Welcome to the New London County Chapter AGO Webpage
Dean’s Message
Happy New Year! We hope to see you to say it in person at our next chapter event:
January 7, 2024, 2:30 pm (Rescheduled to January 14)
Organ recital by Michael Lianos of new music from our chapter library
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Norwich
I am still surprised how many people don’t realize that the library holdings are catalogued. This means you can peruse the holdings conveniently before arranging to visit the library. Here is the hyperlinked bookmark (alternatively copy and paste into the search bar in your browser): https://www.cathedralofsaintpatrick.org/Music/AGO-Library
May the coming year be full of all good things for you and yours!
Kathy Cooper, Dean, New London County Chapter AGO,
New London County Chapter 2023-2024 25th Anniversary Program Highlights
September 10, 2023, 2 pm
Installation and convocation: Recital by past deans, followed by reception
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Niantic
October 22, 2023, 3 pm
Recital by Carolyn Hoff, followed by reception
St. James Episcopal Church, New London
January 7, 2024 (snow date January 14), 2:30 pm
Concert of new music in our chapter library
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Norwich
February 24, 2024, 10 am
Workshop: Sacred Music for Piano
Presentation by Kathleen Bartkowski
St. Luke Lutheran, 1830 Route 12, Gales Ferry
March, 2024: Fridays at noon
Lenten Recital Series (Partly sponsored by New London County AGO)
First Congregational Church, Madison
April 14, 2024, 3 pm Gala 75th anniversary event: Concert of selected works by New London County AGO composers
Catered reception to follow
First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, 2 Ferry Rd, Old Lyme
May 18, 2024, 3 pm
MODAS: The McIvor Organ Distinguished Artist Series presents James O’Donnell in recital
Calvary Episcopal Church, Stonington
Reception to follow
Suggested donation, $20
Partly underwritten by New London County AGO
Preceding the recital, the New London County AGO chapter will hold its annual meeting
Members, please note: Our former third-party website is no longer functioning. If you have not already done so, you should now replace all your previously saved bookmarks and links, as the old links may lead you to unrelated content! Note especially that any saved text or link containing the domain name “newlondonago.org” is no longer working. We regret any inconvenience to members. If you need help with this issue please do not hesitate to contact us.
To clarify, please copy (and save or bookmark anew) the current web address of the page you are now reading:
Great news! Susan Rees Jones is our new newsletter editor. The monthly deadline is the fifteenth of the preceding month. The newsletter is e-mailed at the first of the month or shortly before. For submissions and related questions only, e-mail the editor here.
Leydet has advanced degrees and experience in choral conducting. She studied choral conducting at the Provincial School of Music of Matanzas, Cuba (2005), and Musicology at the University of Arts in Havana, Cuba (2013). Leydet currently studies organ with Nathan Bayreuther in support of her goal of becoming a church musician and sacred music leader.
The mission of the American Guild of Organists is to foster a thriving community of musicians who share their knowledge and inspire passion for the organ. Membership in the New London County chapter of the AGO is open to anyone with an interest in the organ and to all organists from new beginners to seasoned performers.
The New London chapter welcomes church musicians regardless of education or ability.
Those who are not practicing musicians can join as a Chapter Friend. Chapter Friends pay a small annual dues; they receive chapter communications and are invited to participate in all chapter events, but they do not receive The American Organist journal and do not have the opportunity to be listed in the chapter substitute directory.
For more information about the Chapter Friend membership, please contact our treasurer, Susan Jones (treasurernlcago@gmail.com).
Employers and job seekers are invited to log in and post or search listings of available positions on the AGO national website. Also, you may join our chapter to receive the monthly Things Great & Swell which does publish relevant local information. Thanks to Alan McNeely for agreeing to serve as our new local placement officer!
On June 11, 2019, the American Guild of Organists, by action of the AGO National Council, entered into a partnership with the Church Music Institute to provide discounted CMI membership rates for AGO members. AGO members will have the ability to enjoy CMI member benefits for less than half the cost of regular CMI membership, which include access to its fully searchable online Sacred Music Library with over 18,500 curated choral selections and over 13,000 organ composition titles. Members of the AGO may join CMI at the reduced rate of $35 (a regular CMI individual membership is $75 per year) through the AGO website using their AGO membership login credentials.
