OHS Research Scholarship

The American Institute of Organbuilders Celebrates Fifty Years

Matthew M. Bellocchio is a charter member of the American Institute of Organbuilders and earned the Fellow Certificate in 1979. He chaired the AIO education committee (1997–2009), served two terms on the AIO board of directors (1993–1996; 2010–2012), and as AIO president (2012–2015). He is a senior manager and designer at Andover Organ Company in Lawrence, Massachusetts, which he joined in 2003. He is also president of the Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Inc., where he has served as a trustee since 2017.

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.

Beginnings

In 1970 David W. Cogswell and Jan R. Rowland of the Berkshire Organ Company in West Springfield, Massachusetts, attended their first biennial Congress of the International Society of Organbuilders (ISO) in Switzerland. Inspired by the collegial atmosphere and sharing of knowledge that he experienced, Cogswell conceived the idea of forming a similar organization for United States and Canadian organbuilders. He calculated that it would be economically viable to organize a meeting of organbuilding individuals if at least ninety persons paid and attended. Advertisements were placed in organ journals, and a printed program booklet was mailed to all known organbuilding and maintenance companies for the “First North American Organbuilders’ Convention,” which took place in Washington, D.C., September 2–5, 1973. Auspiciously, 110 people attended.

The participants were enthusiastic about forming a permanent organization. A provisional board was established, a constitutional committee appointed, and a convention was scheduled for the following year. The second convention, held in September 1974 in Dayton, Ohio, adopted a constitution and bylaws, signed by thirty-eight charter members, and elected a board of directors.

There was some discussion about what to name the nascent group. Some had proposed, along the lines of the International Society of Organbuilders, the names American Society of Organbuilders or American Society of Organ Builders. Instead, the name American Institute of Organbuilders (AIO) was chosen by vote.

Objectives

The stated purpose of the American Institute of Organbuilders was and still is: “To advance the science and practice of pipe organbuilding by discussion, inquiry, research, experiment, and other means; to disseminate knowledge regarding pipe organbuilding by such means as lectures, publications, and exchange of information; to establish an organized training program for organbuilders, leading to examinations and certifications of degree of proficiency.” The AIO was registered in the state of Ohio under IRS tax laws as a non-profit 501(c)(6) business league.

The AIO has several important features that distinguish it from other organ-related groups. Unlike the International Society of Organbuilders (ISO) or the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America (APOBA), which are associations of organ companies, the AIO, in the tradition of American democracy, was founded as an organization of individuals. And unlike the Organ Historical Society (United States), The Organ Club (United Kingdom), or the Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde (Germany), which are open to any organ enthusiasts who wish to join, AIO membership is by nomination and limited to professional pipe organ builders, maintenance technicians, and those in allied professions supporting the pipe organ industry.

Membership

New members are nominated for one of three categories. Regular membership is open to full-time North American builders and maintenance technicians with at least five years’ experience. Associate membership is for full-time apprentices with less than five years in the profession. Affiliate membership is for those who are: 1) not full-time builders or maintenance technicians; 2) non-North American builders; or 3) persons in allied professions (e.g., organ consultants and church acousticians). All nominees must obtain the endorsement of a current Regular AIO member and provide a summary of their work history on the nomination form. Nominees for Regular membership must secure two additional Regular AIO members as references. Each reference is contacted and must vouch for the nominee’s work and business ethics. All nominees must agree in writing to abide by the Institute’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

Acceptance of a new member is granted by vote of the AIO board of directors after the nominee’s name has been published in the AIO Journal of American Organbuilding for the purpose of receiving comments from the membership. Only Regular members may vote or hold office. Associate members may apply for Regular membership after five years in the profession. Presently, the AIO has about 325 members, of which forty-one are non-voting Associate or Affiliate members.

Governance

The affairs and policies of the AIO are governed by a nine-member board of directors composed of the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and five directors-at-large. Board members serve three-year terms and are elected via online voting by the members, the results announced at the annual business meeting. The day-to-day business of the Institute is handled by the executive secretary, who is an employee of the Institute.

Conventions

Since its founding, AIO conventions have been held annually in cities throughout the United States and Canada. These conventions are structured around a full schedule of technical lectures, visits to local organ shops and instruments, product exhibitions, and business meetings. Because their purpose is educational, AIO conventions are open to non-AIO members, who pay a higher registration fee. A typical AIO convention runs three and one-half days. It starts on a Sunday afternoon with a recital or concert at a local church, followed by dinner and an exhibitors’ night at the hotel. The Monday schedule starts with the AIO annual business meeting, followed by a full day of lectures and educational presentations. Tuesday is usually spent traveling, visiting local organ shops and recent instruments by AIO members. Wednesday features more educational programs and ends with a banquet and awards presentations. There are also optional pre- and post-convention tours, which feature interesting local attractions and some organs.

A minimum of twelve hours of educational content is required at each convention. AIO technical lectures cover a variety of topics and range in format from individual to multiple presenters, depending upon the subject. Most conventions have a lecture about the organ building history of the region.

Occasionally, a panel format is used to good effect for comparative techniques of organbuilding. In such presentations, several organbuilders demonstrate their individual approaches to solving the same technical issue. Topics addressed in this manner have included scaling, designing wind systems, swell box design, voicing flue pipes, and business succession. This comparison technique has also been used for educational presentations by suppliers to explain and contrast the individual features of similar products, such as electric swell shade motors, combination actions, and electronic tuners.

Lecturers are drawn from both inside and outside the organbuilding industry. Outside experts have addressed topics such as woodworking machinery, obtaining performance bonds, and dealing with employees. Lecturers for organbuilding topics are chosen based upon their recognized expertise in a particular subject and their ability to communicate well with an audience.

