![]() | |
Industry | pipe organs |
---|---|
Founded | 1898 |
Founder | John T. Austin |
Headquarters | Hartford,CT , USA |
Key people | Michael B. Fazio (President), Richard G. Taylor (CEO) |
Owner | private partnership |
Website | austinorgans.com |
Austin Organs, Inc., is a manufacturer of pipe organs based in Hartford, Connecticut. The company is one of the oldest continuously-operating organ manufacturers in the United States. [1] The first instruments were built in 1893 with the Austin Patent Airchest, and many remain in fine playing condition to this day.
The Austin Organ Company was formally organized in 1898 by John Turnell Austin in Boston, Massachusetts, although it traces its beginning to 1893 with the first instruments Austin built at the Clough & Warren Company in Detroit, Michigan. In 1899 the company moved to Hartford. [2]
Austin was from England and had come to the United States in 1889. Austin's father Jonathan had a hobby of organ building. When son John made his way to Detroit he found work at the Farrand & Votey Organ Company. While servicing organs for Farrand, Austin worked with tracker and slider chests and some of the nascent electric mechanisms. [2] He developed what would be named the "Universal Air Chest System". This is an airtight chamber with the chest action on the ceiling of the chamber. A feature of this system was that the chest could be entered from below while the organ was turned on; this allowed for servicing of the organ keying action. The modern (current) chest design was further developed in 1913, and has been refined over the years. In 1905 the company began building electric consoles; these have also been refined over the years.
The Austin Organ Company reached its peak in the 1920s when it was delivering more than 80 instruments each year. In the Depression years the company struggled with high overhead, decreased new business, and cash flow. By 1935 the company announced that it would close after fulfilling existing contracts, with its last instrument as Opus 1885. [3] The company vacated its factory building, sold some assets and put others into storage. [2]
In February 1937 the nephew of the company founder and a long-term employee purchased what remained of the company and formed "Austin Organs, Inc." They re-established the factory in Hartford although in more modest facilities that were adjacent to their old plant. [2] The first instrument produced by the re-organized company was given Opus 2000. [3] During the Second World War, the company contributed to the war effort by constructing gliders. As of 2020 the company still builds instruments at the same four-story edifice located at 156 Woodland Street.
In March 2005 the company closed when annual revenue fell below $150K per year after a payment dispute regarding an installation. Weeks later a business partnership was formed by the owner of an organ service and repair company and a long-time Austin employee. They purchased the company, restructured its operations, and recalled several company veterans. [4] As of 2019 Austin was building eight new instruments per year. [1] Over 2600 organs have been built with the Austin nameplate.
Æolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts was an American builder of a large number of pipe organs from its inception as the Skinner Organ Company in 1901 until its closure in 1972. Key figures were Ernest M. Skinner (1866–1960), Arthur Hudson Marks (1875–1939), Joseph Silver Whiteford (1921-1978), and G. Donald Harrison (1889–1956). The company was formed from the merger of the Skinner Organ Company and the pipe organ division of the Æolian Company in 1932.
The Salt Lake Assembly Hall is a building owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which sits on the southwest corner of Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. It has seating capacity for an audience of approximately 1,400 people.
A theatre organ is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films from the 1900s to the 1920s.
Casavant Frères is a Canadian organ building company in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, which has been building pipe organs since 1879. As of 2014, the company has produced more than 3,900 organs.
Ernest Martin Skinner was an American pipe organ builder. His electro-pneumatic switching systems advanced the technology of organ building in the first part of the 20th century.
Mathias Peter Møller, commonly known as M.P. Möller or Moeller, was a prolific pipe-organ builder and businessman. A native of the Danish island of Bornholm, he emigrated to the United States in 1872 and founded the M.P. Moller Pipe Organ Company in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, in 1875. The city of Hagerstown, Maryland, took notice of Möller's early successes and induced him to move his business there in 1881 to help make it a viable business center in Western Maryland. The company remained in business in Hagerstown until 1992, with hundreds of employees at its peak and a lifetime production of over 12,000 instruments.
