Expertise
Charles Fisk’s scientific training and love for the organ were united in the founding of our company. He balanced a reverence for the work of the early organ building masters with a willingness to experiment and an open-minded attitude toward innovations in materials. His legacy to those of us who carry on his work was to always be learning, always be seeking to improve the longevity, the utility, and the beauty of the instruments we build. We study, as he did, the work of those who have gone before, and apply their maxims to the modern challenges we face. At the same time, we see those challenges as opportunities to innovate using techniques and materials not available to earlier generations.
Artistry
The craft of organbuilding becomes art when it enables musical expression without hindrance. We endeavor to create instruments of great visual beauty, in harmony with their surrounding architecture. The instrument’s design must convey the nuance and majesty of the music for which it was created and appear as though it had always been there.
A successful pipe organ brings to life the composer’s work and the player’s interpretation of it. To achieve this we study the organ literature of every school and every era, and constantly strive to create pipe organs that will represent it authentically. In all art perfection is unreachable, but we try to get a little closer with each attempt. “The struggle for the good organ is to [us] a part of the struggle for the truth.”1
1Albert Schweitzer, 1931
“The organ always feels alive – in part a result of the low wind pressure and the mechanical winding system – but also of the color and character of each individual rank. The response between the player’s touch, the winding of the organ, pipe speech, quality of sound, perhaps even vulnerability, is both immediate and fascinating. The player is encouraged into a search for beauty of sound that feels collaborative with the instrument and the chapel space itself.”
Naomi Gregory
Opus 148
Commitment
Our goal is to make instruments that will inspire players and listeners for generations to come. We are not content with imitation or repetition, but seek to master the elements that make an organ sound its best wherever it is built. Every new instrument, small or large, of any school or national style, is an opportunity to learn and to incorporate that learning in our work. Our tradition of historical scholarship produces new pipes with authentic and gorgeous tone. Our employee-owned business model encourages each member of the team to offer his or her best.
“Thank you for your hospitality, your generosity, and your friendship. Thank you for creating beauty in a world that so desperately needs it. Thank you for dedicating your lives to the art of organbuilding with instruments that move hardened hearts, comfort the suffering soul, inspire those who seek, lift voices into song, and bring great music to life.”
With fondness, gratitude, and thanksgiving,
Dr. Homer Ashton Ferguson III, Director of Music
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
Opus 145