantic organ music on unequal temperaments.

May the force be with you
I’ve alluded to the “Organ Wars” of the twentieth century. Vitriol was commonplace in the pages of The Diapason and The American Organist (the magazine formerly known as Music/AGO—we all said Music-A-go-go). The battle could roughly be described as “Biggs vs. Fox,” or the light side versus the dark side—and your version of chiaroscuro depended on your point of view. On one side were those musicians devoted to the new wave of old styles (tracker actions, early fingerings, crystal-clear registrations); on the other, the “comfortable” world of electro-pneumatic organs (multiple expression boxes, sliding thumbs soloing internal melodies). What one called bright, clear, and cheerful, the other called shrill and screechy. What one called smooth and expressive, the other called mushy and lugubrious. Cross-the-aisle name-calling was commonplace and nasty.
But it was a true renaissance. The entire industry was being renewed. Every tenet and tenon, every principle and Principal was being examined and questioned. We worked hard to develop historic justification for everything we did. We relearned the value of craftsmanship over mass production. We programmed recitals for scholarship over musicianship. And we installed pipe organs for the sake of the music rather than the liturgy.
As a large tracker organ with a classic French specification was installed in an important Episcopal church, the organ committee wrote that their study convinced them that the Classic French organ was ideal for the leadership of Anglican worship. It reminds me of a parishioner in my home parish upset over the introduction of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, who stated, “If the King James Version was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!”4
As we passed from the 1980s into the ’90s and watched attendance at organ recitals dwindle, it seemed to me that organists and organbuilders were finding themselves in ivory towers. I believe it was by default rather than intention. Our pride in our newly acquired corporate knowledge blinded us to the pleasures of our audiences: “You will sit there and listen to this historically informed recital played correctly on this historically informed instrument. You will not applaud unless or until I say so. It is through my enlightenment that you will enjoy yourself. Y’all come back now . . .”
This idea developed in my mind over several years, and I knew I was treading on dangerous ice, or was it thin ground? In essence, I was criticizing three decades of the thought and work of every one of my colleagues, not to mention myself. With care I began expressing it. I would lob it in the air between sips of brandy at the end of a long lubricated dinner. I would share it with those I was sure would agree. I would share it with people I supposed I could sway. Each time I knew I was expressing something controversial. When I realized that no one was disagreeing with me I grew bolder, sharing my thoughts and watching eyebrows arch.
A performance is enhanced by the historical awareness of the performer, just as we understand more about a Renaissance painting valued at ten million dollars when we realize that the artist died penniless and destitute. But it’s the audience’s response that matters the most, as it is the audience’s response that creates the ten-million-dollar value of that old picture. We rely on a large and appreciative audience to inspire our expression, to ask us back to play again, to fund the frightfully expensive organs on which we rely, and yes, even to appreciate our unusual skills. Our audiences are thrilled when we give them music they know and love, and tunes they can whistle and sing as they make their way home, as well as music that will expand and inspire them.
Of close to 1,100 violins built by Antonio Stradivari, some 650 are still in use, inspiring modern players and thrilling modern audiences. But not one is in original condition. Each has been given a new stronger neck, each has modern strings, each has been boosted to sound forth in the cavernous rooms in which we listen to music, and not one plays at its original pitch. Why should organists and organbuilders limit themselves to sounds of the past, sounds that are curious to the ears of modern listeners, ears that are jaded by stadium roars, jet airplanes, steel wheels on steel rails, and honking horns on Fifth Avenue?5
I was encouraged to find support for this thought in an editorial letter published in The Diapason:

Dear Sir: After many years’ association with the trade, the writer is inclined to the belief that pipe organ manufacturers, as a class, err in taking themselves seriously.
To listen to the tales of our adventures in this field of labor one might easily be convinced that all the knowledge of the past ages had become focalized upon our respective intellects, and that upon our demise the building of organs would become one of the lost arts . . .
Now, it is because of this, and the unresponsive attitude naturally following, that the commercial status of the trade as a whole is not resting upon a higher level. We have managed badly in many respects. Each has assumed that he is the only person in the world who can build a perfectly good pipe organ. We have ‘knocked’ each other, and have at least permitted our representatives to educate the public in the gentle art of ‘knocking.’ [The public’s] reaction we refuse to recognize as our own . . .
Every organbuilder knows that, compared with other industries of like responsibilities and risks, this is about the least remunerative. Started in a monastery, a work of love and devotion, it has never risen above that level sufficiently to classify the owners of factories as ‘capitalists.’
We really desire a remedy, and to most of us the nature of the remedy is obvious, but up to this time not one of us has taken the initiative. . . . The other builder, whose work we decry, can build a good organ—he probably does—and he would gladly build a better one if the conditions imposed by committees whom you have helped educate to demand almost impossible things did not prevent.
The trade CAN unite to PERMIT clean, remunerative business. No one should desire a union for the enforcement of anything.
Let’s get together. Who will make the first move?

This sounds like a time when the organ world started to come to its senses. It sounds like about 1988, when the Organ Historical Society held its convention in San Francisco and featured electro-pneumatic organs by Murray Harris, Austin, and Skinner (but no cows). Thomas Hazleton played music of Tchaikovsky, Guilmant, Howells, and William Walton on the four-manual Skinner at Trinity Episcopal Church, and the OHS presented the church with a plaque honoring the historic organ. A cross-section diagram of a complex electro-pneumatic action was published on the front cover of the convention booklet, taking the place of the ubiquitous ten-stop tracker organ.
It sounds like about 1992, when the monumental Fisk organ was inaugurated at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, an instrument universally celebrated as a successful orchestral powerhouse in spite of its tracker action.
It sounds like about 2004, when the indescribable masterpiece of commercial public organs in the Wanamaker store in Philadelphia (now Macy’s) was regaining its deserved status as one of the great organs in the world, even though it has eleven expression pedals.
Wrong. This passionate plea for honesty and unanimity in the organ business was published on the front page of the seventh issue of The Diapason, June 1, 1910, the same issue that announced that the annual meeting of the American Guild of Organists elected Frank Wright as Warden, William C. Carl as Sub-Warden, and Clarence Dickinson as one of the councilors. In that issue, the AGO membership committee reported 1,000 members, and the treasurer reported a balance of $551.87.
The year The Diapason first published an editorial calling on organbuilders to lighten up was the year the Boy Scouts of America was founded, when the U.S. Senate granted former President Teddy Roosevelt a pension of $10,000, when the Union of South Africa was founded as a union within the British Empire, when German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich announced a definitive cure for syphilis, and when Alva Fisher patented the first complete, self-contained electric washing machine.