The symphonic organ is a style of pipe organ that flourished during the first three decades of the 20th century in town halls and other secular public venues, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has roots in 19th-century Europe, and is a variation of the classical pipe organ. It features expanded capabilities, with many pipes imitative of orchestral instruments, and with multiple expressive divisions and organ console controls for seamlessly adjusting volume and tone, generally with electric organ actions and winding. These expansions let the organist approximate a conductor's power to shape the tonal textures of Romantic music and orchestral transcriptions. These organs are generally concert instruments as opposed to church organs. The symphonic organ has seen a revival in the US, Europe and Japan, particularly since the 1980s.
The Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, is the mother church and seat of the Archdiocese of Hartford. Dedicated on May 15, 1962, it stands on the site of the old cathedral which had been destroyed in a fire. It is located on Farmington Avenue just outside downtown Hartford.
Robert Hope-Jones was an English musician who is considered to be the inventor of the theatre organ in the early 20th century. He thought that a pipe organ should be able to imitate the instruments of an orchestra, and that the console should be detachable from the organ.
E. and G.G. Hook was a pipe organ designing and manufacturing company, located in Boston, Massachusetts, which operated from 1827 to 1935. It was started, and originally run, by brothers Elias and George Greenleaf Hook.
The Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, known also as the Midmer-Losh and the Poseidon, is the pipe organ in the Main Auditorium of the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company. It is the largest organ in the world, as measured by the number of pipes.
Orgues Létourneau Limitée of Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec is a prominent Canadian builder and restorer of pipe organs. The company was founded in 1979 by Fernand Létourneau, who served as president, owner and artistic director of the firm until 2019. In 2019, Fernand Létourneau sold the company to a long-time employee, Dudley Oakes.
The Curtis Organ, named for publisher Cyrus H.K. Curtis, is one of the largest pipe organs in the world with 162 ranks and 10,731 pipes. The concert organ, of American Symphonic design, was manufactured by the Austin Organ Company as its Opus 1416 in 1926 for the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition. It was known as the "Organists' Organ" because the specifications were formulated by Henry S. Fry, John M'E. Ward, Rollo F. Maitland, Frederick Maxson, and S. Wesley Sears, all prominent Philadelphia organists.
The Medinah Temple is a large Moorish Revival building in Chicago built by Shriners architects Huehl & Schmid in 1912.
The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic church located at 74 West Main Street in Waterbury, Connecticut.
St. John's is an Episcopal Church located at 679 Farmington Avenue in West Hartford, Connecticut near the Hartford, Connecticut, city line. The parish was founded in 1841 as St. John's Episcopal Church in Hartford. The church's present building, designed by famed architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, opened in 1909. It is noted for its reredos designed by Mr. Goodhue and executed by prominent sculptor Lee Lawrie; its organ, Opus 2761 by Austin Organs, Inc., with 64 ranks and 3721 pipes; and its thirty-six stained glass windows by designers/manufacturers such as the Harry Eldredge Goodhue Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wilbur H. Burnham Studios of Boston, Massachusetts, and London, England's James Powell and Sons.
The Midmer-Losh Organ Company is a defunct pipe organ building business located in Merrick, New York.
The Cathedral Church of St. Peter is an Episcopal cathedral in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It is the seat of the Diocese of Southwest Florida. In 2004 it was included as a contributing property in the Downtown St. Petersburg Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.
Hinners Organ Company was an American manufacturer of reed and pipe organs located in Pekin, Illinois. Established in 1879 by German-American John Hinners, the firm grew through several partners, becoming Hinners & Fink in 1881, Hinners & Albertsen in 1886, and Hinners Organ Company in 1902. In the 1920s Hinners established a subsidiary, the Illinois Organ Supply Company, which mass-produced parts for Hinners and other firms. Business declined in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, changing technology, and increasing competition. Hinners became a service company in 1936 and closed in 1942.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)