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.
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