Back toward the middle
Shortly after I graduated from Oberlin, I was involved in releathering a large organ by Aeolian-Skinner. I was intrigued by its expressive capabilities, but didn’t understand them and certainly didn’t know how to use them. And shortly after that graduation, I was involved in the installation of a large Flentrop organ—a glorious looking thing with polished façade, gilded pipe shades, and of course mechanical action. A shipping container (arriving in Cleveland on a Greek ship delightfully named Calliope) was delivered to the church. It was a full day’s work to unload the container, each piece of the organ being carried up the large stone stair from the street, and I’ll not forget the significance of noticing that the hundredth or so load I carried was a stack of Swell shutters. A few trips later, a box of pipes labeled Celeste.
Thirty years later, I’ve realized that the real reason we worked so hard not to use our thumbs when we played was that we’d need them to push pistons.
Let’s celebrate good organs. Good organs are machines that have wind supplies and beautifully voiced pipes. They have valves that allow musicians to run air through those beautifully voiced pipes. I don’t care if those valves are opened by levers, magnets, pneumatic motors, or sheer will power. What goes around comes around. Never throw out a necktie.
What will they write on the first page of issue 2400 of The Diapason, December 2109? If there are pipe organs to celebrate in 2109, it will be because we got it right today.

Alaska officials ponder
only road to Juneau

Juneau, Alaska, is currently accessible only by airplane or boat. The city of 31,000 is the capital of the state, but many Alaskans have never been there because of its remoteness. That could change a little if the state government’s plans for a 65-mile, $281 million highway survives in the federal transportation bill, The New York Times reported.

The highway would connect Juneau to the rest of the state’s highway system through Canada, but some residents vehemently oppose the idea. They like Juneau’s remoteness. If Alaskans wanted a more accessible capital, they could move it to Anchorage or another city, but several attempts over the past 40 years to do just that have failed. Even with the highway, the trip from Juneau to Anchorage would be 800 miles.

The planned highway is a proposal of Gov. Frank Murkowski and U.S. Rep. Don Young, who is influential in transportation policy as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Critics say the road would cost too much and possibly take funding away from other needed infrastructure projects. They also say the proposed alignment would threaten bears and other animals in the Tongass National Forest and would be dangerous in winter because of avalanches.

A draft environmental study is scheduled to be released this month. If the highway is not built, Juneau will remain the only state capital that cannot be reached by car.

ARTBA grassroots program
wins Telly Award

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) has won the 2004 Telly Award for the multimedia training program it produced this year to help construction-industry workers across the nation get involved in federal legislative advocacy in support of increasing federal transportation investment.

The prestigious award, founded in 1979, annually showcases the best work of the most respected advertising agencies, production companies, television stations, cable operators and corporate video departments in the world.

More than 10,000 entries from all 50 states and five continents are submitted annually. On average, only about 7% of those entries are selected as winners. The Telly Awards are affiliated with the Center for Creativity, an organization that was founded in 1963 to research and study advertising, design, production and journalism.

ARTBA developed “Mobilize! A Grassroots Legislative Action Program for Transportation Construction Firms,” which includes a 10-minute DVD, CD-ROM, PowerPoint presentation and instructional booklet. It is believed to be the first multimedia package developed by a national transportation association to facilitate grassroots training.

The program provides information about how decisions made by Congress and the White House affect the transportation construction market. It also offers employees tips on how to get involved in helping shape federal policies that will benefit their future livelihoods.

ARTBA engaged Washington, D.C.-based LAI Creative Media for the production work, and the DVD features innovative grassroots techniques that have been used successfully by Harrisburg, Pa.-headquartered Stabler Cos./PSI and by Oldcastle Materials Inc., which is located in Washington, D.C.

The association distributed nearly 1,500 kits to companies throughout the country with the goal of bolstering activities in support of a significant increase in federal transportation investment as part of the TEA-21 reauthorization.

Cement demand up in 1st quarter

Portland cement demand increased 14.8% in February, followed by a 23.8% increase in March, according to The Monitor, published monthly by the Portland Cement Association (PCA). On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, March’s reading of 125.9 mmt is a single-month record. Year-to-date consumption is tracking 12% above last year.

Blended cement was rather flat in March at -0.3%. Year-to-date consumption is down 12.3%.

Masonry cement consumption increased 28.3%, following significant gains in January and February. Year-to-date consumption is 21.3% above 2003 levels.

Cement and clinker imports continued to grow at 7.9% in February and 11.5% in March. Year-to-date, imports are up 13.7% from the first three months of last year.

PCA’s statistics reflect the latest data from several government-issued reports.

Environmental streamlining
a success in marshland highway

Involving all the interested agencies early allowed the Federal Highway Administration and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) to finish the environmental study of a replacement highway through a sensitive marsh area in just 44 months, according to a “Success Story” on the website of the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials.

The new Louisiana Rte. 1 will provide enhanced access to the vital oil, gas and fishing industries in the gulf area. It also will provide a more reliable evacuation route in case of a severe storm such as a hurricane while preserving the marshes that buffer the area from those gulf storms.

The new four-lane highway will replace an old two-lane structure. Instead of a lift bridge over Bayou Lafourche at Leeville, there will be a new fixed, high-rise bridge. The road will stretch 16 miles from Fourchon to Golden Meadow.

Ronald Ventola, chief of the Regulatory Branch of the New Orleans District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, credited the FHWA and the LADOTD for understanding the sensitivity of the habitat and being willing to adjust the construction plan. He also gave the resource agencies credit for understanding the need for the highway and the lack of good alternatives.

One accommodation to the habitat was the decision to use “end-on” construction except for the high-rise bridge near Leeville. According to the end-on construction method, the heavy equipment working on Rte. 1 will sit on a platform on concrete piles instead of in the marsh. A crane on the platform will drive piles and place segments of the viaduct bridge then move to the next platform and repeat the process.

The FHWA and the LADOTD also undertook a study of the effect on the marsh grasses of the shade from the new structure.
The marshes are already threatened. In the past 50 years, 1,500 square miles of Louisiana’s gulf wetlands have disappeared through erosion and subsidence. In 2000, while FHWA and LADOTD were preparing the Environmental Impact Statement for Rte. 1, another 164 square miles of the salt marsh suffered a severe dieback of marsh grass. With the continuing erosion of the coastal marshes, the existing highway has become increasingly susceptible to flooding during storms.

The agencies that participated in the planning included the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others.
Those involved in the process said the cooperation and mutual respect among the agencies proved the U.S. DOT could streamline the environmental review process with the least effect on the environment.