In the AIO’s early days, it was common to invite European ISO organbuilders to give keynote convention lectures. Henry Willis IV and Josef von Glatter-Götz (Rieger Orgelbau) attended the first gathering in 1973, where they gave encouragement and technical knowledge to the fledgling organization. Others who followed in their footsteps include Joseph Schafer (Klais) in 1975; Roland Killinger and Maarten A. Vente (ISO secretary) in 1976; Dirk Flentrop and Hans Wolf Knaths (Giesecke) in 1978; Michael Gillingham (chairman, British Institute of Organ Studies) in 1979; Klaus Wilhelm Furtwängler (Giesecke) and Henry Willis IV in 1983 (tenth anniversary convention); Richard Rensch in 1989; Gerard Pels (ISO vice president and editor) in 1991; Henry Willis IV in 1993 (twentieth anniversary convention); Stephen Bicknell (ex Mander) in 1998; and Hans-Erich Laukhuff in 2000.

Visits to regional organ shops and instruments are a popular convention feature. One can learn as much from a small, well-organized shop as from a large factory! Organs visited during the convention are usually chosen to represent the recent work of AIO members. The builders are invited to provide technical information about the instruments. This can range from a simple listing of the pipe scales to an elaborately printed booklet with pictures and drawings. Occasionally, these organs will be the subjects of related convention lectures dealing with their design, action, construction, or room acoustics. Where possible, the organs are open for inspection. Historic organs and those by non-AIO builders are usually reserved for the post-convention organ tours.

In place of recitals, organs are heard in short demonstrations, utilizing improvisations or brief passages of literature to show what the instruments can do. Players are asked to showcase the sounds of the instruments—not the repertoire of the player. These programs end with the singing of a hymn, to show the organs’ accompaniment capabilities. Many organists are astonished at the volume of sound produced by a group of singing organbuilders!

Product exhibitions are another important convention feature. Suppliers display their latest products and meet with old and new customers. Recent conventions have had twelve to twenty exhibitors and now require considerable exhibition space.

Seminars

The AIO mid-year seminars have provided further professional education opportunities. These weekend seminars are held in organ shops throughout the country and are structured to provide hands-on training in a variety of small group settings.

Seminar topics have included voicing (reeds, flue pipes, strings), wood pipe construction, organ façade decoration, casework construction, electrical wiring, slider chest construction, and electro-pneumatic windchest re-leathering. In contrast to the conventions, seminars are limited to AIO members and employees of AIO and ISO firms. Several seminars have been joint AIO/ISO events, with European builders serving on the team of instructors (Wolfgang Eisenbarth, string voicing, 2001; Mads Kiersgaard, wood pipe voicing 2005).

Examinations and certificates

In addition to the educational programs at conventions and seminars, the AIO holds examinations and awards certificates of proficiency. Currently three certifications are awarded: Fellow, Colleague, and Service Technician. Successful candidates must pass written and oral exams.

The Fellow and Colleague examinations include over 200 questions. The topics covered include history, mechanical engineering, electrical, winding, mechanical key actions, electric actions, tonal engineering, windchest layouts, pipe construction, console standards, wood properties, joinery, tuning and maintenance, acoustics and architecture, structural engineering, business practices, and tuning (including setting an equal temperament by ear). To make the process less daunting, the questions are grouped into three separate historical, mechanical, and tonal focused exams that may be taken at separate times. Four hours are allotted for each written exam.

The Colleague certificate requires 65 percent correct answers on the exam. The Fellow certificate requires 85 percent correct on the written portion of the exams, plus oral questions, and the design (under mentorship) of a theoretical organ for a given location or situation. Additionally, the examiners must have inspected personally, or by a representative, an example of organbuilding work done by the Fellow candidate. The Service Technician exam is less inclusive and requires 75 percent correct to pass.

Exams and exam review sessions are held prior to each annual convention. They are conducted by a committee of three examiners, who all hold Fellow certificates. Each examiner is appointed by the board of directors for a three-year term.

Publications

All AIO members receive the quarterly Journal of American Organbuilding, whose issues have included technical articles, product and book reviews, and a forum for the exchange of building and service information and techniques. It first appeared as a newsletter in March 1986. By vote of the membership at that year’s convention in Chicago, it was officially named the Journal of American Organbuilding. Through the years its content and appearance evolved. The September 1989 issue was the first with a pictorial cover. In March 2010, the twenty-fifth year of the Journal’s publication, the first color cover appeared.

Prior to each convention the annual Convention Handbook is printed and mailed to all AIO members. In addition to convention information, it includes specifications and pictures of the convention organs and advertisements from exhibitors and suppliers.

Since 1992 the AIO has occasionally produced an annual Photographic Survey, with pictures of members’ recent work. Originally part of the annual convention handbook, the Survey is now printed separately for distribution at conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the National Association of Pastoral Musicians.

In 1980 the late AIO charter member David Cogswell published the Organbuilder’s Reference Handbook, with formulas and reference tables for organbuilders. In 2007 the AIO published a sixteen-page revised edition, edited by AIO Fellow member Robert Vaughan, including formulas for spreadsheet calculations.

Since 1990 all annual convention lectures (and some mid-year seminars) have been recorded. Videos of selected lectures are available for members to view on the members’ section of the AIO website.

Website and online technical resources

The AIO website (www.pipeorgan.org) has detailed information about the AIO, its activities, and a directory of its members for the public to view. There is also a members’ section, accessible by password, which contains PDF files of back issues of the Journal, the Organbuilder’s Reference Handbook, and the Online Technical Resource.

The Online Technical Resource section contains a wealth of practical articles and helpful tips written by members to help their colleagues solve problems encountered both in the shop and in the field. It covers a wide range of topics and includes technical service manuals of past and present electronic systems suppliers. Here is a sampling of article titles: “Techniques of Cone Tuning;” “Mitering Metal Pipes;” “Zinc Dust in Reed Boots;” “Voicing, Nicking and Regulating Flue Pipes;” “Repairing Reuter Ventil and Pitman Windchests;” “Rebuilding an Estey Tubular Pneumatic Primary;” “Electro-Pneumatic Action and the Slider Chest;” “Easing Heavy Tracker Actions;” and “Wiring for Electric Motors.”

Investing in the future

Believing that the pipe organ has a future as well as a past, the AIO invests in outreach to attract and educate the next generation of American organbuilders and organists. Each year, convention scholarships are awarded to young aspiring organbuilders to encourage them to grow into the profession and the AIO.