About the Church Music Institute Sacred Music Library
The Church Music Institute contains an extensive Library of sacred choral and organ music for evaluation and study to support the educational purposes of the Institute. The Library is unique in collecting and preserving music for worship and study. Through electronic resources, members will find appropriate anthems or organ music to use in worship from the convenience of their home or office.
The choral collection includes an archive of thousands of catalogued sacred octavo anthems for adults and children with additional compositions added daily. Each anthem has been chosen for quality of text, music, and function in worship by the professional staff of CMI. Anthems from every stylistic period from the Renaissance through those most recently published are placed in permanent, acid-free folders for preservation, so that present and future generations may identify, study, and utilize them in worship. Additional choral music contained in the collection includes cantatas and oratorios, service and liturgical music. The library’s holdings have been donated to CMI by universities, seminaries, and church music scholars.
The organ collection includes music based on previously existing tunes, including hymn tunes and Gregorian chants. Many works are chorale preludes, while others are re-harmonizations, interludes, and arrangements with other instruments. Sample pages are continuously being added. The collection is being built from libraries that scholarly church organists donated to CMI, online collections in the public domain, and newly published music provided by publishers.
About the Church Music Institute
The Church Music Institute is dedicated to the advancement and stewardship of the best liturgical and sacred music for worship, serving clergy, musicians and congregants. Offerings include educational workshops and courses, inspirational festivals of church music, newsletters addressing current issues in church music, and online and print resources including the largest curated library of sacred choral anthems and organ compositions in the world. CMI also sponsors research in the field of church music.
Creating a home for the best music of the church, CMI provides a place in which proven practices that govern good music-making can operate. This work proceeds in a theological context where music serves the liturgy and is a vehicle for congregations to worship. At CMI, the goal is to equip clergy, musicians and congregants for the glory of transcendent and transformational worship.
CMI is supported primarily by donors who understand the importance of music to religious faith and who want to invest in CMI’s future to maintain modest fees for its events and easy access to its libraries. With generous donations from supporters, CMI is able to equip clergy, musicians and congregants for meaningful worship. CMI is incorporated in the State of Texas and has IRS 501(c)(3) non-profit status.
Preparing a Symphonic Organ for Its Debut Performance
Great performances live and die by effective rehearsing. From a string quartet to a symphony, the key to a life-changing, heart-wrenching interpretation lies in preparation. A new organ—at its best one of the few rivals to the timbral breadth of the symphony orchestra—requires a different kind of rehearsal: tonal design and finishing. As with an effective rehearsal process, so too with tonal design and finishing: it must be musically driven, organized, and efficient.
Creating the Roster (Stoplist)
Before rehearsals begin, the conductor (tonal director) must create the roster (stoplist). It needs to meet the musical needs of the program and strike a balance between budget and artistic ideals. First United Methodist Church, Montgomery, is an ideal acoustical setting for the symphonic organ. Recent improvements to the sanctuary resulted in a warm acoustic suited for high-caliber organ playing.
A successful church organ, like a modern symphony orchestra, must satisfy a variety of musical demands far greater than those placed on a repertoire-specific concert organ or an early-music instrumental ensemble. It must be a versatile instrument with maximum musical potential. The fundamental principle in a satisfying, versatile organ is beautiful tone that is well suited to the room. Musicians know when they hear the Philadelphia Orchestra play Mozart that it’s not the same orchestra Mozart conducted. Yet the beautiful sound and musical performance leave the audience inspired nonetheless.
Auditioning the Orchestra (Tonal Design)
Once the roster is chosen, the conductor needs to audition the orchestra. Should the brass section resemble the sound of Chicago (Tromba/Posaune) or New York (Trumpet/Bombarde)? What kind of string sound is needed—Philadelphia (Diapason) or Berlin (Principal)? All this careful planning makes for a cohesive ensemble and faster work once forces join at the first rehearsal.