The new La. Rte. 1 will become part of the National Highway System in view of its intermodal link to the U.S. energy supply.

Protection Tip of the Month

Many eye injuries on construction sites result from flying wood dust and other debris like paint chips, dirt and concrete particles. Solvents, paints and adhesives used in construction can be toxic to the eyes and skin. Eyewashes and drench showers should be in place to mitigate such hazards at heavy construction sites. Equipment ranging from bottle eyewashes through portable stations to plumbed fixtures is available to meet the unique needs of your work site. And an updated American National Standard for emergency eyewash and shower equipment includes minimum performance requirements and installation, maintenance and training specifications. ANSI Z358.1-2004 may be ordered by contacting ISEA, 1901 N. Moore St., Suite 808, Arlington, VA 22209 or 703/525-1695 or visit www.safetyequipment.org.

HIGHWAY NAMES
IN THE NEWS

Association news >>>>

JCB Inc., Savannah, Ga., has restructured its North American sales and marketing: Bob Wright will head dealer development, remarketing, governmental sales and business planning; Bruce Narveson has been named vice president of sales for the Northeast region; Jan Nielsen is now general manager for the Central region; David Hahn has been named general manager of the Western region; Ron Fulmer is now general manager for Canada; and Gordon Henderson will continue as vice president of sales for the Southeast region.

Meris Gebhardt has joined the sales staff at Tracker Software Corp., Snowmass Village, Colo.

PBM Concrete, Rochelle, Ill., has merged into J.W. Peters, Burlington, Wis.

JLG Industries Inc., McConnellsburg, Pa., has made a binding offer to purchase Delta Manlift, a Tonneins, France, subsidiary of the Manitowoc Co. Inc. JLG also will acquire certain intellectual property and related assets that will allow it to relaunch selected models of Manitowoc’s recently discontinued Liftlux aerial work platforms at a later date. Scott Brower has been named vice president of marketing and market development at JLG.

Anthony E. Fiorato, president and CEO of Construction Technology Laboratories, Skokie, Ill., has been elected president of the American Concrete Institute, Farmington Hills, Mich.

The American Society of Safety Engineers, Des Plaines, Ill., has been named secretariat of the American National Standards Institute’s A10 Accredited Standards Committee on Safety Requirements for Construction and Demolition Operations, which aims at protecting workers and the public.

Vernon Wehrung, president of Modern Precast Concrete, Ottsville, Pa., has been elected chairman of the board of the National Precast Concrete Association, Indianapolis.

Tim Gillespie of Sika Corp., Lyndhurst, N.J., has been voted a fellow of the International Concrete Repair Institute.

Engineering news >>>>

C. Diane Matt has joined Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network as the first executive director.

Arthelius “Trip” Phaup, P.E., is relocating to Ralph Whitehead Associates’ Atlanta office to assume the duties of Transportation Group leader.

James Rowan has been named area manager for the Philadelphia office of Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc. Parsons Brinckerhoff has appointed Mary Clayton North Carolina area manager.

HNTB Corp., Kansas City, Mo., has appointed Mary Axetell senior vice president. The firm also has appointed four vice presidents: Uri Avin, Rhett Leary, Jim Riley and Mark Urban.

Ben Berra of Skelly and Loy Inc., Harrisburg, Pa., has been designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission as a qualified bog turtle surveyor in Pennsylvania.

Raymond F. Messer, P.E., has been named by Texas A&M University’s Department of Civil Engineering as the recipient of the Friend of the Department 2004 Award. Messer is president and chairman of the board of Walter P. Moore.

Horner & Shifrin Inc., St. Louis, Mo., has named Jamie McVicker, P.E., transportation/civil project manager, as an associate of the firm. Lisa E. Fennewald, P.E., also has been named associate and promoted to assistant project manager.

KS Engineers, Newark, N.J., has added Eugene W. Little and Eileen Della Volle as vice president of business development.
URS Corp., Seattle, has named Dave Alford manager of the company’s Pacific Northwest region.

Michael D. Spitz, P.E., has joined McMahon Associates Inc. as a senior project engineer in the firm’s Cape Coral, Fla., office.
At Carter & Burgess Inc., Kenneth Carper, P.E., CPSWQ, has joined as a vice president and unit manager of the Raleigh, N.C., Transportation Programs Unit, and James “Woody” Woodruff, P.E., has joined as a senior project manager in the Salt Lake City office.

New technical references among upgraded association offerings

New technical references among upgraded association offerings

ACPA has refined its educational and training programs,
offering a number of seminars that provide hands-on technical training in
concrete pavements.

The highly rated courses include "Concrete Pavement
101," a three-day training and technology transfer seminar that focuses on
technical and engineering aspects of concrete pavement design, rehabilitation
and construction issues.

ACPA's "Professors' Seminar" provides in-depth
instruction on performance and economic factors related to concrete pavements
and the latest pavement design methods, as well as mechanistic-empirical design
procedures and state-of-the-practice construction methods. The course is
limited to university professors and instructors at accredited universities
with civil engineering programs.

These courses typically sell out quickly and class size is
limited to allow for an optimal instructional environment. For information
about future courses, please contact Jim Lafrenz at 202/842-1010 (e-mail:
[email protected]) or Mike Ayers at 847/966-2272 (e-mail:
[email protected]).

ACPA contributes to research project

ACPA and several of its affiliated chapter and state paving
associations are participating in a pooled-fund research project that will
result in guidelines to improve the quality of concrete pavement.

The $1.4 million project, conducted by Iowa State
University's Center for Transportation Research and Education is called
"Material and Construction Optimization for Prevention of Premature
Pavement Distress in Portland Cement Concrete Pavements."
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ACPA and several of its chapter and state affiliates are
contributing to the pooled funding over a period of five years. ACPA staff also
is participating in an advisory capacity to the technical advisory committee.
The panel reviewed progress of the project, notably:  workability, strength development, air content, permeability
and shrinkage.

The Federal Highway Administration and 16 U.S. states also
are contributing to the project that has a combined budget of $1.2 million.
Iowa is managing the effort. Other states include Georgia, Indiana, Kansas,
Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina,
North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin.

Test development and demonstration projects are scheduled
from 2004 through 2006. Technology transfer materials will be published
throughout the project timetable, with a final refined suite of tests for concrete
paving being published in mid-2007. The study was initiated by the Midwest
Concrete Consortium, a voluntary group of state DOT and industry experts that
meet semiannually to exchange ideas and information. It will be conducted
through an active partnership of the participating states and organizations.

For additional information, contact Jerry Voigt at
847/966-2272 (e-mail: [email protected]).

