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Thus we found ourselves sweating away the summer heat on a stretch of days the following July, packing and removing the pipes which would become the basis for our Opus 645.
In the design process we developed a new specification with input from K. Bryan Kirk. We instinctively sought first to meet the essential requirements of a liturgical instrument, something we believe to be utterly crucial, especially in the case of smaller pipe organs.
Given the limited space for the organ, we felt a two-manual scheme with few frills would be best. We resisted a request for digital augmentation, instead focusing on a design that would be pipe only.
Certain early decisions seemed obvious. Given the dry acoustic of the church, the baseline scale of the Great chorus needed to be increased. This chorus was also completed with the addition of appropriately scaled new pipework from 2 2/3’ pitch upward. The cutup schedule of the existing Great capped flute was raised, arched and the stop entirely revoiced. A new independent 4’ Harmonic Flute (based on the unique and very successful scale found in our historic Opus 178 at St. Charles Borromeo in Brooklyn) was constructed and voiced. Over the course of the project nearly every zinc pipe in the organ made its way through our pipe shop: frozen metal caps were freed, tuning inserts and toes replaced, seams and scrolls repaired. Being left in a raw state, many of the zinc pipes had an unsightly powdery white oxidation. We removed this, and gave all zinc basses a sealing coat of varnish to protect them.
The pressure of all manual divisions was raised to a more moderate four inches. Holly, then pregnant with our son Caleb, did her usual superb job of revoicing all the other existing and new flue pipework, managing to do so before reaching her final trimester. During this past winter we joked more than once: which would be given birth first, our son Caleb or the organ for Westport?
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