A “35-and-under” meeting, over lunch or dinner, was introduced as an annual convention event in 2013. Attended by the president or another board member, it provides younger convention attendees an opportunity to meet, network, and ask questions about the AIO. In recent years it has been very well attended.

The AIO contributes $500 to every local American Guild of Organists chapter that is presenting a Pipe Organ Encounter. This program, held annually in multiple cities throughout the United States, seeks to recruit new organists by exposing young keyboard students to the pipe organ. The AIO has also made material and financial contributions to the American Organ Archives of the Organ Historical Society, the largest repository of organ research materials in the world.

Impact

When the AIO was founded in 1974, the American organbuilding landscape was very different. The industry was dominated by large factory firms, which built electro-pneumatic instruments. There were only a few small tracker firms. Educational opportunities for young organbuilders were primarily provided by the factory firms, where one only learned a firm’s specific construction style. A lucky few obtained European apprenticeships. Tracker organs were the exception, and churches that wanted large tracker organs generally imported them from Europe. There was very little opportunity for contact among organbuilders, and as a result, there was ignorance and mistrust of each other’s work.

The AIO changed all of this, and by dedicating itself to the education of individual organbuilders, turned American organbuilding upside down. Today, most American firms are small to medium sized companies, and most of the old factory firms, if not gone, are considerably smaller. Thanks to the AIO’s educational programs, apprentices can learn a variety of organbuilding techniques from a variety of expert teachers. Today, the quality and reliability of “New World” organs equals those of the “Old World.” The importation of tracker organs is now rare.

Thanks to AIO conventions, American organbuilders are now on a first name basis and are happy to meet and discuss ideas. Many long-term friendships have been formed. It is not uncommon for a builder with a technical problem to consult a fellow AIO member for advice.

The remarkable strength and influence of the AIO stems from its being an organization founded, supported, and directed by individual organbuilders, not firms. In essence, it embodies the American national motto, E pluribus unum (out of many, one). The AIO helped this writer’s generation become the American organbuilders of today, and it continues to educate the organbuilders of tomorrow. Here’s to another fifty years of advancing the science and practice of pipe organbuilding!

Brian Swager, DM, is an organist, carillonneur, and harpist in San Francisco, California. He is director of music at Immanuel Lutheran Church in San Jose. He serves as contributing editor for carillon topics to The Diapason.

The Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London, England, is a cultural heritage asset of international significance. However, it is at grave risk of being renovated into a “bell-themed” boutique hotel and café rather than being retained as a fully working bell foundry on the site that was developed for this purpose in the 1740s. If this is allowed to happen, the bell founding skills on this historic site in the East End of London will be lost to the nation forever, bringing an end to a continuous history of bell casting covering the last 450 years. This is a matter of national and international importance.

For the last few years I have read reports of the imminent closure of the firm. However, a Public Inquiry called by the Secretary of State has been scheduled for October 2020, offering real hope of saving the foundry. The UK Historic Building Preservation Trust—whose founding patron was HRH The Prince of Wales and is now called Re-Form Heritage—launched a joint appeal with the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation to save the foundry. The many objectors, of which there were nearly 26,000, believe strongly that the site of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry should be a place of pilgrimage, preserving this important heritage. I contacted Adam Lowe, director of the Factum Foundation, who has supplied much of the information for this article. 

Whitechapel bells hold an enviable place in English history. The first recorded bells to have been cast in London were made in Whitechapel in the thirteenth century; bells have been made by the foundry since 1570, and on the current site on the corner of Whitechapel Road and Plumber’s Row since the 1740s. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry adopted its current name in 1968, but the same purpose-built foundry has been occupied by generations of bell makers—Phelps and Lester, Lester and Pack, Pack and Chapman, Chapman and Mears, Mears and Stainbank, Alfred Lawson, and since 1904 several generations of the Hughes family—with knowledge passing from one generation to the next, each of them forming a part of this extraordinary history.

Located in the Borough of Tower Hamlets in the heart of London, the renowned foundry is Britain’s oldest single-purpose industrial building. The bells cast here are the voices of nations: they mark the world’s celebrations and sorrows, representing principles of emancipation, freedom of expression, and justice. Both Big Ben and the Liberty Bell were cast on this site. 

In June 2017, the historic Whitechapel Foundry was sold to a developer, and the use of these Grade 2* buildings for the making of bells ceased. Grade 2* is a classification of a UK building that is “particularly important . . . of more than special interest.” Although the foundry had been listed for its historic connection to the East End’s industrial past and despite campaigns in the national press and emotional public outcry, it was shut down by the owners who wanted to take advantage of the enormous increase in its financial value by selling it for conversion into a hotel.

Raycliff, an American venture capitalist firm, purchased the foundry. Raycliff Whitechapel LLP has submitted a planning application that seeks to secure a change of use and development of the site as a 100-bed hotel, private members’ club, restaurant, bar, café, and shop, with desk-sharing workspaces for hire. The on-site foundry outlined in the Raycliff Whitechapel proposal has been reduced dramatically, and all that remains is a token activity—a small display workshop and studio for casting or finishing handbells within a restaurant and café.

In November 2019, the Tower Hamlets Development Committee approved the developer’s planning application. In December of last year, in response to public pressure, the Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, issued a holding declaration preventing Tower Hamlets Council from proceeding and granting planning permission. The planning application has now been “called in,” and a public inquiry will be held on October 6, 2020, lasting for about one week. This gives the opportunity for a fair and proper hearing with legal representation.

A foundry of worldwide stature

The foundry in Whitechapel has supplied a striking array of bells to churches around the globe as well as a number of significant and well-known installations. In addition to the Liberty Bell and Big Ben, the foundry has produced several other bells of national significance. Near the White House, in the Old Post Office and Clock Tower in Washington, D.C., is a ring of ten pealing bells, used for change ringing, called “The Bells of Congress.” Cast by Whitechapel in 1976, the bells range in weight from 581 to 2,953 pounds. Another Whitechapel ring of ten bells hangs in the tower of the Washington National Cathedral. Cast by Mears & Stainbank in 1962, the bells range from 608 to 3,588 pounds.