ACPA develops new technical resources

In response to the increasing demand for technical
information about concrete pavements, ACPA has developed a number of new
technical resources, including:

"Concrete Pavement Repair Manual" (JP002P):
The  definitive source of
information about concrete pavement repair methodologies. This handy field
manual fits into your back pocket and is an excellent resource for inspectors,
engineers, contractor crews and anyone involved with concrete pavement repair
on both airfields and roadways. The guidelines cover concrete pavement repair
and restoration techniques including full- and partial-depth patches, diamond
grinding and load transfer restoration.

"Constructing Smooth Concrete Pavements" (TB006P):
This technical bulletin covers all of the aspects of concrete pavement design
and construction that affect pavement smoothness. Factors discussed include
base and subbase, horizontal and vertical curves, embedded items, concrete
mixture, grade preparation, stringline setup, operation of the paving machine
and finishing crew activities. The measuring devices for smoothness measurement
in construction acceptance also are covered.

"Slag Cement Use on Paving" (PL517P): This brief
explains how using slag in concrete paving mixtures can enhance the long-term
benefits of concrete pavements. Definitions of the hydraulic activity, effects
on plastic and hardened properties also are listed.

"Airfield Joints, Jointing Arrangements and Steel"
(TB017P): This technical bulletin describes the design, layout and construction
of joints for pavements that serve aircraft larger than 100,000 lb.

It's Time To Tell the Story

Introduction

My presentation, "The Economics of Pipe Organ Building: It's Time to Tell The Story," is the viewpoint of an economist, not a builder or a musician. It reflects my fervent conviction that organbuilders must be aware of the economic parameters which shape their business. I also strongly believe that builders must communicate the unique dimensions of their age-old craft to their constituents and clientele. This, in my judgment, will contribute to the support so essential for their well-being in the challenging years ahead. My goal was to present some facts and figures for the builders to think about, to discuss with their colleagues, and perhaps to use in presentations to prospective clients. As one builder has remarked: "Organbuilding is an anachronism in the American economy."1

Assumptions

We begin with certain assumptions which are critical to the discussion. First, we call attention to the fact that no two builders are alike. Each builder has his own vision of his enterprise, his product and his market. We also recognize that APOBA is a far more diverse group today that it was thirty years ago when it was comprised primarily of comparatively large firms building non-mechanical instruments.

Second, as an economist, I define organbuilding as an industry. By industry we mean a group of firms and suppliers engaged in building the instrument and its components on an ongoing basis. Organbuilding is categorized by the US Department of Commerce in the Standard Industrial Classification seven digit code 3931-211. In building a one-of-a-kind product, organbuilding differs radically from the traditional view of industry as comprised of a handful of relatively large firms manufacturing automobiles, appliances, pharmaceuticals and computers. Therefore, because of the unique highly individual and artistic nature of organbuilding as an age-old craft, some builders, perhaps particularly small shops, view organbuilding as no more an industry than sculpting, portrait painting, or even piano concertizing.

Third, organbuilding is a business. The firm is subject to business realities and must conduct its affairs in accordance with them. These include balance sheet and income statement guidelines and property and contract requirements. Unfortunately, some builders, perhaps those with what one prominent executive described as a "cavalier" attitude, sometimes don't pay careful attention to these realities. We also assert that organbuilding is subject to broad economic forces which include wage rates in local labor markets and overall market determined prices for materials and components. In addition, organbuilding is critically influenced by the general economic climate of depression and inflation as history so forcefully demonstrates.

Fourth, in economic parlance, the structure of the industry is a quixotic example of two types of competition. Organbuilding is and always has been a highly competitive industry. When measured by the number of firms and ease of entry it is similar to textbook examples of pure and perfect competition. In a survey I made for a paper years ago entitled "The Place of the Small Builder in the American Organ Industry," one builder, Fritz Noack, reported that his capital cost for entering the trade was $200.00.2 Theoretically, any builder can build the same stoplist, pipe scales and casework. In practice, however, sharp differences exist between builders and instruments. Therefore, in the nature of the product, a specification good in which no two instruments are alike, organbuilding is more like a product differentiated oligopoly. Competition reflects many factors: price, windchest action, level of workmanship, prior installations, reputation, endorsements and status seeking by the organist and the buyer.

Fifth, the concept of market segments is useful. Churches, educational institutions, theaters, private dwellings, lodge halls, and funeral homes have been identifiable markets for pipe organs over the years. Each of these markets has its own demand determinants. Membership and giving would be key determinants for the church market. For concert halls and art museums, major private gifts would be all important. The builder has no direct influence on these demand determinants which critically shape the outlook for his business.

Sixth, we acknowledge that some builders don't recognize themselves as part of an industry insofar as there are interests and concerns common to all participants. Macroeconomic demand determinants don't interest them. Nor is the idea of competition, in a broad sense, viewed as particularly relevant to their enterprise. Their clientele wants their instrument, not just an organ. In an analogy, people don't go to a piano recital, they go to hear Andre Watts. This builder's clientele is perhaps most often a individual, not a committee, and quite likely a prominent academic who will make the choice of builder. Most important, funding is taken for granted. It is presumed that the buyer is authorized to pay whatever price is required to obtain the chosen instrument.

This phenomenon reflects the close symbiotic relationship between the instrument, the performer, and his employer. The instrument is what accords status to the organist's church or school and himself, and is the way he obtains recognition among his peers. It is his ego alter. This has always been true and always will be. It was, no doubt, the case with the Hooks, certainly so with Roosevelt, Skinner, Aeolian Skinner and Holtkamp. The role of brand preference among competitively sensitive and socially conscious pipe organ buyers was supremely illustrated with WurliTzer in the theater market and Aeolian in the mansions of the wealthy. Those familiar with my articles in The Diapason know that I have developed and continue to reiterate the theme of invidious comparison and competitive emulation (Thorstein Veblen) as a very real phenomenon in the organ marketplace.

