Organ Festival
Pipe Works
REPRODUCING HISTORY: Organ scholars and musicians from around the world will gather in Rochester this October, and one of their stops will be Christ Church on East Avenue. There, they will hear an update on the latest organ project sponsored by the Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative.
A special team of five organ builders from the United States and Sweden began work this summer to install the bellows—which produce the air that sounds the organ—and the case which will house the whole 15-ton instrument. Shown here with Marianne Sickels, the secretary for Christ Church, the instrument will replicate one in the Holy Ghost Church in Vilnius, Lithuania, built in 1776 by celebrated organ builder Adam Gottlob Casparini.
When completed in 2008, the organ will be named the Craighead-Saunders Organ in honor of Eastman faculty David Craighead, professor emeritus, and the late Russell Saunders.
Hans Davidsson, professor of organ at the Eastman School and director of the installation, says the goal is to not only recreate the Casparini organ, but also to capture the sound of another era.
“Contemporary organs do not sound the same as historical organs, and we are looking to build an instrument that has the quality and character of sound that organs had in Bach’s time and cultural environment,” says Davidsson.
For more on the Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative’s festival, October 11–14, visit www.esm.rochester.edu/EROI.