Commissioned and cast for the 2012 London Olympic Games, the Olympic Bell is the largest harmonically-tuned bell in the world. It was designed by Whitechapel, but due to its excessive size (22.91 tons, 10.95 feet in diameter), it was cast at the Royal Eijsbouts foundry in the Netherlands. It bears an inscription taken from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest: “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises.”

In celebration of the 1976 United States Bicentennial, the people of Britain gifted the people of this country with a 12,446-pound Bicentennial Bell cast by Whitechapel. It was dedicated by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II who shared her gratitude to America’s Founding Fathers for teaching the British “to respect the right of others to govern themselves in their own way.”

Various chimes and rings made in Whitechapel were sent to places near and far beyond England’s borders including Wales, Scotland, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, Trinidad, Malawi, Sudan, and Jamaica. No less than twenty-three sets of Whitechapel bells made their way to Canada, forty-four to Australia, four to New Zealand, and at least sixty-two sets to the United States. Several of their chimes were later enlarged to carillons. Fifty-eight of the seventy-four bells in the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon in the Riverside Church in New York City were recast or replaced by Whitechapel in 2003. It is no wonder that their website proclaimed: “the world’s most famous bell foundry.”

The business owner Alan Hughes cited financial difficulties with maintenance of the building in the current economic climate. “The future of bell making is bright” maintains Adam Lowe of the Factum Foundation. He notes that churches are no longer the main commissioners of bells, yet the market is diversifying, and new opportunities exist around the world. Likewise, technological advances must be applied that would bring the foundry into the twenty-first century.  

A viable future for the foundry

Re-Form Heritage and the Factum Foundation have led the opposition to the redevelopment plans. Together with the local community, former employees of the bell foundry, the Victoria and Albert Museum, B-Made (Bartlett Manufacturing & Design Exchange—a multidisciplinary center that aims to foster the next generation of thinkers, designers, and makers), University College London, the East London Mosque, artists, and others, they are proposing a viable future answering local and international needs: a working foundry specializing in the production of bells and works of art, together with a 3-D and acoustic archive and research center that will conduct bell recording, undertake research into historic casting methods, and develop machine learning predictive software to assist in the preservation of bells around the country and beyond.

There is a clear need for such services. Maintaining and re-making bells for churches is a relatively contained market in Europe and North America, but it serves an important social and preservation function. By contrast, there is a significant market for commemorative bells of all sizes and for bell-related artist projects. Internationally, Russia, Africa, and South America have been identified as expanding markets for church bells, while China and India have a large and growing demand for bells and gongs.

Technology has the potential to revitalize bell making in Whitechapel. Three-dimensional recording, digital modeling, machine learning analysis, and the use of software to predict and control shrinkage, flow, thickness, and shape are all part of this future. The new foundry will also be eco-friendly, filtering emissions and recycling heat. As has been demonstrated by Peter Scully, there are no issues with casting bells safely in London in a workshop that meets health and safety and the most challenging sustainability legislation: in December 2019, Scully and assistants at B-Made cast three bells in front of a group of journalists and supporters using ceramic shell investment molding and a new efficient electric kiln; the result was an unmitigated success.

Historical research leading to technological advances

The scene of bell making in Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece film Andrei Rublev depicts a human skill that has been passed down in Europe, almost unchanged, from generation to generation since the Middle Ages. In China its history is much longer, going back to around 2000 BCE. There is a profound need to document this history and to preserve and archive the achievements of this proud technological tradition within the UK and beyond. To this end, the partnership between Re-Form Heritage and the Factum Foundation will conduct extensive research into historic bronze casting technologies and will establish an archive focused on the history of bell founding, to include acoustic recordings and high-resolution 3-D models in addition to more traditional modes of documentation. This research and the accompanying archive will form a key resource as the revitalized bell foundry works on the preservation, monitoring, and analysis of historic bells.

Historical documentation will also inform research into the production of new bells. In February 2020, an early seventeenth-century church bell from near Salamanca, Spain, was 3-D recorded by a team of experts from Factum Foundation. The technique used was photogrammetry, which involves taking multiple photos of an object (often hundreds or even thousands) that can then be converted into a 3-D digital model using software. The Salamanca recording and others like it will form the basis of an archive of photogrammetric recordings of different bells, facilitating a study of the relationship between the composition of bell metal, shape, and sound. Building on this information, it will soon be possible for bell making to enter a new phase, in which mathematical modeling and new methods of precision fabrication are combined with the knowledge and experience of traditional bell founders.

Following the 3-D recording of the bell, a research project is now underway to carry out data processing using MagmaSoft, an advanced software that can predict flow and shrinkage. Once the analysis has been carried out, the data will be distorted. A 3-D print will be made so that after molding and casting, the bell will be the exact shape and size of the original bell. The casting is being done at Pangolin Foundry in Gloucestershire using a mix of bell metal with a high tin content. Arthur Prior is undertaking the digital analysis of the data in Nuremberg, and Nigel Taylor is advising on the production of the alloy, the temperature of the casting, and the speed of cooling. It is hoped that the new version of the Salamanca bell will sound similar to the original, even before fine tuning.

A further digitization project that has shown the possibilities of digital recording of bells is the scanning of the so-called “Cellini Bell.” This 13-centimeter-high silver bell was made ca. 1550 by the Nuremberg goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer, although for a long time it was attributed to the Italian Renaissance master Benvenuto Cellini. Once an important item in Horace Walpole’s collection at Strawberry Hill House, it now forms part of the Rothschild Bequest at the British Museum. The bell is covered with intricate relief-work that includes flowers, lizards, and insects, many of which were cast directly from life.

The Cellini Bell was recorded by Factum Foundation using close-range photogrammetry, a task that posed particular challenges specific to this complex object. The level of detail on the bell meant that it required many photographs, taken with a great degree of precision, and in order to accurately record the partially reflective surface of the silver, it was necessary to conduct the recording twice, once using the standard lenses employed by Factum for photogrammetry of this sort, and once employing cross-polarization to reduce the glare from the object. The two models were then combined, resulting in a 3-D model with 91.5 million polygons. This was then 3-D printed and silver plated, resulting in an exact facsimile that is now on permanent display at Strawberry Hill House.