Economics

The salient factor in organbuilding and the one that distinguishes it as an industry from all others is the labor intensive nature of the product. This overriding factor largely explains the postwar history of the industry and will determine its future. We would argue that 80 percent of the value added in building a pipe organ is labor. Value added by manufacture is the difference between the cost of of inputs--raw materials, semifinished components and labor (including fringe benefits)--and the sale price. Industries with sixty percent or more value added by labor are considered labor intensive. Among them are products of the so-called "needle trades"--for example, robes and dressing gowns, 64 percent labor and curtains and draperies, 68 percent labor. For leather gloves and mittens the value added by labor is 84 percent. Aircraft and shipbuilding are other obvious examples of very high labor input.3

In contrast, capital intensive and technologically advanced industries, enjoy low labor costs even with high wages and benefits. Examples of low labor cost are: Primary Copper, 18 percent; Electronic Computers, 27 percent; and Household Appliances, 25 percent.4 The implication of high productivity, high wage industries for organbuilding is that they determine the wage structure of the national as well as the local economy. In a full-employment economy such as ours, organbuilders face enormous pressures to pay competitive wages or face high turnover with the resulting disruptions, delays and cost overruns. The high cost of organbuilding mirrors the labor input and wage rate; when wages go up, costs go up in lock step. The wage pressures of a full employment economy are a direct threat to cost containment in organbuilding.

The availability of low-wage labor explains why the Möller Company in Hagerstown, Maryland was able to operate for decades as America's largest builder. With 350-400 factory workers, Möller shipped at least one complete instrument every working day in the 1920s and again in the 1950s. Hagerstown, out on a shelf in western Maryland, was bypassed by prosperity and suffered for years from relatively high unemployment. Möller, therefore, could obtain all the workers it required at comparatively low wages. Conversely, no organbuilder could have operated in Detroit or Pittsburgh, because they could never have paid the union wages of auto workers and steel workers and remained competitive. 

Organbuilding is similar to the performing arts in the preponderance of labor cost to total cost and the absence of productivity increases. A widely-acclaimed study, Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma, disclosed that the share of salaries of artistic personnel to total expenditures was 64% for major U.S. orchestras and 72% for the London Symphony Orchestra.5 The principal conclusion of this authoritative work, commissioned by the Twentieth Century Fund and written by Professors Baumol and Bowen of Princeton University, was that the arts operate within the framework of a complex economy. This coupled with the inability to achieve a sustained increase in productivity makes even higher costs an inevitable characteristic of live performance. So it is with organbuilding.

The predominant role of labor input in organbuilding is illustrated in Table 1 where we compare the number of man-hours necessary to fabricate representative components of a pipe organ with those required to manufacture an automobile. For pipe organs, four key components: an 8' Diapason, 61 pipes, voiced, an 8' Trumpet, 61 pipes voiced, a 16' Bourdon, 32 pipes, voiced, and a pitman action windchest of five stops are portrayed. The contrast is indeed striking.

Rising Cost

The second dominant characteristic of organbuilding is the persistent rise in cost over time. This is illustrated for the key components over the last twenty years in Table 2. More important, when we compare the rise in cost of organ components to the producer price index for the whole economy, the increase is greater for organbuilding as shown in Table 3. This argues that in the event inflation reappears in the US economy, the cost of organbuilding will increase at a higher rate than reflected in the producer price indexes.

What are the implications of rising costs for organbuilding? Fifty years ago, in 1948, you could buy a three-rank Möller Artiste for $2975. Today, you could scarcely buy one set of pipes below 4' pitch for this amount of money. Using the church market as a point of reference, will there be a pipe organ industry ten years from now, or twenty years down the road? To answer this question we hark back to our major premise that when church giving is rising in proportion (or greater) to the increase in income generated by a growing economy, the market scarcely blinks at rising pipe organ costs. This relationship underscores the ongoing fact that it isn't the price of an organ that is the primary determinant of demand, but income, i.e., having the funds to buy them.

In 1900 the price of a Hinners tracker organ was about $125 per stop. Recall that with a force of 90 workmen in Pekin, Illinois, Hinners was building three instruments a week. Remember also that per capita real income in agriculture between the Panics of 1897 and 1907 was the highest in history. Farmers paid less for what they bought and got more for what they sold. With their short-term living standard satisfied, they pumped rivers of cash and pledges into the churches who bought Hinners, Barckhoff, Felgemaker and Estey organs. These were four builders who, with standard specifications, capitalized on this huge rural market, what we have called the commodity segment of the market. By the end of the Hinners era, ostensibly the tracker era, this firm counted over three thousand instruments in more than 40 states and in several foreign countries.6

The Electronic Organ

The critical confluence of cost and revenue in the demand for pipe organs is illustrated in the recent history of the electronic organ. Another major premise in this discussion is that the electronic church organ is a substitute for the pipe organ. To verify this hypothesis we obtained the annual sales of the Allen Organ Company for the last twenty years and plotted them against the cost of our key pipe organ components as shown in Figure 1. The results are astounding! An almost perfect fit, a statistician's dream; you could scarcely ask for a closer correlation. The demand for the electronic church organ as a function of the price of a pipe organ illustrates the economist's concept of cross-elasticity of demand. The higher the price of a pipe organ the greater the demand for the electronic substitute. Furthermore, based upon these correlations, we could write a regression equation that says if this relationship holds, for every dollar increase in the price of a pipe organ there will be a certain increase in the demand for the electronic church instrument.

Church Giving

If we accept the premise that the electronic church instrument is a substitute for the pipe organ, we perhaps can argue that the real culprit is the failure of church giving to keep pace with pipe organ costs in recent decades unlike earlier periods. Statistics compiled by empty tomb inc. for 27 Protestant denominations for the period 1968-95 and published in "The State of Church Giving," reveal that church giving has "fallen" dramatically.7 To be sure, in a growing economy per capita personal disposable income has increased as have contributions for congregational finances. However, the percentage of income contributed has declined steadily and the increase in dollar giving is nowhere near the year to year increase in income. Whether measured by the percent of income given in 1968 or the yearly income increase, the amount given for congregational finances would have been $2.5 billion more in 1995 if these percentages had held. Two and a half billion dollars would buy a lot of pipe organs. If we view church giving within the household budget as a concept of market share, we see that the collection plate has taken a back seat to other expenditures: sporting goods, toys, pizza, and travel, among others. John and Sylvia Ronsvalle of empty tomb point out that in 1992, church giving was only 23 percent of total leisure spending. They attribute this to the pervasive hedonistic consumer-driven culture of our time.8

The implications for the church market from the giving levels we have just illustrated would appear to be ominous. If we assume costs will rise and we couple this with the diminishing rate of church giving, we will then reach a point at which, theoretically, the price per stop for a pipe organ will cause the demand to drop off sharply, if not virtually disappear. What is this point? We don't know, but we could be getting close to it. Can we say there is no demand at $30,000 per stop; perhaps not even at $25,000 or $20,000?

