Schoenstein & Co. Organ Builders of Benecia, California has just completed a new pipe organ for St. James’ Church Madison Avenue: The St. James’ Bicentennial Organ. The organ’s dedication and other musical events focused around the instrument will begin in 2010, in conjunction with the church’s bicentennial celebration.

This instrument is Schoenstein’s largest East Coast installation. The organ contains 5,267 pipes, divided between the chancel and the gallery of the church. The entire organ is controlled by a four-manual (keyboard) console in the chancel. A two-manual console is located in the gallery to play that portion of the instrument independently.

Davis Wortman, Director of Music & Organist at St. James’, and Jack Bethards, President and Owner of Schoenstein & Co., designed the organ, built in the symphonic tradition, specifically for playing service music and accompaniment in many styles. An instrument designed with such a great variety of sounds and dynamic versatility is therefore capable of playing a tremendous range of concert literature. This symphonic organ is in direct contrast to many instruments built in the Neo-Baroque style that flourished from the 1950s and beyond. These instruments feature high-pitched stops that attempt to emulate European organs of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The new organ for St. James’ grows out of the tradition of instruments built for English Cathedrals and of American-built symphonic organs of the 1920s and ‘30s. The smooth tone of the instrument blends easily with singing voices and therefore supports choirs and congregational singing well. To live up to its classification of “symphonic-style,” besides containing large-scale forces of fundamental stops that are the foundation of the instrument, there are sounds that emulate the French horn, tubas, trombones, flutes, harp, celesta, and chimes, to name a few. There are pipes in boxes with louvered shutters to control volume and timbre, and boxes within those boxes, to provide the organist with additional musical nuances.

The organ was built in the factory in the Schoenstein factory in Benecia, California, near San Francisco, then dismantled and installed in sections over the past two summers; first the gallery section and then the larger chancel portion. Three tractor trailers were required to transport the organ from California for both trips. After each portion of the organ was assembled, it was tuned, and “voiced,” where each pipe was completely fine-tuned specifically for the acoustic of St. James’. The organ was first used in the liturgy on Sunday, September 13, 2009.

“Parishioners have been absolutely thrilled and amazed with the variety of colors they are hearing every Sunday morning from the new organ,” says Wortman. “It is a wonderful thing to hear the congregation singing more and more each week since its installation. I can tell they enjoy having the new instrument as an important part of worship.”

View the article in The American Organist