Practice (Shopwork)
It would be unfair not to mention the work that makes rehearsal possible: practice. A professional musician arrives at rehearsal with all potential problems solved. Each player brings decades of hard work and meticulous practice—plus treasured instruments—to every rehearsal. Consider the oboist, giving significant effort to both practicing music and perfecting the quality of the reeds. Likewise, the experience and technical skill of the craftsmen, voicers, and other staff can be heard every time the organ is played. The instrument must be in fine tune and regulation to allow the music to speak.
Rehearsals Begin (Tonal Finishing)
Once the musicians arrive for rehearsal (the organ is installed), rehearsals begin with an A. The organ is tuned before tonal finishing can begin, for it is impossible to judge differences in tone if the ensemble is out of tune. The conductor (tonal director) leads the session, with the all-important assistance of the concertmaster (voicer). Their relationship must be collaborative to realize the best musical outcome.
The first rehearsal is always the most important. After an initial read-through (assessment of the organ), the hard work of bringing together all the sonic contributions of the ensemble begins. Much of the work in rehearsal, particularly early on, is done with the primary section: strings in the orchestra, diapasons in the organ. These players are the tonal foundation of the ensemble, and an organ is only as great as its diapasons.
At First United Methodist Church, our tonal testing and design brought us close to the mark on the diapason sound, yet we still spent weeks working to make sure the diapasons (double through mixtures) across the whole organ were just right. We had to encourage more sound from some members and smooth out the usual bumps and hot spots resulting from acoustical phenomena.
Sectionals (Small Projects)
As rehearsals continue, it may become prudent to have sectionals—small side projects to address loose ends and advance the overall tonal goal. A voicer may be adjusting beards as a technician works on muting mixture ranks, all while the tonal director goes through the remaining stops to make the next rehearsal agenda (to-do list).
Dress Rehearsal (Final Check)
Just before the performance, a dress rehearsal (final check of the organ) offers the opportunity to take stock of the results of rehearsing. If the earlier rehearsals were successful, this should be an affirming day and a chance to fix small details.
Debut Performance (Dedication)
As when the process began, the last step before beginning the concert is the final A. Once the orchestra (organ) is tuned, it’s ready to perform, showcasing all the hard work done in the privacy of rehearsal. The organ’s performance is a long one: it must serve in perpetuity for its musicians and listeners.
The organ of First United Methodist Church, Montgomery, gave its first performance on November 5, 2021, with David Higgs at the console. It now embarks on its career, lending itself to the talented team of First United Methodist Church: director of music James Seay, assistant director and organist Joshua Coble, and consultant Andrew Risinger. We hope our rehearsal technique leaves the church with an inspiring instrument that will perform well for decades to come.
Bryan Dunnewald is a member of the Schoenstein flue tonal finishing crew, along with head voicer Timothy Fink, voicer David Anderson, and tonal director Jack Bethards.
Countryside Community Church
Omaha, Nebraska
Buzard Pipe Organ Builders
Champaign, Illinois Stoplist
By John-Paul Buzard
Shane Rhoades preparing to install facade pipes
Countryside Community Church is the Christian participant in the new Tri-Faith Initiative, a campus that includes the church, a mosque, and a synagogue. Congregations from the three Abrahamic faiths bought a large tract of land and developed it together as a demonstration of how well our three faiths can live together in peace and harmony. Buzard Pipe Organ Builders was selected for this important commission based upon our noble sound and creative designs. It was a privilege and honor to work with the organist, architects, parishioners, and clergy to create a unique instrument that solidly represents centuries of sacred musical tradition.
This three-manual organ of 25 stops (30 ranks) includes preparations for the future addition of nine more stops on the Great, Swell, and Pedal, a Grand Choeur of approximately ten stops as the third manual division, and three Walker digital pedal stops.
The church originally planned upon moving their much smaller organ from their previous building to the new one. As the new building took shape, parishioners Roy and Gloria Dinsdale came forward with a significant financial gift for a new organ, better suited to the new, larger sanctuary. It was our challenge to engineer the new instrument for the already-built chamber, which is bisected by steel beams and cross bracing and a vent for a lower-level kitchen.