Not all builders believe the figures for church giving are relevant to the demand for pipe organs or that projected increases in price per stop will spell the end of the industry. They view the King of Instruments not as a utilitarian device to accompany church services but as an art form akin to a fine painting. Thus a "high end" market will continue to exist because sophisticated, discriminating--and wealthy--individuals will always select the instrument of the ages, in the same spirit in which they build their art collections--without regard to cost. These builders hold that the industry, now numbering many small shops in addition to the few larger builders, has adjusted and stabilized to this level of output, as evidenced by the demise of Möller, a builder for the commodity market which has now been almost totally preempted by the electronic instrument. A good illustration of this new paradigm is the firm of Taylor and Boody in Staunton, Virginia who by choice build only thirty to thirty-five stops per year.9

Pipe Organ Imports

Imported instruments have been a significant part of the American pipe organ scene since WWII. Large instruments by Rieger, Flentrop and Von Beckerath plus smaller ones from a host of other European builders were the cornerstone of the tracker revival in this country. They were often viewed as a status symbol by the organist profession who proclaimed "if it's foreign it's finer." The principal source of offshore instruments today is our northern neighbor Canada. The sensitive issue of Canadian imports, based primarily on the insurmountable cost advantage afforded the Canadian builder by the exchange rate, is not a new one. In February, 1931, Major Fred Oliver, veteran of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WWI and husband of Marie Casavant, acknowledged before the US Tariff Commission that Canadian-built organs were less expensive than American instruments. He argued that clients bought them because they liked them better than the domestic product. Could they have liked them better because they were less expensive?

For many years organ imports, including those from Canada, were not a problem. American builders were busy with healthy backlogs and the Canadian share of the market was unobtrusive and not growing. Nonetheless the threat was lurking and today, in the author's judgment, it is a major one. Based upon the dollar value and the number of instruments imported from Canada in the past two decades, I, as an economist, view the Canadian competition as a significant threat to the American organ industry. I also feel strongly that the US buyer should be apprised of the implications of a decision to buy a Canadian-built organ.

Foreign trade statistics published by the Bureau of the Census, US Department of Commerce show that in the 1980s Canadian builders exported an average of 43 instruments per year to the US, their primary market, valued at $3.8 million per year and representing two-thirds of total imports. For the eight year period 1990-97, Canadian imports averaged 19 instruments per year valued at $4.2 million per year. In the most recent years the numbers are: 1995, 21 instruments, value $5.2 million, 76 percent of total imports; 1996, 24 instruments, $4.5 million value, 75 percent of all imports; and 1997, 22 instruments, $5.1 million total value representing 70 percent of total foreign-built organs. Table 4 portrays the value of Canadian imports in US dollars, as declared at the point of entry, for the years 1975-97 and the percent of dollar imports accounted for by Canada and Netherlands-Germany. The dollar figure is a better indicator of the import threat than the number of instruments for the same reason that the number of voiced stops is more representative that the number of instruments in that it more accurately reflects industry activity. One instrument of 100 stops is in terms of output larger than eight instruments of ten stops each. These figures understate the impact of Canadian imports which significantly influence the price structure of the organ market, making it difficult for domestic builders to compete, especially for the larger and more prestigious contracts.   

The Canadian import threat exists, primarily perhaps, for the larger firms in non-mechanical action and in situations where a price sensitive committee, as opposed to an individual, often makes the decision. Conversely, some builders, chiefly smaller firms with a guild versus business mentality, do not view Canadian competition as a threat. To them price advantage is not a pivotal factor in choice of builder in situations where the instrument and the builder are highly individualized in the unique and incomparable nature of their work.

The problem results from coupling the 80 percent labor cost of organbuilding with the Canadian dollar which has hovered around 70 cents in recent years and fell to 63.7 cents in August, 1998. If we assume that a representative wage in organbuilding in the US today is $12.00 per hour, for an American builder to compete with the 70 cent Canadian dollar his workers would have to take a pay cut to $8.40 per hour. When committees elect to purchase a Canadian-built organ this is precisely what they are asking the hapless American workers to do. Perhaps committees should ask themselves whether they would be willing to work for $12 an hour, let alone $8.40?  Furthermore, it is unethical and patently unfair for a committee to accept an offer from an American builder to spend hundreds of dollars flying them across the country to see installations, only to lose the contract to a Canadian builder solely on the basis of price.

Keep in mind also that the Canadian market is hermetically sealed against the American builder. Except for one project by Schoenstein, it has been impossible for an American builder to get work in Canada. This is attributed to the cultural protection issue. Canadians are paranoid about the "invasion" of their culture by American media and have taken steps to block American magazine sales and satellite TV programming in direct violation of the rules of the World Trade Organization. One government official hysterically compared stores selling satellite dishes to dope pushers.10 Perhaps if the Canadians are so touchy about their culture we should return the favor and talk about protecting our rich culture in pipe organ building; the legacy of Hilbourne Roosevelt, Ernest Skinner, Donald Harrison and Walter Holtkamp!

The author is not alone in his analysis of the present and future impact of Canadian competition on the outlook for American organbuilding. Erik Olbeter, project director of the prestigious Economic Strategy Institute in Washington, D. C. agrees that US firms cannot indefinitely absorb the exchange rate differential in the labor cost basis of organbuilding. He adds that since no US builders have been able to sell into the Canadian market, this is a powerful argument in support of the domestic firm.11

There are, of course, two sides to every question. Canadian builders enjoy a positive image, a distinguished history and can point to many fine instruments in this country. Therefore, if the client elects to recognize these factors in choosing a builder and to disregard the implications for American builders, that is their business. But at least they ought to be aware of what they are doing!

Predictions

In conclusion, let me turn to my crystal ball, cloudy though it is, and make some observations and predictions about pipe organ building in America in the coming years. Remember that economists can't resist the temptation to forecast; it's a congenital defect in the profession. You are free to disagree with me and I acknowledge that many of you will elect to do so.

First, pipe organs will always be built, and organbuilding activity, in its many forms, will continue indefinitely. The level of output and the composition of the industry is impossible to predict and I wouldn't hazard a guess. Long-established major builders have previous instruments to rebuild, update and relocate. Small tracker shops may build one instrument a year. Builders of all sizes may move into service work to maintain cash flow while awaiting an order for a new instrument or a rebuilding project. If the industry is defined by total employment this will include suppliers and service firms.

Second, it is clear to me as an economist that a reversal of the persistent decline in church giving is critical to the outlook for the industry. As the King of Instruments, the pipe organ must be recognized as a symbol of the broader dimensions of culture throughout the ages, bridging nations and generations, an essential component of religious symbolism vital to the experience of corporate worship, and the object of sacrificial devotion by churchgoers who stand in opposition to the hedonistic consumer-driven culture of our time. Forbes Magazine, highlighting the resurgence of popularity of mechanical watches over quartz watches pointed out: "An unscientific survey of several dozen watch experts produced one common thread: mechanical watches have soul, have workmanship, have intrinsic value that cannot be found in quartz timepieces. It is this fact, and not a Luddite, reactionary longing for the old days, that makes these watches so popular."12 So it is with the pipe organ. Like a diamond, the high cost of a pipe organ is what makes it so distinctive and so valuable.