It was during the process of recording the Cellini Bell in 2018, while Factum Foundation was also working to save the bell foundry at Whitechapel, that the role of machine-learning software and new casting technologies for the production of bells became apparent. This was then put to the test in December 2019 at B-Made in Here East, a media complex located in the Olympic Park in East London, not far from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

The proposed Elizabeth bell

Many of the great moments in England’s history since 1570 have been celebrated by the tolling of bells founded at Whitechapel. The coalition proposes that the nation should now celebrate the reign of Elizabeth II, their longest serving monarch, with the founding of a bell. Once the London bell foundry has been established as a trust and has reacquired the foundry at Whitechapel, the first commission the trust hopes to carry out is the founding of the Elizabeth Bell, a new quarter bell for the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster, of which Big Ben is the great bell. The bell will be funded by public donations and will require the support of the royal family and the government.

A viable future

The coalition proposal is supported by the local community, the East London Mosque, politicians at local and national levels, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Bartlett School of Architecture; by heritage bodies including the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), Spitalfields Trust, and SAVE Britain’s Heritage; by the blog Spitalfields Life (which has published extensively on the history of the foundry and on this campaign), by architectural historian Dan Cruickshank, former Royal Academy Chief Executive Charles Saumarez Smith, academics, makers, musicians, and artists including Michael Nyman, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, and Grayson Perry. While this is a local issue it has global implications, and there have been offers of support from China, Australia, and the United States. Mainstream and social media have shown a huge interest, and articles have appeared in Financial Times, The Daily Mail, Evening Standard, The Guardian, and The Economist, among other publications.

Speaking of his enthusiasm for the Re-Form/Factum proposals, former Tory leadership candidate and mayoral candidate Rory Stewart said: 

All of this, in one of the most interesting parts of our city . . . . An imaginative planner—in fact anyone with any imagination seeing the possibilities here—could not possibly turn this down. This is a challenge of courage, it’s a challenge of joyful imagination.

About Factum Foundation

Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation is a not-for-profit organization founded in Madrid to document, monitor, study, recreate, and disseminate the world’s cultural heritage. It works alongside its sister company, Factum Arte, a multi-disciplinary workshop dedicated to digital mediation and physical transformation in contemporary art, and the materialization of diverse types of object. Activities include building digital archives for preservation and further study, creating and organizing touring exhibitions, setting up training centers to enable colleagues across the world to record their own cultural heritage, and producing exact facsimiles as part of a new approach to conservation, restoration, and display. Factum Arte works with foundries in Spain, England, and Greece, casting many alloys and developing innovative connections between digital input and physical output.

Call to action

For those interested in supporting this initiative, Adam Lowe suggests a number of ways to be of assistance.

Visit and share the Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry website with others: savethewhitechapelbellfoundry.com. Here you can sign a petition to register support. By clicking on “Donate,” one will be redirected to Re-Form’s website where it is possible to make a donation in any amount, if desired.

Further information is available on “Spitalfield’s life,” the blog devoted to life in the East End: spitalfieldslife.com

Visit Factum Foundation’s online page and see the development of the fight to keep the site as a working bell foundry: factumfoundation.org/ind/180/the-resurrection-of-the-whitechapel-bell-foundry.

We are also looking for people in historic and preservation societies who are interested in learning how new technology can help create an archive of various types of information that will help revitalize interest in bells, their production, and their digital and physical restoration. Support is needed to build a network that will allow these noble objects to be valued and appreciated. Write to: [email protected].

Mabel Zehner (photo credit: Ashland University Archives, Ashland, Ohio)

Giving thanks from A to Z, part 2: Moving to Dallas (1970)

During late spring of 1970 I was invited to present my Hugo Distler lecture and a masterclass on his organ music at the University of  Michigan, Ann Arbor. In conversations with the school’s late iconic organ professor Marilyn Mason she tried to dissuade me from accepting the offer from the Meadows School of the Arts of  Southern Methodist University to join its faculty to continue the harpsichord studio begun there by James Tallis who had passed away after only one year at the Dallas school. She warned me that I would be quite unhappy working with the head of the organ department, Robert Anderson, especially since I had been so independent and successful in Norfolk. In reality she was attempting to keep the Dallas position available for her student Allen Shaffer (a talented and delightful person whom I had known when he was studying at Oberlin). However, having worked with several difficult colleagues previously I strode forth into the fray and accepted the Dallas position even though it meant a demotion from my Norfolk full professorship and a huge reduction in salary. As it turned out Allen did extremely well by filling my Norfolk position, where he had fine success and succeeded Grover Oberle as the musician for Christ & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church—a plum position.

I did not have the difficult time with Robert Anderson that Mason had envisioned. We had a mutual respect for each other, and my forty-five years on the faculty of the Meadows School were mostly happy ones (and I did regain that full professorship and tenure, too). Among the early successes in Dallas were the interactions with the soon-to-be stellar harpsichord builder Richard Kingston. I introduced him to my beautiful two-manual harpsichord, commissioned from William Dowd in 1968 and delivered shortly after the dawn of 1969; it was Bill’s penultimate instrument to have foot pedals for changing the stops. This harpsichord served as a major influence for Richard’s instruments. He also benefited from several of the many harpsichord students that swarmed to SMU in those early years, several of whom took part-time jobs at Richard’s Dallas shop. We all benefitted from the generous leadership of the music department head Eugene Bonelli, who was promoted to dean of the Meadows School and somewhat later became CEO of the Dallas Symphony, which also benefitted from his leadership, as did the Dallas organ community, for it was under his guidance that the Meyerson Symphony Center acquired its C. B. Fisk, Inc., organ, Opus 100, and SMU its concert hall organ, Fisk Opus 101, as well as a Dowd double (complete with a Sheridan German soundboard painting) for the harpsichord studio! Guest artists of harpsichord renown included Isolde Ahlgrimm (who taught the harpsichord students during my first sabbatical leave in which I gathered much of the material for my second book, Harpsichord in America—suffering terribly during many visits to Honolulu for multiple  interviews with Momo Aldrich (Wanda Landowska’s first private secretary)—a generous and gracious person who was most worthy of the book’s dedication to her. Another important person who aided the book project was my longtime “older brother that I never had,” Richard Kurth, whom I first met during my father’s ministry in Neffs, Ohio, while we were both still in college. Richard’s career as a language teacher has been spent primarily at the Kamehameha School in Hawaii, and he was always a gracious and most helpful host during my working visits.