View from above
The visual design embodies several of the congregation’s faith tenets, as described to me by then–senior pastor Eric Elnes: our life’s journey from a chaotic, dark earth upward to the heavenly order of peace and light; the Trinity and elements of “three”; and the coexistence of science and faith, as represented by the front pipes’ mouths, which form a perfect sine wave. In order to encourage the “dark to light” journey as one gazes upward at the facade, the three levels of pipes are made of increasingly rich alloys of tin, the visually brightest at the top. Although difficult to see in the photograph, the Pedal 16ʹ Bourdon pipes in the very back and top right quadrant of the chamber have been interpreted by many parishioners as a visual representation of a skyline of the Heavenly City. The top-level Trombas seem to many to be hands at prayer.
In this organ, as in several of our newest instruments, the Great is divided into enclosed and unenclosed sections. The bold and clear principal chorus is unenclosed, while the colorful stops are in an expression box. The Enclosed Great may be coupled to other manuals and the pedal at any pitch, and may function either as a Choir division or a Solo division, depending upon which stops are drawn. This allows us the freedom to give any musical purpose we choose to an independent third manual division. By nature of the two mixtures in the Swell, one low, the other high-pitched, this division can function as a foil to the Great, as the Swell or as a Positif. The musical personality of the Grand Choeur, being prepared for future addition, is still under discussion.
The heart of any Buzard organ is the Swell division. It is the workhorse for accompanying, coloring, and contrasting with the other divisions, and it provides the powerhouse full-Swell reed battery. The Trombas, sort of a reed equivalent to the Great and Pedal First Open Diapasons, louden and thicken the texture of full organ, over and above the significant contribution of full Swell to the ensemble.
Haskelled 16’ Trombone resonators
Only six weeks into the organ’s installation, word of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the news—and hit us at home. At the first indication that the virus had been discovered in Omaha, I brought our installation crew home. Following a 14-day quarantine, when everyone was determined to be healthy and we wanted to start shopwork for the next organ, Illinois governor JB Pritzker locked the state down, so our shop was forced to close. No one on the staff was furloughed, laid off, or dismissed. We paid everyone’s wages and health care premiums and, thanks to our plucky business manager, Jefrey Player, we received our first PPP loan the evening before the government’s program ran out of money. I baked bread (loaded with butter, sugar, and love) for everyone on the staff and delivered it in my 1931 Ford Model A to help keep spirits up. Happily, once we were allowed back into the shop, we had established strict safety protocols and testing schedules to prevent spread of the disease. No one tested positive; no one left the staff. Installation and tonal finishing proceeded apace from then on until completion in the fall.
It was a privilege to work with organist Alex Ritter, who served as a project manager on the church’s behalf. Rick MacInnes was the chair of Countryside Church’s Relocation Committee, and Daniel Loven-Crum arranged meals brought in for us, coordinated housing, and provided complete access to the building during what proved to be a much-prolonged installation.
The staff of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders who participated in this instrument’s design, construction, installation, and administrative support included Charles Eames, Shane Rhoades, Michael Meyer, Felix Franken, Christopher Goodnight, John Switzer, Jeff Hoover, Lauren Kasky, Keith Williams, Jefrey Player, Fredrick Bahr, and Andrew Woodruff.
John-Paul Buzard is founder, president, and artistic director of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders. He is a certified master organbuilder with the American Institute of Organbuilders, a member of the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America, and a member of the Worshipful Company of Musicians of the City of London.
Our journey to the completion of this instrument was a wild ride. The plan was to rebuild and relocate our existing Reuter organ to the new building. Construction of the new church was well underway when we received a generous donation from Roy and Gloria Dinsdale to commission the design and building of a new pipe organ. Imagine our excitement—and concern. The architectural plans were complete. Ground had been broken. The foundation and structural supports were already in place. The interior walls surrounding the organ chamber were scheduled to go up in three months. And a grand opening was almost exactly a year away. The Dinsdales’ generosity, however, inspired us to dream big and move quickly. This was a unique opportunity: to design and build an instrument that would be as musically exquisite as it was aesthetically dynamic—the first organ installation in Omaha in nearly 20 years.
