The American Institute of Organbuilders Celebrates Fifty Years

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!

Lost arts

The stone carvings in an ancient cathedral, the sparkles of light on Rembrandt’s tunic, the deep colors of a Tiffany lampshade, the intricacies of a Renaissance tapestry. These are all experiences available to us as we travel to ancient sites and visit museums. They are living testaments to the skills of artists and artisans, expressing their visions, observations, and thoughts in physical media. Did Rembrandt mix his paints from gathered materials as observed in artworks already old when he viewed them? Did he know that his paints would retain their colors and stay on the canvas for 350 years? Visit a modern artists’ supply store, and you will find rack upon rack of tubes of pre-mixed paints from different manufacturers. Do they expect that their products will last on canvas until the year 2352? Do the artists who buy and work with those paints trust that a glimmer of light on the nose of a subject will beguile viewers three centuries from now?

We play and listen to centuries-old organs, experiencing the same lively sounds that musicians and congregations heard over 600 years ago. We marvel at the monumental organ cases, knowing that they were built without the aid of electric milling machines. Perhaps some of us have tried to saw a board from a log by hand. I have. I can tell you it is hard work; it is tricky to produce a board that is anything like straight; and it takes a long time. We read that eighteenth-century organs took eight or ten years to build. Even so, Arp Schnitger (1648–1719) produced ninety-five new organs, forty-eight of which survive. Multiply that by the number of boards sawn by hand—case panels, toeboards, rackboards, keyboards, stop action traces, and hundreds of thousands of trackers. That many organs is a significant life’s work for a modern organ builder. And remember, delivering a pipe organ in those days involved oxcarts and rutted dirt (or mud) roads. Or did Mr. Schnitger set up a workshop in each church, casting metal and soldering pipes on site? That would simplify the logistics.

Something like 2,500 “Hook” organs were built between 1827 and 1927 by E. & G. G. Hook, E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings, and Hook & Hastings. Organs were shipped from the workshops in Boston to churches below the Mason-Dixon Line before the Civil War, to California, and throughout the Midwest. By then, steam ferries and railroads were available to make shipments easier—the tracks ran right into the workshop. During the same period, builders like Henry Erben, George Hutchings, George Stevens, and George Jardine, among many others, combined to build thousands of organs across the United States. With the introduction of electricity to pipe organ keyboard and stop actions, Skinner, Möller, Austin, Schantz, Kimball, and others combined to build as many as 2,500 new pipe organs a year in American churches during the 1920s.

Here’s to the crabgrass, here’s to the mortgage . . . .

So sang Allen Sherman in his 1963 smash hit recording, My Son the Nut, the same album that included “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh. . . .” The song was about the migration from cities to suburbs in the 1950s: “walk the dog and cut the grass, take the kids to dancing class, Jim’s little league got beat again.”1 During the 1950s and 1960s, suburban churches blossomed. The populations of towns surrounding Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and countless other cities exploded. Twenty years ago, I served a church as music director in a suburb of Boston that never had more than 2,000 residents until the circumnavigating commuter highway Route 128 (now I-95) was built around 1960. Within ten years, there were 15,000 residents, and the little country Congregational church built an impressive new sanctuary with an extensive parish house and a three-manual organ.

Many if not most of those powerful suburban congregations commissioned new pipe organs. Where I grew up, the ubiquitous New England town square had two or three competing churches. One town near home had two three-manual Hook organs built in 1860 and 1870. Another had three Aeolian-Skinners. And by the time I graduated from high school, my hometown had two organs by Charles Fisk, one of which has its fiftieth anniversary this year.

A new wave

Through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, hundreds of American churches committed to commissioning new organs built by “boutique” builders of tracker organs, many of which replaced impressive and valuable electro-pneumatic-action organs. Of course, many of those organs had in turn replaced impressive and important nineteenth-century organs. The Andover Organ Company, then led by Charles Fisk, was among the first of the new wave of organ companies. Charles Fisk spun off to start what became C. B. Fisk, Inc., along with the founding of, in no particular order, eponymous organ companies such as Noack, Roche, Brombaugh, Bozeman-Gibson, Bedient, Taylor & Boody, Dobson, Visser-Rowland, and Jaeckel. Casavant started building tracker organs and firms like Wilhelm, Wolff, and Létourneau spun off from there in the following years.

