March 2016

Peter Collins, British organbuilder, died October 24, 2015, after a brief illness. Born in 1914, Collins established his own organbuilding firm in 1954, after serving as apprentice with Bishops of London and Rieger of Austria. During his career he was well respected for his neo-classical mechanical-action instruments. Some of his more notable installations include instruments for St. David’s Hall, Cardiff; St.

William Bolcom’s Compositions
for Solo Harpsichord

It’s all about the wind.

Velocity IV

When Scott Smith Pipe Organs was first brought in to evaluate the organ at First Congregational Church in Saginaw, Michigan, we had a very limited knowledge of the instrument, only that it was a late 1920s Skinner in a rapidly failing state. A glance at the 1970s console, stop jambs, and a few quick chords told us otherwise.

The fall organ conference, held September 13–16, 2015, at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (JSoM), was a mix of the practical, the academic, and the experiential. This year’s conference addressed the necessary changes occurring in both church music and liturgy.

The late Jacques van Oortmerssen’s four-day Bach Academy in Amsterdam last summer ran from July 6–9. It consisted of morning and afternoon classes on the beautiful 1734 Müller organ at the Waalse Kerk (the Walloon Church), where he had been organist since 1982. It followed the International Organ Academy in Alkmaar, which ran from June 29 to July 4.

In January 2015, The Diapason partnered with the Chicago and Fox Valley chapters of the American Guild of Organists and the Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Organ Historical Society in presenting a Midwinter Pipe Organ Conclave, a two-day event of recitals, lectures, and workshops in La Grange, Illinois.

Messiah Lutheran Church, 

Seattle, Washington

Noack Organ Company, Georgetown, Massachusetts

Richard Houghten,
Milan, Michigan
Church of the Incarnation,
Dallas, Texas