Enclosed Great flues
An organ committee was formed, and I cautioned them that we should not rush the process, but that we did need to narrow our choices down quickly so the builder would have some time, although limited, to work with the architects on any needed changes. We were fortunate to find a partner uniquely suited for the situation in the team at Buzard Pipe Organ Builders. The committee quickly fell in love with the Buzard sound, and the relationship proved unexpectedly beneficial in other ways. The success of Opus 47, despite numerous challenges, is a testament to their engineering prowess and ingenuity. The organ chamber was designed for a smaller instrument, and some structural support beams had made their way into the space, creating an obstacle course for a larger instrument. Not only did the Buzard team circumvent these obstacles; they were able to fit an organ twice the size in the space without compromising the instrument’s integrity.
For us and for our donors, an important consideration was a visual design that would match the beauty of the sanctuary and punctuate it by symbolizing our values and signifying the organ’s role in our future. In reviewing builders’ designs, we felt that Buzard’s stood out, weaving contemporary and traditional elements together while making the instrument appear as though it was always meant to be there. Their work on our design exceeded our expectations. An organ is a convergence of art and science, and this is beautifully reflected in the facade, which makes a strong but not overwhelming statement.
In the context of Countryside’s involvement in the Tri-Faith Initiative, the symbolism is compelling. Our purpose isn’t to borrow from our Tri-Faith partners or change who we are. We are there to stand in solidarity, learn from one another, and use that knowledge to grow stronger in our own faith.
From a tonal perspective, our intention was similar—avoid the eclecticism that too often results in a lack of unity, and instead seek a historically informed tonal design with integrity, one that benefits from sharing the best building practices from across historical periods, with an eye toward the future. We cultivated a tonal design that embodies the diversity, drama, expressiveness, and contrast needed for liturgy. The result is unique—a depth and breadth of individual sounds, yet with strong, unified choruses and articulate and contrapuntally clear voicing without austerity.
The pandemic put a wrench in our plans to share this distinctive and wonderful instrument with the world. We had a strong belief that giving our congregation a chance to hear the instrument in person was very important, especially in a time such as this—after all, we could all use a pick-me-up these days. Thus, we worked with medical professionals in our congregation to curate a series of small, RSVP-only recitals, intentionally limiting capacity to maintain a safe environment. While we would have loved to pack the house with more than 500 people and bring in a special guest to perform, we were grateful to share the organ with members of our congregation, and we look forward to the time when we can safely fill the sanctuary seats and experience its majestic sound in person.
We were additionally pleased to partner with a firm that invests in the future of the trade by employing women and members of the next generation. My hope is to use this one-of-a-kind instrument to feature up-and-coming organists of diverse backgrounds and foster new compositions from those underrepresented in the current repertoire, ensuring a vibrant future for the instrument and expanding its audience.
What an amazing gift the Dinsdales have given to Countryside Community Church and to the broader Omaha community. It is truly a crown jewel that will be a centerpiece for liturgy and music.
Alex Ritter
Director of Arts Ministry and Organist
Countryside Community Church
Omaha, Nebraska
Buzard Pipe Organ Builders
Champaign, Illinois Stoplist
By John-Paul Buzard
Shane Rhoades preparing to install facade pipes
Countryside Community Church is the Christian participant in the new Tri-Faith Initiative, a campus that includes the church, a mosque, and a synagogue. Congregations from the three Abrahamic faiths bought a large tract of land and developed it together as a demonstration of how well our three faiths can live together in peace and harmony. Buzard Pipe Organ Builders was selected for this important commission based upon our noble sound and creative designs. It was a privilege and honor to work with the organist, architects, parishioners, and clergy to create a unique instrument that solidly represents centuries of sacred musical tradition.
This three-manual organ of 25 stops (30 ranks) includes preparations for the future addition of nine more stops on the Great, Swell, and Pedal, a Grand Choeur of approximately ten stops as the third manual division, and three Walker digital pedal stops.
