Olympic Organ Builders | |
---|---|
![]() Olympic Organ in balcony of University Unitarian Church, Seattle, WA |
Olympic Organ Builders was an importer and custom fabricator of tracker action pipe organs in Seattle, Washington from 1962 through the 1970s. The company built approximately 25 organs for churches and schools located the Puget Sound and Eugene Oregon in the period from 1967 through 1970.
The company was an informal partnership formed in 1962 of David P Dahl and Glenn D White Jr under the name ‘Olympic Organ Builders’ to import and install organs from Gebr. Späth Orgelbau, Detlef Kleuker, and Werner Bosch (all in Germany). They were joined by James R (Jim) Ludden in 1967 when the partnership was formalized. Ludden opened the construction shop located in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, in a building owned by White's father (Glenn Sr.), that had been a heating and sheet metal shop.
Dahl [1] is an accomplished organist. He met Ludden while attending graduate school at University of Washington. Their first work together was revoicing the pipe organ at Trinity United Methodist Church, Seattle, in 1962, which was celebrated by a concert featuring E. Power Biggs.
White was the principal sales person and helped with visual design. White also voiced and tuned the organs. Dahl helped with sales and tonal design. Ludden did the engineering and supervised the three to five employees.
Ludden trained as an organ builder in Germany in the shop of Detlef Kleuker, Brackwede (near Bielefeld), Germany, for a period of one year. Glenn trained as an acoustic engineer and was sound director at Seattle Center after working as a vibration engineer for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Dahl studied pipe organ at University of Washington and is now professor of organ at Pacific Lutheran University.
Prior to forming Olympic Organ Builders, White had been ordering custom pipe organs and installing these on his vacations. (White continued to import and install organs and modify old organs after the partnership dissolved in 1970.) He continued to work full time at Seattle Center.
The firm built mostly small organs. Their first work was a one-manual organ displayed at the Episcopal National Convention in St. Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle. Ludden's masterpiece (in its original meaning) is located in the suspended choir loft at University Unitarian Church. Many of the organs were two-manual (keyboard) plus pedal practice organs.
Employees included Beth Berry Barber, David O Ruberg, Barry Turley (now Fall River, MA), and Randall McCarty (deceased).
Construction effectively ended in 1970 when the partnership was formally dissolved after Boeing lost a large federal contract and the economy of Seattle fell into depression. Glenn continued to use the name when installing imported organs during the 1970s.
A search of the internet will provide more current results than could be recorded here, but will include work attributed to the firm that was either done by White after the shop was closed or installations prior to the shop opening.
Jude Frits carved pipe shades for several Olympic Organs [3]
These were installed and voiced by Glenn White. David Dahl designed the stop list on most of these.
After the Seattle shop closed, Ludden moved to New England where he built these portable organs.
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.
St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, Washington, is the seat of the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia. St. Mark's was founded as a mission church of Trinity Parish Church.
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.
John Burlin Brombaugh is an American pipe organ builder known for his historically oriented tracker action pipe organs.
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. The first instruments were built in 1893 with the Austin Patent Airchest, and many remain in fine playing condition to this day.
The Wangerin Organ Company (1912-1942) was a manufacturer of pipe organs based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was a continuation of the company after the partnership of Adolph Wangerin and George J. Weickhardt, Wangerin-Weickhardt, ended with the death of Weickhardt in 1919. It had previously also been known as the Hann-Wangerin-Weickhardt company. Many of its organs are still played in churches today.
The Felgemaker Organ Company was a manufacturer of pipe organs based out of Erie, Pennsylvania, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Pasi Organ Builders, based in Roy, WA, manufactures mechanical action organs and restores historic instruments. Martin Pasi received his first formal experience in organ building during a four-year apprenticeship with the Rieger Company in his native Austria. After working in Austria and in the United States, Pasi set up his own studio, Pasi Organ Builders, in 1990 in a former school building in Roy, Wash.
Paul Fritts is an American organ builder based in Tacoma, Washington, who, following historical models, has created over thirty mechanical action instruments that have contributed to the revival of historically informed organ music. The Murdy organ at Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Notre Dame, Indiana is his largest Fritts instrument to date, with four manuals (keyboards) and 70 stops. Other recent Fritts instruments of note are located at the University of Notre Dame, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Pacific Lutheran University. The organ at PLU was the largest Fritts organ built before the organ in Columbus.
The Robert Morton Organ Company was an American producer of theater pipe organs and church organs, located in Van Nuys, California. Robert Morton was the number two volume producer of theatre organs, building approximately half as many organs as the industry leader Wurlitzer. The name Robert Morton was derived not from any person in the company, but rather from the name of company president Harold J. Werner's son, Robert Morton Werner.
J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd is a British firm of organ builders established in 1828 by Joseph William Walker in London. Walker organs were popular additions to churches during the Gothic Revival era of church building and restoration in Victorian Britain, and instruments built by Walker are found in many churches around the UK and in other countries. The firm continues to build organs today.
Hillgreen-Lane was a builder of church and theater pipe organs. The company's shop was in Alliance, Ohio, and very close to the shops of the pipe maker A.R. Schopp's Sons, often doing business with them.
Pipe organs that are tuned in meantone temperament are very rare in North America. They are listed here, by type of temperament and sorted by date of construction. North America is defined here as Canada, the United States of America and Mexico. All instruments listed are playable but unplayable instruments may be added with a note.
Rudolf von Beckerath was a German master organ builder. He was born in Munich, to the painter Willy von Beckerath, but grew up in Hamburg, where his family moved the year he was born. He initially pursued an interest in mechanical engineering. After encountering the quality of northern German pipe organs, particularly that of master builder Arp Schnitger, von Beckerath's interest shifted. He trained as a cabinet maker at the art school in Hamburg, while studying the fundamentals of organ building on his own. In the cellar of his parents' home, he built a small house-organ, which was heard in a radio broadcast from the house and in concerts there.
The New Town Church is a main Lutheran parish church in Hanover, Germany. The official name is Neustädter Hof- und Stadtkirche St. Johannis zu Hannover. The Baroque church was built in 1666–70. It is one of the oldest Protestant Saalkirchen in Lower Saxony, conceived for the sermon as the main act of the Lutheran church service. Mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Field Marshal Carl August von Alten are buried here.
David P. Dahl is an American professor, composer, pedagogue, organist, church musician, organ clinician, and advisor. He is also one of the founders of Olympic Organ Builders.
Notre-Dame des Neiges is a church in the municipality of Alpe d'Huez, built in the twentieth century and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
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.
Henry Berger was an American prolific organ builder. He was based in Baltimore, Maryland.