Not to be forgotten is the support that Dean Bonelli gave to the harpsichord curriculum through his support for the annual summer workshops that took place at Fort Burgwin, SMU’s New Mexico campus retreat near Ranchos de Taos. Helpful guest faculty members from California included: Neal Roberts and Tony Brazier; from London, Jane Clark and Stephen Dodgson; and closer to home, Susan Ferré and her husband Charles Lang, plus many others. It was during one of these early retreats that I met Dr. Charles Mize, who, with his wife Susan, had a delightful and welcoming summer home in Santa Fe, where they often provided post- or pre-workshop hospitality and other forms of support, as well as generously supporting many other harpsichord-related endeavors. To this list I must add my late partner Clyde Putman, who delivered many harpsichords to New Mexico, tuned them repeatedly as they adapted to the higher altitude, and brought them safely back home to Dallas. Without him I could not have organized and survived these intense (but glorious) summer retreats.

Among the many highlights of these forty-five years was that I gave an SMU faculty recital each fall, usually on the first Monday after Labor Day (an SMU record, I believe)—most often presenting works for both harpsichord and organ. Even more memorable, however, were the Dallas visits by Gustav Leonhardt, with whom I had studied during two of the summer academies that took place in Haarlem, the Netherlands. During the second of these summer events I found lodging in nearby Amsterdam and made the daily trip to Haarlem and back by train. Since it was my second workshop with the maestro we were on quite friendly terms, and would often meet at the train station to travel together to the daily masterclasses.

Having already introduced the Dallas arts community to the marvelous playing of Isolde Ahlgrimm, it was my great pleasure while I was dean of the Dallas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists to engineer a harpsichord recital as part of the chapter’s annual recital series. Leonhardt was the first, and he was my houseguest during several of his visits to “Big D.” Among the many memories from these visits were the rather erotic actions of my female dog Hunda Maris, who welcomed the great artist by trying to hump his leg. A second memory of that first attempt at hospitality came in the form of the thank you note in which “Utti” (as he was known to his close friends) displayed the sharp wit for which he was well known; the missive read, “Thank you for Kirkman and Breakfast,” referring to the fact that his bed was constructed above the 1797 Kirkman fortepiano that was stored in a wooden case below.

Leonhardt’s visit to SMU occurred in the form of a recital and masterclass during the festivities when SMU bestowed on him his first honorary doctorate. As part of my twelve years on the SMU faculty senate I had the opportunity to suggest that GL was a most worthy recipient. The senators and university president agreed, so one of the proudest moments of my life was reading the citation that I had written for the bestowal of the honor at Commencement. And thus it was that Leonhardt henceforward always addressed his missives to his “Doktor-Vater,” perhaps the first time in history that a student was father to the teacher?

Another exceptional artist who graced the AGO concert series was Don Angle, a graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston and a valued coworker in the shop of William Dowd. In my opinion Don was master of the best harpsichord technique of any American player, and his dexterity, largely in his performances of jazz and very audience-friendly repertoire, was absolutely mesmerizing in its ease and beauty. It was another honor to house such a fine artist as a houseguest on Cromwell Drive. Both Angle and Leonhardt are no longer with us in person, but each has left an unforgettable legacy in their recordings and the ease with which they presented great music each time they were seated at the keyboards.

Graphic artists also have influenced my life, and especially important for my submissions to The Diapason, were the caricatures created so expertly by Jane Johnson. Who could forget her illustrations for “A Letter from J. S. Bach,” or her drawings of Mozart, Purcell, the Harpsichord Murder Mystery Reviews, and even her affectionate drawing “Fast Fingers,” which accompanied several of my columns, as well as providing the graphic for my note pads? I miss her nearly every month when I attempt to find just the right illustration for my submission. She, too, has passed away, but is lovingly remembered, and sorely missed.

Another group of import must be “my” composers. Among the living I especially prize Gerald Near who composed both his impressive Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra and his equally lovely Triptych for Harpsichord for me. The Concerto filled a need for such a work to be featured at an AGO national gathering in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Gerald conducted the premiere in the Minneapolis Orchestra Hall, and the necessity was that it had to be for an instrument other than organ, since that hall did not have a “king of instruments.” He also conducted that first performance heard by 1,600 auditors. I have never before or since felt so loved by an audience that applauded for such an extended ovation. Many of the listeners commented that it was the best of the new works at that AGO event. And, to my knowledge, it was not performed again until SMU’s magnificent student orchestra under the direction of Maestro Paul Phillips (who was a freshman clarinet major at SMU when I arrived there) gave an even better performance of this major addition to the repertoire. Equally composed for a concert celebrating an art exhibition, the Triptych has been an audience favorite during many concerts. When I decided to move the aforementioned summer harpsichord workshops to venues other than the New Mexico home base, one of the places to be selected was in Alsace. The townspeople who attended the first of the concerts there requested a repetition of Near’s work at the festive reception that concluded the summer event.

Equally important are works from Glenn Spring, Rudy Davenport, Neely Bruce, Vincent Persichetti, and others. I refer you to Frances Bedford’s magnum opus Harpsichord and Clavichord Repertoire of the Twentieth Century (page 597).

So, if I do not draw this article to a close it will be next year before we know it! So many influential persons to mention, such as Ivar Lunde (who edited and published Letters from Salzburg when Indiana University Press sent it back to me with the note, “We do not publish memoirs.” Ivar came to the rescue with his Skyline Publications, Eau Claire, and even provided the beautiful photo of Salzburg (where he, too, had studied) for the front cover and even, bless him, created the index, not one of my favorite tasks as I remember from the previous publications. Also, I should remember Alfred Rosenberger, whom I first met in Haarlem, who became the European “manager” who arranged many organ recital dates for me and who shared his love of Amsterdam and Dutch culture freely. Another departed figure is the fondly remembered best friend of early Dallas days, Sue Stidham, who joined forces with me to establish the Limited Editions series of house concerts that is now in its thirty-sixth year! And I should thank the magnificent organist André Marchal, blind from birth, who, during a visit to Oberlin, graciously gave me an organ lesson on early French music and who was able to criticize some of my fingerings simply by listening to the results, and who would correct those fingerings by gently placing his hands over mine. The list could go on and on.

