At a time when some churches have removed their pipe organs to make room for electric pianos, guitars and drum sets, St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Rochester has reaffirmed the power of sacred music in a traditional worship service. The church is spending nearly $200,000 refurbishing and completing its pipe organ.

“Usually, it’s either or. You either have contemporary music and throw out the organ, or you do only traditional music and create a niche,” says Dr. Wm. Jean Randall, St. Paul’s director of music and organist. “St. Paul’s has embraced both styles.”

Randall credits the church’s staff and congregation for holding fast to the power and depth of sacred music and time-honored ritual while, at the same time, being open to new, more casual music and worship styles. The church’s 9 a.m. Sunday service has evolved into a more casual format, while its 11 a.m. service remains traditional. Often, casual music at the church is led by the same volunteers who participate in traditional music.

“There’s room enough for all of us, and God is present in worship regardless of music style,” says the Rev. Jeffery Regan, St. Paul’s senior minister. “We want to offer both experiences and not force people to choose.”

Regardless of style, St. Paul’s has maintained a high-quality music program, Regan adds. “The completion of this extraordinary instrument will truly enhance our traditional worship experience. It’s a wonderful instrument and will not only be an enhancement to our church but, we hope, also to our community.”

The king of instruments

St. Paul’s pipe organ has been disassembled – and silent – since late June. Currently, it is being reassembled and completed. It is scheduled to be finished and re-dedicated on Sunday, October 8. When complete, the organ will be one of the premiere English pipe organs in Southeast Michigan, featuring three manuals (or keyboards), 42 stops and more than 3,000 pipes.

The organ was custom designed and hand-built in 1989 by J.W. Walker & Sons Ltd. of Suffolk, England. The Walker company traces its roots back to the 16th Century and has centuries of experience building pipe organs for cathedrals, music schools, churches and even royalty.

Walker has a reputation for combining artistic and mechanical ingenuity to create superb mechanical instruments. “The people at Walker are some of the best in the world,” Randall explains. “Their organs are all totally custom, scaled to the building, hand built and then hand tuned.”

The church selected a mechanical-action instrument over an electric-action or all-electronic organ for superior sound, tonal quality and long life. Electronic organs are tied closely to their technology and tend to become outdated relatively quickly, but a well-built mechanical-action organ lasts as long – and sometimes longer – that the building in which it resides. And unlike all-electronic organs, “Walker organs are not coming off an assembly line,” Randall explains. “You can hear the difference.”

“The Walker mechanical-action organ at St. Paul’s is a treasure,” says Marilyn Mason, university organist and organ department chair at the University of Michigan School of Music. Mason served as consultant to St. Paul’s and Walker back in 1988 and 1989 when the organ was designed and first installed. “It is a splendid instrument, crafted with variety in the various ‘stops’ or ‘registers,’ and has a beautiful tone.”

Major tune-up

Although tuned each year since its 1989 installation, St. Paul’s organ was overdue for a thorough refurbishment to battle the effects of 17 years of dust and use. In automotive terms, it needed a major tune-up.

Walker’s Tonal Director, David Wilson, along with organ builders Michael Cleaver and James Molineux worked 55 hours a week onsite at St. Paul’s the month of July, for a total of more than 500 hours. Most of the refurbishment labor was spent literally taking the organ apart and partially reassembling it.

Like the Walker company, Wilson is also “one of the best,” according to Randall. The 20-year veteran not only “voices” or tunes each of the organ’s pipes, but is also responsible for the integrity of the instrument’s entire musical concept.

Cleaning and refurbishing a mechanical-action organ is “very labor intensive,” Wilson explains. “It’s a centuries-old craft. And while there have been modern improvements over the years, they’re still built in pretty much the same way they were in the 15th or 16th century.”

Refurbishment includes completely stripping the instrument to its bare mechanisms, and cleaning and reassembling or replacing parts, depending on how they’re worn. “Dirt has an abrasive effect on an instrument,” Wilson explains. “Also, since wind is used to provide sound, sometimes the wind-ways become a bit clogged, so you have to clean them to allow the pipes to speak more cleanly.”

Over the years, organs “settle” or become acclimatized to their new homes. “The pipes themselves are made of various alloys and wood, and they settle or relax. That has a subtle effect on the sound, happening very slowly over the years. When an organ is cleaned, re-regulated and put back together, then the sound becomes closer to the original sound.”

Part of the refurbishment work is meticulous but other parts involve nothing more than elbow grease, “like getting down on your hands and knees and cleaning your kitchen floor,” Wilson explains.

A beautiful but incomplete instrument

Wilson and his team flew home to England in early August, but returned to Rochester over Labor Day weekend to begin the 4-6 week organ reassembly and completion process.

When the Walker organ was first built and installed in 1989, St. Paul’s was in the midst of a $4.2 million expansion project. Back then, nearly one-third of the organ was left incomplete because of a lack of funds. That scenario is quite common, Wilson notes.

“It’s not unusual to have an organ incomplete,” he says. “It’s always best to conceive an organ as a whole instead of building a small organ and then adding on.”

In the last year, the organ builder manufactured more than 1,000 new pipes and other new parts, and the Walker team is currently installing them to complete St. Paul’s organ. In addition, the organ’s sound boards were shipped back to England so they could be drilled and fitted for the new pipes. There, craftsmen installed, racked and fitted the new pipes. The boards and new pipes were then disassembled and returned to Michigan.

On site, pipe installation is a painstaking process. New pipes must be matched to balance in tone and sound with the old pipes, pipe by pipe. Wilson will control how each pipe speaks by adjusting various parts within the pipe. “We always think in terms of the whole,” he says. “We want an organic look, feel and sound.”

When complete, St. Paul’s organ will have “a much fuller sound,” Wilson explains. “We’re adding body to lower and higher notes. The amount of variation in sound will be greater, too, and the eventual overall sound will be bigger.”

A whole new world

While refurbishment and completion of its pipe organ is monumental for the church, “This is one of the smoothest running organ projects I’ve ever been involved with,” says St. Paul’s Jean Randall, a professional organist for 25 years who been involved with at least eight other completion projects.

“Someone just needed to turn the lock and everything fell into place. It was the right time and everything has worked perfectly,” says Randall, adding that church members pledged the funds necessary in less than two months last year while continuing their robust support of mission programs locally and globally.

“The people of St. Paul’s are committed enough to faith and practice that they will support both mission work as well as the expense associated with having this quality musical instrument,” St. Paul’s Jeff Regan says.

In addition, completing the organ in 2006 instead of 1989 allowed Randall and Walker staff to make tweaks to the original design, Randall notes. “Had we spent the money back then to finish it, we wouldn’t have been able to make the tweaks we’ve made. There are a couple of color stops that weren’t included in the original design. Also, two 32-foot pedal stops were never proposed originally but will add a powerful, low bass.

“It’s opened up a lot more possibilities.”

To celebrate its new and improved organ, the church launched “Harmony in the Hills,” a new concert series. For the 2006-2007 season, three internationally renowned concert organists will be featured, including Paul Jacobs, organ department chair at The Juilliard School, U of M’s Marilyn Mason and Simon Preston, formerly of Westminster Abbey. Future Harmony in the Hills concert seasons will celebrate quality music of all types, Randall says.