As some of the “older” new firms began “aging out,” a new wave of impressive companies came along such as Juget-Sinclair, Richards, Fowkes & Co., and Paul Fritts, and companies like Nichols & Simpson and the revitalized Schoenstein & Co. started building new electro-pneumatic-action organs of high quality inspired both by the electric-action masterpieces of the early twentieth century and by, I believe, the increasingly high standards of the boutique organ movement. Toward the end of the twentieth century, American organbuilding was a vital, if small industry producing beautiful instruments of all descriptions at a rapid rate.

American organbuilders gathered in Washington, DC, in September 1973 to discuss formation of a new professional organization that would take the name American Institute of Organbuilders. This purpose statement was published in the program book for that gathering:

• to be the first such convention in recent times in North America and to be a model for future conventions of this type to be held regularly;

• to promote the exchange of principles and ideas among established organbuilders to aid in the improvement of the instrument while lowering its costs and ensuring the security of our future;

• to educate ourselves in potential new technologies and construction procedures, some of which are being employed by other industries and arts but perhaps not yet fully realized and exploited by organbuilders;

• to provide the many suppliers of organ parts and materials, many of which are new to our field, with the opportunity to display and demonstrate their developments and ideas where many builders may jointly view and discuss these products;

• to study some general business problems of concern to the organ industry, and to propose courses of action that might be taken by organbuilders, both individually and collectively, to alleviate these concerns;

• to enable social exchanges between organbuilders and their families; to provide families of organbuilders with the opportunity to share in the appreciation of the greater glories of the profession through mutual enjoyment of a convention environment and its program of entertainment designed for all.

The last decades of the twentieth century were very productive for American organbuilding, and we must not forget the vast number of European organs imported to the United States. E. Power Biggs famously purchased an organ from Flentrop that was installed in the Busch-Reisinger Museum (now Busch Hall) at Harvard University in 1957. He made it instantly famous with his fabulously successful series of recordings, Bach: Great Organ Favorites. Many of my friends and colleagues, myself included, cite those recordings as influential to devoting a lifetime to organbuilding. That organ was followed by a flood of Flentrops crossing the Atlantic, a wave greatly advanced by Fenner Douglas, professor of organ at Oberlin in the 1960s and early 1970s, whose influence led to at least dozens of Flentrops installed in American churches and universities, notably those at Oberlin College and Duke University. Also in 1957, Trinity Lutheran Church in Cleveland, Ohio, installed a four-manual, sixty-five-rank Beckerath organ, three years before the monumental five-manual Beckerath organ was installed at Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal.

As the twentieth century came to a close, a significant decline in church attendance was well underway. Churches continue to close at an increasing rate. And toward the end of the last century, there was a dip of interest in playing the organ. When I was a student at Oberlin in the 1970s, there were over fifty organ majors in four bustling studios. Fifteen years later, there were fewer than ten. Several colleges and universities closed their organ departments, churches with traditionally active music programs began having trouble filling empty jobs, and for a while things were looking pretty grim for the American pipe organ.

I am carving time into rough blocks for my own convenience, but as the twenty-first century got underway, a fresh wave of brilliant young organists appeared. Stephen Tharp and Ken Cowan, now in their late forties and early fifties, led the pack forging virtuosic concert careers. They were followed in no particular order by Paul Jacobs, Isabelle Demers, Nathan Laube, Katelyn Emerson, and many others, raising the art of organ playing to unprecedented heights. Concurrently, especially following economic lows following 9/11 and the near collapse of the American economy in 2008, noticeably fewer churches embarked on expensive organ renovation or new organ projects. Many of us in the organbuilding trade wondered silently and increasingly out loud if we were heading toward the end of the pipe organ industry.

Convention

The American Institute of Organbuilders held its annual convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, October 8–12, 2022. More than 300 members gathered in a convention hotel there to be immersed in the work of the Historic Organ Restoration Committee that is more than halfway through the herculean task of restoring the legendary Boardwalk Hall organ with seven manuals and 449 ranks. Built by Midmer-Losh, Inc., between 1929 and 1932 (Opus 5550), the Boardwalk Hall organ is the largest in the world, not by ranks (The Wanamaker Organ has more), but with 33,112 pipes. Many of the ranks have eighty-five pipes or more. The committee is about eight years into the project and anticipates completion in 2030. I will bet we will have another convention there then. (See the cover feature for this organ in the November 2020 issue.)