However, I should like to end these words of gratitude with a return to my first organ teacher, Mabel Zehner. As her gift to me when I graduated from Crestline High School, she presented me with a copy of the first edition of The Bach Reader by Hans David and Arthur Mendel (W. W. Norton, 1945). I had not consulted it for many years until recently when I opened the tome to re-read what she had inscribed on the title page: “To Larry Palmer—one of the most gifted organists it has been my privilege to teach. God gave you a wonderful talent and may you use it for a lifetime of Success and Happiness.” Signed: Mabel Zehner, May 17, 1956. While I do not think I deserve her highly complimentary remarks, it reminded me of her great kindness and the joy that I felt when I could please her at my lessons. She was truly an inspiring teacher, and I am grateful that I have lived long enough to share her memory with others. As teachers and human beings it behooves all of us to reflect and give thanks for those who have guided and aided us on our career paths and who have helped us to achieve what we are able to do.

§

The photograph of Mabel Zehner is provided courtesy of Ashland University Archives, Ashland, Ohio, and Archivist David Roepke (also an organist, whose mother studied with Miss Zehner). I wish also to give credit and thanks to my SMU colleague and friend Pam Pagels, Music and Arts Librarian at the Hamon Arts Library, for making the connection with Mr. Roepke.

American Organ Institute, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma

R. Jelani Eddington has been an international theatre organist and concert artist for over thirty years. During his career, he has performed in theatre organ venues throughout the world and has over forty albums to his credit. With degrees from Indiana University and Yale Law School, Jelani Eddington also practices law in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

A revolution in Norman: how a visionary idea is transforming the organ industry

Many in the organ community have likely heard about the American Organ Institute (AOI) at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Fewer have had the opportunity to experience the institute first-hand. For many years, I have had the privilege of knowing the faculty and staff of the AOI personally and professionally and am grateful for the chance to share some thoughts about this visionary program.

In December 2017, I spent several days on campus at the AOI and conducted a series of interviews. While I have always held the people at the AOI in the highest of regard, I was nevertheless deeply touched by the fervent passion with which the goals of the institute were shared among all. From the director of the program to students just beginning their musical journey, there was a unanimity of purpose and an understanding that the AOI offers something truly exceptional: the opportunity to be part of a family that, by providing a far-reaching and all-inclusive educational experience to its students, is helping to transform the organ world.

At its core, the AOI is one of the largest and certainly most stylistically diverse organ music programs in the country. Although the institute was founded at the University of Oklahoma in 2006, its bedrock principles began to take shape many years earlier in the mind of Dr. John Schwandt. For too long, he had watched as the various traditions within the organ world operated largely independent of one another. Dr. Schwandt viewed this compartmentalization as tribalism that could threaten the very industry we all seek to promote.

In 2005, Dr. Schwandt, then comfortably ensconced in a faculty position at Indiana University, became aware of a unique opportunity at the University of Oklahoma. The university’s president, David Boren, circulated a letter soliciting applicants to develop an organ program within the school of music, and Dr. Schwandt seized the opportunity.

Among his most important purposes, Dr. Schwandt wanted to unite the often-disparate communities within the organ world. To achieve that goal, the institute would need to offer the rigorous discipline of a traditional organ program, but also offer students the ability to pursue the heretofore unconventional, including concert and symphonic organ playing, theatre organ styling and silent film accompaniment, and organ building and technology.

I asked Dr. Schwandt the obvious question: why was it so important to include all of these various disciplines within a single organ program? Beyond the academic answer, that “knowledge is power,” he had a more immediate and practical response, focusing on providing students a more complete skill set to meet the challenges of being an organist in the twenty-first century. A student who could play a Bach trio sonata flawlessly—but not a hymn—would be ill equipped to serve the liturgical needs of many churches. An organist without basic skills of improvisation would be challenged to segue seamlessly from one musical theme to another or to remedy a situation in which a prepared offertory was 45 seconds too short for the service. And, a student without basic training in the art of theatre organ would surely struggle if asked to accompany a praise band on a Sunday morning. Dr. Schwandt perceived an opportunity to offer a broader spectrum of skills to today’s students, and through the pioneering spirit that is so often associated with the state of Oklahoma, the American Organ Institute was born.

The plans were admittedly ambitious, but, in Dr. Schwandt’s words, “why not?” In 2007, shortly after the AOI opened its doors, the vision of integrating a fully functioning organ shop into the curriculum of the institute became a reality. Shop director John Riester describes the shop as an “education laboratory” with its primary purpose to provide students with projects and opportunities for broad understanding of the mechanical and technical aspects of a pipe organ. This includes work in the shop as well as regular opportunities to work in the surrounding community with service manager Nathan Rau.

The practical knowledge gained at the shop is important because it gives the student a basic understanding of what to do if an organ has a technical problem—whether during a worship service or during a concert or other public presentation. Mr. Riester also emphasized the importance of organists having that basic knowledge in order to be effective advocates on organ committees and to understand how to better understand organ proposals. Importantly, every student at the AOI, regardless of degree program, must spend a certain amount of time in the shop.

The initial funds designated by OU were originally intended to purchase an organ for Sharp Hall of Catlett Music Center. Instead, these funds were utilized over ten years to develop the shop, hire staff, as well as install an organ in Sharp Hall. One of the shop’s first projects was the creation of Mini Mo—the “miniature” core of M. P. Möller Opus 5819. It was procured almost by chance, before its imminent demolition. OU and University of Pennsylvania reached an agreement, and by February 2007 the Möller pipe organ began to arrive in Norman. Completed in 2009, a smaller version was created first so that a working hybrid concert/theatre organ could be used pending the restoration of the complete instrument. AOI students were involved in every aspect of the project, including rebuilding of chests, winding, and installation of the fourteen ranks that now serve as the concert organ for Sharp Hall.