The church originally planned upon moving their much smaller organ from their previous building to the new one. As the new building took shape, parishioners Roy and Gloria Dinsdale came forward with a significant financial gift for a new organ, better suited to the new, larger sanctuary. It was our challenge to engineer the new instrument for the already-built chamber, which is bisected by steel beams and cross bracing and a vent for a lower-level kitchen.
View from above
The visual design embodies several of the congregation’s faith tenets, as described to me by then–senior pastor Eric Elnes: our life’s journey from a chaotic, dark earth upward to the heavenly order of peace and light; the Trinity and elements of “three”; and the coexistence of science and faith, as represented by the front pipes’ mouths, which form a perfect sine wave. In order to encourage the “dark to light” journey as one gazes upward at the facade, the three levels of pipes are made of increasingly rich alloys of tin, the visually brightest at the top. Although difficult to see in the photograph, the Pedal 16ʹ Bourdon pipes in the very back and top right quadrant of the chamber have been interpreted by many parishioners as a visual representation of a skyline of the Heavenly City. The top-level Trombas seem to many to be hands at prayer.
In this organ, as in several of our newest instruments, the Great is divided into enclosed and unenclosed sections. The bold and clear principal chorus is unenclosed, while the colorful stops are in an expression box. The Enclosed Great may be coupled to other manuals and the pedal at any pitch, and may function either as a Choir division or a Solo division, depending upon which stops are drawn. This allows us the freedom to give any musical purpose we choose to an independent third manual division. By nature of the two mixtures in the Swell, one low, the other high-pitched, this division can function as a foil to the Great, as the Swell or as a Positif. The musical personality of the Grand Choeur, being prepared for future addition, is still under discussion.
The heart of any Buzard organ is the Swell division. It is the workhorse for accompanying, coloring, and contrasting with the other divisions, and it provides the powerhouse full-Swell reed battery. The Trombas, sort of a reed equivalent to the Great and Pedal First Open Diapasons, louden and thicken the texture of full organ, over and above the significant contribution of full Swell to the ensemble.
Haskelled 16’ Trombone resonators
Only six weeks into the organ’s installation, word of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the news—and hit us at home. At the first indication that the virus had been discovered in Omaha, I brought our installation crew home. Following a 14-day quarantine, when everyone was determined to be healthy and we wanted to start shopwork for the next organ, Illinois governor JB Pritzker locked the state down, so our shop was forced to close. No one on the staff was furloughed, laid off, or dismissed. We paid everyone’s wages and health care premiums and, thanks to our plucky business manager, Jefrey Player, we received our first PPP loan the evening before the government’s program ran out of money. I baked bread (loaded with butter, sugar, and love) for everyone on the staff and delivered it in my 1931 Ford Model A to help keep spirits up. Happily, once we were allowed back into the shop, we had established strict safety protocols and testing schedules to prevent spread of the disease. No one tested positive; no one left the staff. Installation and tonal finishing proceeded apace from then on until completion in the fall.
It was a privilege to work with organist Alex Ritter, who served as a project manager on the church’s behalf. Rick MacInnes was the chair of Countryside Church’s Relocation Committee, and Daniel Loven-Crum arranged meals brought in for us, coordinated housing, and provided complete access to the building during what proved to be a much-prolonged installation.
The staff of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders who participated in this instrument’s design, construction, installation, and administrative support included Charles Eames, Shane Rhoades, Michael Meyer, Felix Franken, Christopher Goodnight, John Switzer, Jeff Hoover, Lauren Kasky, Keith Williams, Jefrey Player, Fredrick Bahr, and Andrew Woodruff.
John-Paul Buzard is founder, president, and artistic director of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders. He is a certified master organbuilder with the American Institute of Organbuilders, a member of the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America, and a member of the Worshipful Company of Musicians of the City of London.