Third, the perception of an organ today in the eyes of many churchgoers exacerbates the cost problem. The instrument has to be large and, therefore, expensive. A pipe organ must exert a commanding presence in the sanctuary as reflected in the console of a nonmechanical organ, one with three or more manuals and lots of drawknobs, and in the totality of a mechanical instrument. Above all, the sound must project power, majesty and grandeur, as evidenced by the popularity of the 32' pedal reed today.

Fourth, each builder faces a management challenge of how large an operation his market will sustain and the make-or-buy decision with every project. On an emotional level the builder must continually ask himself whether he is a businessman or an artist and how to balance these all too often conflicting interests. Above all, he must resist the temptation to cut prices to stay in business. This is the road to ruin. As they say in the ocean shipping business, those who live by the rate cut die by the rate cut.  Organbuilding must live in the real world of cost and revenue; there are no "sugar daddies" out there willing to put money into a failed pipe organ business because of the romance of it.

Fifth, supplemental electronic components are here to stay, primarily because they are the only way to keep costs down. The danger, and perhaps it is a real one, particularly for small instruments, is that the electronic organ comes to define the pipe organ whereas it must be the other way around. 

Sixth, the Canadian dollar will remain weak for many reasons. Canadian organ imports will perhaps grow and command a greater share of the market for new instruments. In the author's judgment, the current import levels already pose a serious threat to the future of the American industry.

Seventh, the greatest threat to organbuilding in the US, or anywhere, is inflation. I have already suggested that with current levels of church giving there is no market at $30,000 per stop. If our economy were to experience three to five years of double-digit inflation, organbuilding on a sustained basis would largely disappear. Church contributions would continue to erode as our aging populace struggled to make ends meet, the demand for social services by churches would rise, and the electronic organ would preempt the church market. Milton Friedman, the widely-quoted economist and celebrated Noble laureate told Forbes Magazine in December, 1997 that he expects a period of much higher inflation sometime in the next ten to twelve years. Let's hope Friedman is wrong.13

Notes

                        1.                  Telephone interview with George Taylor, March 15, 1998.

                        2.                  Coleberd, Robert E. Jr., "The Place of the Small Builder in the American Organ Industry," The Diapason,Vol. 57, No. 12, November, 1966, p. 45.

                        3.                  1995 annual survey of manufactures, US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics, Bureau of the Census, Table 2, Statistics for Industry Groups and Industries: 1995 and 1994, pp. 1-10--1-27.

                        4.                  Ibid.

                        5.                  Baumol, William J. and William G. Bowen, Performing Arts--The Economic Dilemma, Copyright 1966, The Twentieth Century Fund, Inc., First M.I.T. Press Paperback Edition, August, 1968, Second Printing, December, 1977, p. 145.

                        6.                  Coleberd, Robert E. Jr., "Yesterday's Tracker--The Hinners Organ Story," The American Organist, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1960, pp. 11-14.

                        7.                  Ronsvalle, John L. and Sylvia Ronsvalle,The State of Church Giving through 1995, Champaign, Illinois, empty tomb inc., December, 1997, passim.

                        8.                  Table 18: "Combined Per Capita Purchase of Selected Items Compared to Composite Per Member Church Giving in Constant 1987 Dollars" in John L. Ronsvalle and Sylvia Ronsvalle, The State of Church Giving through 1994, p. 61.

                        9.                  Taylor, op. cit.

                        10.              Olbeter, Erik R. "Canada's Cultural Hangup," Journal of Commerce, April 3, 1997, p. 6-A. See Also "Cultural Struggle" The Journal of Commerce, July 2, 1997, p. 8-A. Craig Turner, "Canadian Culture? Whatever It Is, They Want To Preserve It," Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1997, Section D, p. 1, 12. Joseph Weber, "Does Canadian Culture Need This Much Protection?," Business Week, June 8, 1998, p. 37.

                        11.              Telephone interview with Erik Olbeter, Economic Strategy Institute, Washington, D.C., June 6, 1997.

                        12.              Powell, Dennis E., "A Glance At Some Of The Timepieces That Made History," Forbes FYI, November, 1997, p. 152.

                        13.              "Milton Friedman at 85," Forbes, December 29, 1997, pp. 52-55.

Virginia French Mackie died in her sleep at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico on June 20. Born August 15, 1900, in Lancaster, Missouri, she moved in early childhood with her family to Hutchinson, Kansas.

Music was a vital part of her life from the age of three, when she began piano lessons with her mother. She began playing the organ for church before her feet could reach the pedals. By the time she graduated from high school, she had composed the Hutchinson school song, still performed to this day.

At 17 she entered Wellesley College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa during her junior year, and, as a senior, won the Billings Prize for excellence in music. Conducting the orchestra was one of her many musical contributions to the school. Socially conscious, she remembered marching five miles in high heels, as a supporter of the Constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote! Following her graduation from Wellesley in 1921, Virginia entered Columbia University, where she was awarded the MM degree as one of only two women in her class.

She began her career as a junior college teacher in Kansas City, where she met David C. Mackie, a banker whom she married in 1928. The couple moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where David enrolled in the Yale School of Architecture, while Virginia commuted to Northampton to teach music at Smith College.

Summers were spent in England and France. Virginia studied with Tobias Matthay in London, and with Nadia Boulanger at Fontainebleau, where Mrs. Mackie was awarded one of only two diplomas given to women at the École de Musique.

In 1934 the Mackies returned to Kansas City. David began his architectural practice and Virginia joined the faculty of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where she taught as a distinguished professor for 25 years. During that time she maintained an affiliation with the Yale School of Music, teaching there in 18 summer sessions.

In 1963 the Mackies moved to Tucson, Arizona, and Virginia was invited to join the faculty of the University of Arizona, where she taught for 12 years. Arizona awarded her an honorary degree in recognition of her contributions to the musical life of the community.

After David's death in 1975, Mrs. Mackie moved to New Mexico, where she was named a Living Treasure of Santa Fe in 1994. She was invited back to Kansas City to present a series of lectures and performances of works by Franz Joseph Haydn, one of her favorite composers, and to receive an honorary doctor of music degree from the University of Missouri, Kansas City in 1989, joining Count Basie as only the second musician to be so recognized by the school. Virginia Mackie continued to teach harpsichord and piano in Santa Fe well past her 100th birthday in 2000.

