A subset of the committee went to Vernon on June 6, 2004 to hear the Phoenix organ in a concert setting, and to meet with the area representative,  Bob O'Neill.
The concert was very good, and Janet Montgomery played the organ. The
installation at Vernon was not done by Phoenix, and had more stops,
more channels (20!), different amplifiers from "standard" Phoenix
instruments, and an unusual speaker placement,
which seemed to make the sound stay up in the air (rather than fill the
space) more than we liked, but which sounded very good. Bob O'Neill
played the instrument after the concert to give us an appreciation for
what a Phoenix organ sounded like with a variety of music, including
his favorite, "Londonderry Air". Part of the Community Chorus actually
came up and started singing along on a number of the tunes Bob played,
including "Amazing Grace", and it was a very capable instrument to
accompany singing, we felt. Although the instrument in Vernon was a
bigger instrument and was more than we wanted to spend, Bob assured us
that a smaller instrument would be within our price range.
We set out to organize a full committee trip to hear the Vernon
instrument, and also found that there was a small Phoenix in a church
in Blairstown, NJ as well, which we could visit. We set out to plan an
August trip to the two New Jersey churches, and included our priest and
his wife, who is an organist in another Episcopal church in our area
and wanted to be in on the fun of our first major road trip!
The Blairstown church was a disappointment to us. The shape of the church and the placement of the speakers
seemed to be sub-optimal to us. We found out that the sound system here
was also not designed by Phoenix and so we were concerned that the only
two close instruments for us were not good representations of Phoenix
organs.
We traveled on to Vernon to hear and play the instrument there. Since we had last been there, they had relocated their console to the choir loft, as well as expanded the loft. Again, we were concerned about the placement of the speakers and the general look of the installation,
but were assured that the instrument for St. Mark's would not look like
this one, and would be completely designed by Phoenix for St. Mark's.
Everyone felt that the sound was very good, and at this meeting, Bob
O'Neill gave us an initial proposal for a PT339E, which was within our
budget.
Throughout
the search process, we found Bob O'Neill and Phoenix to be
knowledgeable and responsive to our requests and questions. Recently I
counted up the number of emails I had received from Bob and Phoenix,
and it is closing in on 200, with me sending probably almost that many
to them! Bob, Don and Jim were willing to talk technology (the value of
 bipolar
speakers, long samples, high speaker placement, other installations
such as the Epiphany Organ at Trinity Wall Street) or musical
experiences (Harrison and Harrison versus Cassavant samples), the
richness of the Anglican musical repetoire, later installation of
pipes, and so forth.
We found
other representatives less well-versed in the details of their
technology ("we don't like to measure our samples in terms of length,
but in terms of megabytes"), less willing to talk about musical issues,
and more inclined to lead us to believe that their's was the safe and
logical choice since most churches installed one of their instruments
and how they had a warehouse full of parts to fix all the organs they
had ever made (what used to be called selling using FUD, in the
computer industry).
The
summer went on and the difficulty of really pulling the group together
for another trip increased. We contacted two Phoenix customers, Darrell
Ackmann of Leesburg, Virginia and Roy Daniels in California, and both
assured us that Phoenix was a great company that would work with us to
create a state-of-the-art instrument. Both were enthusiastic and
excited by their experiences with Phoenix.
Towards
the end of September, we organized a trip to Toronto. We wanted to hear
instruments installed and voiced by Phoenix rather than the examples in
New Jersey. Our entire committee was available, and we traveled to the
Toronto area on Friday night and met Don and Jim Anderson on Saturday
morning at the first of the 3 churches we would be visiting. Jim
Anderson proposed the following itinerary while we were in the Toronto
area:
St.
Philip's Lutheran, Etobicoke (Toronto), Trinity Anglican, Aurora (north
of Toronto) and St. Paul's Anglican, Uxbridge (north east of Toronto).
There are a few others in the area as well but these churches are
smaller and may reflect the size of your building and acoustics. They
would also demonstrate different approaches to sound...Trinity is based
on a 1920s style Harrison and Harrison, and very English; Uxbridge is
quite eclectic; and St. Philips, Lutheran is more American Classic and
has 6 ranks of pipes. In the case of St. Philips, the pipes can either
be on or off.