Our journey to the completion of this instrument was a wild ride. The plan was to rebuild and relocate our existing Reuter organ to the new building. Construction of the new church was well underway when we received a generous donation from Roy and Gloria Dinsdale to commission the design and building of a new pipe organ. Imagine our excitement—and concern. The architectural plans were complete. Ground had been broken. The foundation and structural supports were already in place. The interior walls surrounding the organ chamber were scheduled to go up in three months. And a grand opening was almost exactly a year away. The Dinsdales’ generosity, however, inspired us to dream big and move quickly. This was a unique opportunity: to design and build an instrument that would be as musically exquisite as it was aesthetically dynamic—the first organ installation in Omaha in nearly 20 years.
Enclosed Great flues
An organ committee was formed, and I cautioned them that we should not rush the process, but that we did need to narrow our choices down quickly so the builder would have some time, although limited, to work with the architects on any needed changes. We were fortunate to find a partner uniquely suited for the situation in the team at Buzard Pipe Organ Builders. The committee quickly fell in love with the Buzard sound, and the relationship proved unexpectedly beneficial in other ways. The success of Opus 47, despite numerous challenges, is a testament to their engineering prowess and ingenuity. The organ chamber was designed for a smaller instrument, and some structural support beams had made their way into the space, creating an obstacle course for a larger instrument. Not only did the Buzard team circumvent these obstacles; they were able to fit an organ twice the size in the space without compromising the instrument’s integrity.
For us and for our donors, an important consideration was a visual design that would match the beauty of the sanctuary and punctuate it by symbolizing our values and signifying the organ’s role in our future. In reviewing builders’ designs, we felt that Buzard’s stood out, weaving contemporary and traditional elements together while making the instrument appear as though it was always meant to be there. Their work on our design exceeded our expectations. An organ is a convergence of art and science, and this is beautifully reflected in the facade, which makes a strong but not overwhelming statement.
In the context of Countryside’s involvement in the Tri-Faith Initiative, the symbolism is compelling. Our purpose isn’t to borrow from our Tri-Faith partners or change who we are. We are there to stand in solidarity, learn from one another, and use that knowledge to grow stronger in our own faith.
From a tonal perspective, our intention was similar—avoid the eclecticism that too often results in a lack of unity, and instead seek a historically informed tonal design with integrity, one that benefits from sharing the best building practices from across historical periods, with an eye toward the future. We cultivated a tonal design that embodies the diversity, drama, expressiveness, and contrast needed for liturgy. The result is unique—a depth and breadth of individual sounds, yet with strong, unified choruses and articulate and contrapuntally clear voicing without austerity.
The pandemic put a wrench in our plans to share this distinctive and wonderful instrument with the world. We had a strong belief that giving our congregation a chance to hear the instrument in person was very important, especially in a time such as this—after all, we could all use a pick-me-up these days. Thus, we worked with medical professionals in our congregation to curate a series of small, RSVP-only recitals, intentionally limiting capacity to maintain a safe environment. While we would have loved to pack the house with more than 500 people and bring in a special guest to perform, we were grateful to share the organ with members of our congregation, and we look forward to the time when we can safely fill the sanctuary seats and experience its majestic sound in person.
We were additionally pleased to partner with a firm that invests in the future of the trade by employing women and members of the next generation. My hope is to use this one-of-a-kind instrument to feature up-and-coming organists of diverse backgrounds and foster new compositions from those underrepresented in the current repertoire, ensuring a vibrant future for the instrument and expanding its audience.
What an amazing gift the Dinsdales have given to Countryside Community Church and to the broader Omaha community. It is truly a crown jewel that will be a centerpiece for liturgy and music.
Alex Ritter
Director of Arts Ministry and Organist
Committee on Seminary and Denominational Relations
This committee works to influence the music education of seminary students and collaborates with denominational governing bodies. Our goals are to raise the level of musical knowledge of seminary graduates and to improve clergy-musician relations in general. The committee promotes discussion of relevant topics and develops resources for musicians.
The Seminary and Denominational Relations Committee
Maintains communications with seminary musicians, theological schools, and with denominations and their music organizations;
Produces and distributes syllabus suggestions for seminary courses in church music;
Participates in periodic consultations with representatives from various denominations;
Recommends candidates for appointment to the National Chaplaincy of the Guild.
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