Mini-Mo, an incredibly versatile instrument, complements the more classical C. B. Fisk, Inc., Opus 111, known as the Mildred Andrews Boggess Memorial Organ, in the cathedral-like Gothic Hall of Catlett. Thanks to the work of students and staff at the shop and tireless development efforts by associate director Jeremy Wance, the number of instruments available to students in the program has doubled. With these instruments in the talented hands of the students, a wide range of music is interpreted credibly and, most importantly, musically.

Work at the shop is complemented by degree and course offerings that range from sacred music and classical organ performance to organ technology and theatre organ. While throughout its long history the craft of organbuilding has been passed from generation to generation, often through apprenticeships, no other program exists that offers the credibility and indeed gravitas of a recognized formal degree. The number of organ companies currently in line to hire one of the organ technology graduates from the AOI—37 firms as of February 2019—speaks to the changing nature of the industry and the necessity of this program.

While accredited degree programs existed for theatre organ in the 1920s during the original silent film era, the study of theatre organ has since that time been the nearly exclusive province of private instructors and oral history. In 2016, Clark Wilson joined the faculty to teach theatre organ as part of the curriculum of the AOI. Under his tutelage, students can learn the fundamentals of theatre organ history, playing, as well as silent film accompaniment. And, as with the focus on organ technology, this knowledge has important practical applications, given the growing interest within the larger musical world in theatre organ, orchestral music, and silent film accompaniment.

One of the unique aspects of the program is that it is home to its very own archives and library. In 2012, the AOI acquired the complete archival materials of the American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS), consisting of a treasure trove of materials such as scores, blueprints, stoplists, correspondence, photographs, and recordings. Currently, more than 350 cubic feet of those materials have been carefully preserved, with inventory lists available online.1 The large collection of glass slides from the silent film era has been a particularly fertile area for research.

In addition to the ATOS collection, the archive houses other significant materials that have been donated to the institute, including the Mildred Andrews Boggess collection, the papers of Dr. Larry Smith (including materials from his teachers Arthur Poister and Russell Saunders), and the complete collection of Möller master player rolls. In 2012, Bailey Hoffner became one of the first graduate assistants to work with the collections, and in October of 2016, she returned to serve as the full-time curator and archivist. She projects a discernible passion for outreach and encourages anyone with questions about the materials to contact the archives and library.2 In Ms. Hoffner’s words, “you don’t have to be a researcher” to take advantage of these special collections, and the wide range of research requests, from students in the program to organ enthusiasts from around the world, is testament to that.

Dr. Adam Pajan, instructor of organ and AOI shop technician, described the institute as the “Willy Wonka” of the organ world, offering the ability to explore virtually anything within the greater organ culture. And that very openness is what has attracted so many students to the institute.

In the years since the AOI welcomed its first students, there has been tremendous growth. Since 2006, the number of students has increased from five to twenty-six, with a current count of eighteen majors (four are doctoral candidates) and eight non-majors. Faculty and staff positions have grown to accommodate the students, with the addition of assistant professor of organ, Dr. Damin Spritzer, and three full-time shop staff. Along with that growth has blossomed a shared passion that the vision of the AOI is helping to ensure that future generations have a thriving organ industry within which to practice.

The AOI has its own goals for the future, and two to three times each year the faculty participate in retreats to revise the one-year and five-year strategic plans, always with the aim of ensuring that everything they do is for the betterment of the students. This includes continued expansion and evolution of the curriculum to address the needs of students in the broadest way possible. The AOI shop looks to continue to expand its education of students on the technology of the organ through apprenticeship programs and through pedagogically significant projects. The archive will continue to preserve, catalogue, and strategically digitize as many parts of the collection as possible, not only to protect the material but also to ensure access to those materials for generations to come.

“This industry is not dying,” observed shop manager and instructor of organ technology Fredrick Bahr. “People are coming along with the same passions that we had, and that generations before us had.” The key is to ensure that our educational institutions are equipped to give students the skills they need to thrive in today’s often-changing musical world. That is, indeed, the true vision of the AOI, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to experience that vision first-hand through the eyes of the students, faculty, and staff.

My visit left me both grateful and inspired. It was clear that the future of the organ industry was in capable hands, both with the talented faculty and staff and exceptional students. But I was also inspired by the talent, camaraderie, and supportive atmosphere that pervaded all aspects of the AOI experience.

In my discussions with the people of the AOI, one word kept coming up repeatedly—family. The students and faculty were passionate in their commitment to the inclusion of everyone within their extended family, and these were not just platitudes offered to an outside observer. To the contrary, the inclusivity, support, and caring was palpable among all of them.

I close by sharing the observations of Dr. Schwandt, whose vision, along with the help and dedication from so many, has created something truly special in Norman. In contemplating what he hopes the legacy of the institute will be, Dr. Schwandt candidly observed:

What I hope we can achieve is to train legions of students who learned how to play music in every way possible, and who learned that they can be greater than they thought. And, I hope that, in whatever way they can have an impact, they leave the world a better place than how they found it. Whether it’s working in an organ shop, playing in a church, teaching, or whatever they may do, I hope they always understand that diligent, hard work will produce excellence. And, excellence will always succeed.

The first squadrons have already left the doors of the AOI and are fulfilling its mission, and many more will follow over the coming years and decades. The diligent, hard work of those who have helped to create and develop the AOI has already paid dividends as seen in the lives and achievements of the students that have been part of the program, as well as the impact the students have had in the industry.

The words of Dr. Schwandt could not ring truer. Excellence will always succeed. It already has, and there is much more to come.

Website: www.ou.edu/aoi.

Interested individuals should contact [email protected] for more information on audition dates, visits, etc.

The author thanks the University of Oklahoma and the American Organ Institute, as well as the many people who gave of their time and shared of their experiences, including Dr. John Schwandt, Dr. Damin Spritzer, Dr. Adam Pajan, Clark Wilson, Jeremy Wance, John Riester, Fredrick Bahr, Nathan Rau, Bailey Hoffner, and Paul Watkins.

Notes

1. http://www.aoi.ou.edu/aoial (last visited February 10, 2019).

2. [email protected].