--Larry Palmer (Based on an obituary [22 June 2005] in The Santa Fe New Mexican)

Theatre organist Billy Nalle of Fort Myers, Florida, died on June 7. Born in Fort Myers April 24, 1921, he was a piano prodigy at age three, when he started picking out melodies, and began playing in public at age four. He graduated from Fort Myers High School in 1939, receiving the American Legion Honor Award. From 1933–39 he was pianist of the Al Linquist Jazz Orchestra of Fort Myers and perfomed solo organ work on station WINK. During these years Billy studied under Eddie Ford, organist at the Tampa Theatre, and became Eddie's assistant. Later, he performed a stint at the Florida Theatre, Jacksonville.

He studied piano and organ at the Juilliard School of Music; principal teachers were the organ and piano virtuoso Gaston Dethier and Teddy Wilson, pianist of the Benny Goodman Orchestra. During this same time, Billy had organ engagements at the Manhattan Beacon Theatre, Brooklyn Paramount, and the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom.

Nalle served in the U.S. Navy 1943–46 and during his last year of service was assigned to the U.S.N. Entertainment Unit, where he, Lawrence Welk, vocalist Bobby Beers, and noted choreographer Bob Fosse toured the Pacific Ocean military bases. During 1947 and 1948, he did postgraduate studies at The Juilliard School, and then began a 26-year career in New York City providing music for more than 200 television shows on CBS, NBC and ABC. Billy appeared on over 5,000 telecasts, an unparalleled record for an organ soloist. As well as solo appearances on major television programs such as "Kraft Theatre" and the "Downbeat Show," Billy had the distinction of appearing as an organ soloist on the "Ed Sullivan Show" the same evening that Elvis Presley appeared for the first time. Throughout his theatre organ performing career, he was featured in concerts at countless public venues throughout the country and for several national conventions of the American Theatre Organ Society.

In 1957, Billy's recording career began when RCA tapped him to record "Swingin' Pipe Organ," an LP commemorating the work of trombonist Tommy Dorsey. Nalle recorded this at the Times Square Paramount Wurlitzer with George Shearing's drummer, Ray Mosca, and it is still considered a landmark recording in theatre organ circles. Numerous commercial recordings followed on Wurlitzer organs installed at the Century II Center (Wichita), Brooklyn Paramount Theatre (aka: Long Island University), Senate Theatre (Detroit) and Auditorium Theatre (Rochester, New York). Currently, Wichita Theatre Organ is in the process of producing a series of recordings drawn from his many live concerts performed on the Wichita Wurlitzer, scheduled for release later this year.

Billy's concert career did not actually start until age 45, when he performed for a national convention of the American Guild of Organists at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia in 1966. It was the first formal theatre organ concert in the group's history, and received a rave review in Audio magazine, the Atlanta Constitution and the New York Times. The latter newspaper featured his career in three major articles, and sometime later Billy's life was the object of a feature in the Wichitan magazine. A writer himself, Billy supplied reviews and articles to national publications, including a four-year news column in the AGO-RCCO publication, Music.

As a composer member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Billy had numerous compositions to his credit. However, he may be best remembered by church musicians and theatre organists alike with his published arrangement of Jerome Kern's "All The Things You Are" in the form of a Bach trio sonata, entitled Alles was du bist. Billy once remarked that he did better financially on the rights gleaned from this arrangement than any other single thing he ever did.

In 1975, Billy accepted the position of Artist-in-Residence at the Century II Center in Wichita, Kansas, where the 4-manual, 36-rank Wurlitzer from the Times Square Paramount Theatre had been relocated. For eleven years, he played concerts in the Wichita Pops series, made numerous recordings and continued to concertize nationally. In 1993, the American Theatre Organ Society voted him into their Hall of Fame. In 1995, Nalle ended a full-time career and returned to Fort Myers, Florida, where he lived until his death.

He always prided himself on his ever-growing list of "firsts," including the first theatre organ concert to be performed at The Church of St. John The Divine, New York City. In a relatively brief period of twenty years, Billy performed twenty-five national and international music firsts on a theatre organ.

Billy was a man of strong convictions and deep religious faith. In the years just prior to leaving Wichita, he was active in the formation of St. Joseph of Glastonbury Anglican Catholic Church, the city's first Anglican place of worship. In his tiny efficiency apartment, he managed to find space for an altar and several religious icons. In fact, his living space was much like his playing: filled to the hilt with interesting "stuff" without feeling the least bit cluttered.

He was always full of stories about the great concerts he attended while living in New York and the personalities he encountered. One of his favorites was about his friendship with organist Virgil Fox, who lived only a short distance away from his apartment. Fox had been contracted by Wichita Theatre Organ to perform a concert at Centuy II (eventually released by RCA on LP as "The Entertainer") and sought Billy's advice on how to handle the Wurlitzer, just prior to Billy's move there. Fox wanted to stick to the classics, but Billy suggested that, as an encore piece, he should choose a simple, well-known melody and improvise on it. Fox out-and-out refused. "Why not?" said the ever-inquisitive Billy. Fox leaned over the dinner table, looked Billy straight in the eye and whispered, "I'll tell you why: too hard . . . that's why!"

To the end, Billy was a complete original, always encouraging young musicians to be themselves, and not to get caught up in what was stylistically popular at the moment. He was inexhaustible as a resource. Right to the end of his career, he was a developing musician, never casting anything completely in stone. Kind, thoughtful, sensitive, highly intelligent and a fine conversationalist--all will remember Billy as the consummate southern gentleman.

Paraphrasing his first Wichita LP seems to say it all: There (was) only one Billy Nalle.

--Scott Smith

Lansing, Michigan

The Rev. William F. Parker, of Atlantic City and Philadelphia, died on April 16. Born in Philadelphia and raised in Margate, he graduated from Temple University and the Temple University Theological Seminary, and earned his Master of Divinity degree from Princeton University. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he was pastor at Lower Bank Methodist Circuit, New Jersey, Mizpah Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, and Leeds Point Presbyterian Church. For 24 years he served as pastor at Olivet Presbyterian Church in Atlantic City. He was also an experienced organist, serving for a number of churches and synagogues in the Philadelphia area, and was organist for St. James Episcopal Church in Atlantic City and Old St. George's Methodist Church in Philadelphia.

William Parker is survived by his sister, Helen Holmes Parker. A memorial organ recital will take place on October 15 at First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, with Joseph Jackson as organist.