A convention of the AIO typically includes a lot of time riding buses to see organs throughout an area. Because of the huge attraction at the center of this convention, we had just one day of bus travel to visit three marvelous organs in the Philadelphia area: C. B. Fisk, Inc., Opus 150 (2016) at Christ Church, Episcopal, Philadelphia; Aeolian-Skinner Opus 948 (1936) at St. Mark’s Church, Episcopal, Philadelphia; and the instrument by Kegg Pipe Organ Builders (2014) at Bryn Athyn Cathedral, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. These are three very different and very distinguished organs, all beautifully demonstrated, and all terrific examples of the art of American organbuilding. At the convention hotel, perhaps the only large hotel in Atlantic City that does not boast a casino, we heard lectures about the history of the Boardwalk Hall organ, the economics of refurbishing rather than replacing damaged old organ pipes, and the art of structuring a contract to define an organ project, among others. Nathan Laube, the brilliant recitalist and teacher I mentioned earlier, lectured organbuilders about his ideal of the modern organ console—his conclusion, keep it simple.

In the past, I have written in detail about the organs we heard after attending a convention. This time, I want to celebrate the trade. I have related an off-the-cuff bird’s eye view of American organbuilding over the past century to put in context what I am observing now. In addition to our work aiding the sales of vintage pipe organs and dismantling those organs to be delivered to workshops for renovation, the Organ Clearing House is privileged to work with many of our admired companies, assisting with the shipping, hoisting, assembly, and installation of their new organs. This allows us intimate exposure to the methods and practices of a variety of firms and close associations with their largest organs.

While varying styles of worship and the proliferation of digital instruments has consumed much of the market for simple pipe organs, it is clear that we are in an age of monumental new instruments. Noack, Fritts, Fisk, Schoenstein, Richards, Fowkes, Létourneau, Buzard, and Parsons, among others, have built exceptional new organs in the last five years. All of them carry forth the 500-year tradition of organbuilding, many aided by Computer Numerical Control (CNC) routers. These expensive but efficient machines use computer programs to interpret an organbuilder’s drawings to produce repetitive parts automatically, to drill windchest tables, to make toeboards, rackboards, skyracks, and countless other organ parts with precise perfection. Ten years ago, only a few shops had them, now some have two that grind along in the corner of a shop while the organbuilders are free to do the interpretive work that a machine cannot do.

A couple important firms have recently closed. After a century of work and producing more than 2,500 organs, the Reuter Organ Company in Lawrence, Kansas, stopped most operations on December 1. While they remained profitable until the end, as the senior staff reached retirement age, other administrative staff chose not to step in to continue the business. The closure of August Laukhuff GmbH, a huge and important organ supply firm in Weikersheim, Germany, is having a profound effect on American companies. Many organbuilders have long relied on Laukhuff for organ blowers, electric parts like slider motors and pull-down magnets, keyboards, polished façade pipes, action chassis, and countless other widgets essential to the trade. Other firms are working to fill in the gaps, but this remains an important loss.

The AIO has a relatively new tradition of having a special dinner for members under thirty years old. Since the conventions in 2020 and 2021 were postponed because of covid, this year’s dinner included all members under forty, and there were more than thirty in attendance. I was thrilled to realize that in a trade heavily populated by older people, more than ten percent of those attending this convention were under forty. I had wonderful conversations with many of them and was heartened by their excitement and commitment to continuing the art.

This year’s AIO Convention was particularly high-spirited with enthusiasm for our trade abounding. Nathan Bryson, convention chair and curator of the Boardwalk Hall organ, was an enthusiastic and welcoming host. His excitement for his job is evident in the attitudes of the members of the Historic Organs Restoration Committee, both staff and volunteers. My many conversations with our younger colleagues were highpoints of the week for me. I was happy to hear their enthusiasm about their work. Some newcomers to the trade expressed to me their amazement at the rich history of the organ and the complexities of building, restoring, and repairing them. A couple of the younger participants were in the process of starting new workshops, and their excitement was infectious. Many of the younger members are women, bringing lively diversity to our gathering.

Whenever I am with colleague organbuilders, I hear stories of how they got interested in the organ when they were kids, how the first years of learning piqued their interest enough to devote their lives to the trade. I love comparing notes about solving problems. I love hearing about new materials, methods, machinery, and tools that save time and money, and I love the comeradery of spending time with like-minded people.

Above all, I celebrate what seems to be a bright future for American organbuilding. Churches are investing in large expensive projects, and many of our colleague firms have years of contracted work spreading ahead of them. Perhaps most important, I believe that American organ playing is the best it has ever been. As long as there are brilliant, compelling musicians to play on the instruments we build, there will always be new organs to build. Keep working hard, my friends. ν

Notes

1. In fact, the couple singing that song winds up fleeing the suburbs to return to the city: “Back to the crush there, hurry let us rush there, back to the rat race, don’t forget your briefcase, back to the groove there, say, why don’t we move there, away from all this sweet simplicity.”