Trinity's Organ

Our organ's history:

The history of Trinity's current organ really goes back to the beginning of the Trinity Parish. Within a year of the church's founding, the ladies of the church held parish dinners to raise funds for an organ, and purchased a fine, if smallish, Johnson pipe organ. The years passed, and the little organ served the parish well. However, the economics of the parish weakened significantly with the failure of the iron industry in Lime Rock, and the parish came to realize that they were not financially able to afford to maintain the organ. Thus, it was sold to an individual with a home in our area, Robert Lehman, who upgraded it by adding an electronic console to replace the tracker console originally part of the organ, kept it in his home, and who very graciously willed the organ back to the church upon his death.

The old Johnson organ was reinstalled in its familiar place, including the new console, but the congregation was still unable to afford to maintain it properly, and the passing years took their toll on the instrument, making it increasingly unreliable. At the same time, new fire codes were enacted that made it impossible to keep the organ pipes as configured in the location where it had been constructed and to which it had been returned, as it partially blocked an important exit route from the church.

Organ committees were periodically constituted and reconstituted over the years to deal with this dual problem. Generally they completed their work by recommending that the parish replace the old Johnson with a new pipe organ costing in the neighborhood of $350,000 -- and escalating from there. While the fiscal health of the parish had improved over the years, it had not improved that much! Proposals for a new organ were received and duly filed under "dreams".

Finally the fire code violation became a matter that would require prompt resolution, and at around the same time the old organ partially failed during several services, requiring heroic measures by the organist even to get through the service -- and at Trinity we do love our music!

Clearly it was now time to act. A new committee was formed to study the situation.

At first the alternatives that seemed to be available were having a new pipe organ built, buying a used pipe organ from another congregation, or having the present organ reconstructed somewhere else in the sanctuary. At the suggestion of Trinity's organist at that time, a fourth alternative was added -- but with serious misgivings: purchasing a digital organ.

For most committee members, "digital organ" meant something associated with country funeral homes, heard playing lachrymose hymns in the background, and sounding like everyone's concept of truly tacky and even downright appalling taste in music.

Despite the organist's insistence that modern digital instruments were NOT necessarily like that, it was a hard sell to convince the committee even to consider the digital alternative!

The committee dutifully pressed onward and carefully reviewed the previous pipe organ proposals and even had the vendors update them. The prices had continued to climb with the passing years. However, they did finally take an important additional step: to actually go and listen to modern digital organs!!

Augmented by members of the technology committee, they visited several installations of modern digital organs from two manufacturers, played them and heard them played, and investigated their benefits and disadvantages.

When the committee submitted their recommendations, a modern digital organ had made its way into second place, immediately after a large new (and unaffordable) pipe organ, and a preferred vendor for a digital organ had been identified.

At the same time, a major capital campaign was underway in the parish to add space for the Sunday School and to free up some of the public space in Walker Hall for parish and community activities. Sadly, a new organ was not on the capital campaign's priority list, and thus one more organ proposal was consigned to the "dreams" file.

This time the outcome was different, however. This time the proposal was rescued from the "dreams" file by an unexpected opportunity to buy a Rodgers model 960 concert-quality digital organ for a particularly attractive price. With some adjustment of Capital Campaign priorities and an overwhelming, almost unexpected, immediate outpouring of donations for the new organ from the parish, we were able to take advantage of the opportunity.

Our new organist and our new organ arrived nearly simultaneously!!

The organ was "voiced" on Friday, October 5, 2001, and was first used in a Sunday service on October 7, 2001 -- when the Parish had the annual Blessing of the Animals for St. Francis. Under the circumstances, the organ was cast in a supporting role to myriad dogs, cats, gerbils, ponies, parrots, and other living things that Sunday!

to visit the History section of our website, where you will find more information about our old organ and its history as well as material about the history of our church and our community.

Above, Christine Gevert begins to explore our new organ's capabilities. (Click on either of the photos below to see our new organ in more detail)

Are we happy we made the choice we did?

In two words, VERY happy!

Our Treasurer is delighted to have eliminated the ever-growing expense line called "Organ maintenance" from the annual budget
Our Organist and Choir Director is pleased to have the flexibility and dependability our new instrument offers
Our Sunday School is happy that the funds that would have been spent on a new pipe organ were available to expand their facilities
Our choir and congregation (and visiting choirs and congregations and concert audiences) enjoy the great music the organ makes possible.

We have discovered that our new organ draws people to our church -- especially musicians and those who know a lot about music -- those who appreciate really good organ music. In fact, the more musically sophisticated people are, the better they seem to like it!

On several occasions, professional musicians who have heard it played (who were not already in on the secret that it is a digital instrument), have asked where we managed to hide all the pipes! When we tell them that there are no pipes at all, their reaction is invariably "I never thought that a digital organ could sound so absolutely real -- so much like a huge, multi-million dollar pipe organ!"

We have to admit that before we installed the new organ we had concerns about what it would look like: would there be a wall of speakers, as at a rock concert? The answer is "No" of course, but if this is a concern of yours, to see our page called "Where did you hide the pipes?"

Perhaps the clearest vote of confidence for this instrument comes from Trinity Church, Wall Street. When their magnificent pipe organs (four of them) were destroyed by dust and debris from 9/11, they were faced with the task of replacing them. And, as noted elsewhere on the site, the choir of "Big Trinity" visits "Little Trinity" annually when they are in the area for a retreat, and has done so since 2002. That choir, and their director, Dr. Owen Burdick, first heard our digital organ on their initial (2002) visit.

We at "Little Trinity" were flattered to find that Trinity Wall Street, too, chose to install a digital organ from Marshall Ogletree. to see the article on Trinity Wall Street's website about THEIR new digital organ! Or, to read an article from the New York Times of September 10, 2003, about their new instrument.

The New Yorker of September 11, 2006 provides additional information about the status of Trinity Wall Street's digital organ. The article notes that when "Big Trinity" installed their digital in late 2003 it was viewed as an interim solution. However, the solution is no longer an interim one! Dr. Burdick demonstrated their digital to the American Guild of Organists (AGO) convention in Chicago, where it received a standing ovation from what is unquestionably the hardest audience in America to convince of the quality of an organ. Burdick also noted "It can do a lot of things a pipe organ can't."

Now, in 2007, we have learned that Trinity Wall Street has made their Marshall Ogletree organ their permanent instrument!

We don't really know just how much Trinity Wall Street's experience here at Trinity Lime Rock in 2002 had to do with their decision to take the highly visible step of "going digital." We hope that our experience did provide them with encouragement in what for them was a far more difficult and risky decision than it was for us. And we are grateful that Trinity Wall Street's choir has returned to us every year since their first hearing of our digital organ.

Below are the specifications of our Rodgers Organ from Marshall Ogletree. We remain excited about it, and we hope that you, too, will come and hear our new organ!!

Trinity's organ is several years old now, and continues to impress....

Our organ's history:

Offering Companionship Along The Way

Trinity Episcopal Church, 484 Lime Rock Road, Lakeville, Connecticut!