Pipe organ music fills Trinity Episcopal Church again

EVERETT — Parishioners at Trinity Episcopal Church have wanted a pipe organ in their church for almost 40 years.

The Balcom and Vaughan pipe organ now in the sanctuary is the fulfillment of their longstanding dream, according to music director David Spring.

Trinity’s original pipe organ was installed in the late 1940s and could not be repaired when it broke down in the early 1970s. That organ was replaced by a Baldwin electronic organ that lasted another 25 years before it stopped working during a Christmas Eve service.

Shortly after, a church committee was formed to find a new mechanical action pipe organ. At the time, costs from a building renovation project kept the church from being able to fund a custom-built organ.

The search fizzled. Trinity borrowed a portable organ from another church.

A digital organ was purchased in 1999 when the loaned organ had to be returned.

As the new music director in 2001, Spring started to revive the effort to find a pipe organ.

“There’s a strong sense if you’re going to have an organ that the pipe organ is what it’s supposed to sound like,” he said. “Just like a real hollandaise sauce tastes better than the kind you make out of a package and add water.”

He started looking at pipe organs for sale by churches that were consolidating or taking their music programs in different directions and no longer had a use for their pipe organ.

In January 2005, organ builder Frans Bosman convinced Spring to look at a 1971 pipe organ used by Covenant Christian Church in Spokane.

After seeing the instrument, Spring was impressed. He told church parishioners the chance to buy the organ was a rare opportunity that he believed shouldn’t be ignored. They listened and for $40,000 they finally had their instrument.

The used organ cost about 10 percent of what new ones were going for, Spring said.

Bosman went to work refurbishing the instrument, to use as much of the original pipe work as possible.

About $110,000 was spent on the organ’s framework and swell boxes where pipes are located. A custom loft was constructed to hold the swell boxes before Trinity’s new organ could be played.

“The overall project, by the time it was all said and done, was probably what the church would have spent on just a new organ alone,” Spring said. “A lot of people got behind this thing.”

The fundraising took three years and was two-fold, senior warden Evie Beard said. People from the parish raised $650,000 with the help of a consulting firm. The goal was to use the money to purchase a pipe organ and install an elevator in the church. Beard expects the elevator will be installed sometime within the next three to five years.

The pipe organ, she said, looks like it has always been in the church.

“I love it. It’s beautiful in any register,” she said.

Trinity’s pipe organ comprises 28 ranks, or sets, of pipes and includes recycled parts from 1915, Spring said. It’s also listed in the Organ Historical Society’s database.

A dedication service of the organ was held on Jan. 9 at the church. Organist David DiFiore played during a dedication recital on Jan. 29. There will be one more dedication event at 8 p.m. on March 26 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 2301 Hoyt Ave.

The program is planned to bring the season of Lent to a close and will feature DiFiore with a chamber orchestra and the church chorus conducted by Spring.

Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491, adaybert@heraldnet.com.