Pipe organ to make debut on Easter

Published 10:00 pm Friday, March 6, 2009

EVERETT — The congregation of Trinity Episcopal Church in Everett can expect full and grand music for their ears on Easter Sunday when a 22-rank pipe organ sounds for the first time from a newly built organ loft.

April 12 is the first day service is scheduled to be held again in the main hall of the church since work on the loft and organ consul began in January.

“We had an electric organ for eight years,” said the Rev. Lawrence Perry.

A 20-year-old organ console, where the organ player sits, was secured from a church in Spokane. The idea was brought to the church by the Trinity Episcopal music director and is part of the church’s ongoing campaign, Partnership of Generations, a project that has raised $788,000.

Part of that money was used for church repairs in 2008. That brought its own surprises.

“We found that the roof was never connected to the side walls,” Perry said.

That work was completed as part of an earthquake retrofitting.

Trinity Episcopal was established in 1892. The beige brick building with stained glass windows has been occupied since 1926.

The organ and loft are the second phase of the campaign, and once that project is complete workers will move on to installing an elevator. Money came from members of the parish.

“About 129 families donated,” Perry said. There are approximately 450 baptized members of the church.

Perry says that church members are excited to see their music ministry expand into the community. The new organ will bring that opportunity. Acoustics in the church are good and performers from outside the congregation use the facility when they can.

The price of the project has been hefty with $185,000 for construction of the loft, plus $66,000 for the organ contractor and $25,000 for the organ console.

Frans Bosman, an independent organ builder from Mosier, Ore., arranged for the sale of the instrument from the Spokane church.

The job is “going well,” Bosman said. “We are on schedule.”

Bosman plays the organ enough to check his own work but is eager to hear the instrument being played in its new home in the church.

“The sound will be alive, and it will open up doors to much deeper musical and spiritual experiences,” Bosman said.

He designed the loft to which architects and contractors added their ideas.

As Perry and Bosman look around the work area of the organ loft and the scent of shaved wood drift through the air, they can see how esthetically it blends with the rest of the interior. The same wood has been used for the project as was used for the floor and pews.

“What the organ will do will assist us in providing the glorious worship experience in traditional Anglicanism” Perry said. “We like to think we do things with great dignity and order.”

Christina Harper: harper@heraldnet.com or 425-339-3491.