Let There Be… Pipes!

The facade pipes are installed and the fine-tuning begins.

After three weeks of installation work, the heavy lifting is nearly done. It has been nothing short of miraculous to see the evolution of St. Peter’s new pipe organ, Fisk Opus 136, be born before our eyes. From the unloading on March 21 to the facade pipes shown here, the organ assembly is about to move to a new stage: tuning and voicing. With the vast majority of pipes installed, the processing of making this beautiful instrument “speak” is about to begin.

One of the organbuilders on the installation team, Dana Sigall, gives vestry member John Hurst a tour of the inside of the organ--complete with a tutorial on the different kinds of pipes. Here, John is shown holding one made of wood.

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Opus 136 Installation Progress

Already hundreds of pictures have been taken showing the progress of the installation of St. Peter’s new pipe organ. As we get new photos, we’ll add them to a continuing slideshow. Click the menu above, “Installation Day-by-Day,” or follow this link.

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Opus 136 Delivered to St. Peter’s

March 23, 2010

A moving van full of organ parts arrived Sunday to be delivered to St. Peter’s. Immediately after the eleven o’clock service and a quick snack, the congregation made its way to the front lawn of the church to meet the van.
Andrew Gingery, project manager for C. B. Fisk’s Opus 136 got the group started with [...]

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St. Peter’s Organ the star of YouTube

March 18, 2010

During the building of C. B. Fisk Opus 136, much of its construction has been documented in a professionally produced video program, the trailer for which is now on YouTube. While the video will cover the instrument destined for Harvard University’s chapel, much of the footage and sounds are from our very own Opus 136. [...]

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Final Stretch

March 6, 2010

The new oak floor is installed, stained, and finished; the front door has been repaired; the sound system is being updated; the pavers for the the front walkway have been laid. During the coming week the final work getting ready for the city building inspection will be completed. The end of the building project is [...]

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Floor installation nears completion

February 26, 2010

Floor installation began Tuesday, February 23 and was substantially complete by the end of the day on Thursday. The floor material is rift sawn, white oak. Producing a highly regular, vertical grain pattern with no knots or blemishes, the rift cut is similar to quartersawn. (Quartersawn oak is also used in the organ case.)
The picture [...]

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Let there be light!

February 3, 2010

There’s light in the nave and lots of progress to see. The pendant lights, seen above, have been cleaned and are brighter in every way. Atop the pendants, “the hats” turned out to be red under 50 years of dirt. Inside the pendants, a new configuration of bulbs will shine light both up and down [...]

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God in the Details

January 22, 2010

The adage about finding God in the details will be a major part of the story of the renovation of St. Peter’s Church. Around every corner of the renovated nave and soon-to-be-installed organ will be another small and beautiful detail to behold.
The lancet windows in the former narthex will be just such a detail. For [...]

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January Update

January 22, 2010

Since the holidays have been over, a lot of progress has been made on the work inside the Church. As this picture shows, with Project Manager Mike Davis and Treasurer Dave Lavoie in the foreground, the rose window’s protective covering has been removed and the large scaffolding sitting in the “narthex” space has been disassembled. [...]

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Group from St. Peter’s attends Open House for Opus 136

November 15, 2009

A group of hardy travelers followed the remnants of Hurricane Ida up the East Coast for a whirlwind trip to the workshops at C. B. Fisk in Gloucester, Mass. This past weekend was Fisk’s Open House, an event held in honor of each instrument they build and the clients who commissioned it. So, Opus 136 [...]

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