St. Philip's church was a small church near the Toronto airport and we arrived there to be met by Don and Jim.
We were immdiately struck by the enthusiasm and passion which they
bring to the organ building business. We do not anticipate installing
any pipes in the near term, but it is nice to know that they can be
integrated into the instrument in the future.
As we continued on to the second and third
churches, we were truly amazed at the passion these brothers had for
the organ and for the Anglican musical tradition. Don's playing was
superb, and they patiently led us from one church to another, answering
our questions, and explaining their philosophy of organ building, and
their desire to grow, but never get so large that they lost control of
the individual customers.
We
left Uxbridge for home late Saturday afternoon and we were on fire with
the idea of a Phoenix for St. Mark's. The quality of the consoles, the
speaker placements, and last but certainly not least the sound of the 3
instruments we visited blew us away. The 3 instruments all had unique
sounds and yet were all excellent. Each instrument had a personality,
and was not just a model number in a catalog. It was a custom
instrument designed for a particular style of music and worship and for
the space of the churches in which they were installed.
To be
honest, until we visited the churches in the Toronto area, we did not
get this concept and were still stuck on the "catalog" approach to
buying a new organ. We wanted to hear and see an organ like we would
get at St. Mark's. It was only after the visit to these 3 churches and
meeting Don and Jim that we understood that our organ would be unique,
and that it would sound unique, and it would be a work of the organ
builder's artistry. It's important to understand that this is a custom
built instrument with Don's, and Jim's, and Scott's and Kirk's touches
in the sound, woodworking, wiring, electronics, speaker placement,
speaker design and so forth.
We
continued our search with other manufacturers as well, in parallel, but
we as a committee felt that Phoenix was the organ which we should
pursue. At the October Vestry meeting, we presented our recommendation
to purchase a 3 manual, 46 stop, tabstop organ from Phoenix. While the
drawknobs look really good, we felt that the addional stops were more
important than drawknobs. This was a tradeoff made based on what we
could afford for a new instrument. The entire document presented to the
vestry is available
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. We felt that the things that Phoenix brought to the table were clear signals to us that this was the right decision.
Namely:
- They are very knowledgeable about the Anglican musical repertoire
and our organ would be built for our tradition of Anglican music
- Advanced Technology - longer samples, quality parts, bipolar speakers, "hybrid" instrument capability
- They have great experience, knowledge and passion for organ building
- Their representative wants to place an instrument in upstate NY and has been (we think) very aggressive with his pricing
- "Plug and Play" components like a stereo (Yamaha amps, for instance)
- Excellent look and feel of the console and the organists in our group have liked the instrument.
- Custom Designed for St. Mark's, including Console, stop list, multiple voicings, and a choice of speaker types
The vestry
approved our recommendation and we placed the order officially at the
beginning of December. One of the things that 2 of the other
manufacturer's had tried to impress us with was that they had programs
to help us raise the funds needed for the instrument, mostly involving
charts with keys on them and a "Buy a Key" program. We are blessed with
a generous church, who, upon hearing of the plans, gave generously to
our new organ fund and we felt that all should be able to give, no
matter their financial status, not based on "Buying a Key" but on what
the Spirit told them and on what their own financial status allowed
them. We were amazed that the church quickly raised over half of the
funds needed for the project, and we were able to sell our Johannus on
eBay and raise a bit more for the project.
We worked
with Don to create a set of voicings that would work well with our
musical style and heritage, and having liked the instrument at Trinity Anglican Church
in Aurora, asked if the Harrison and Harrison samples used there could
be the foundation of our stoplist. Don worked to create a similar style
of instrument, and ended up adding some Aeolian Skinner samples which
he felt would improve upon the Aurora Church.
One
issue with our church was that there was a large "bulkhead" space over
our choir roft. This was where the original organ was installed in the
50's, and was designed to hold the pipes of a very small instrument.
Our Johannus speaker cabinet was installed there to sound through the
original swell shuuters and the facade pipes. It reduced the acoustic
quality for our choir and made a sort of dead spot from which they
sang. Bob O'Neill recommended the removal of the bulkhead, and we began
to contemplate the removal as a part of the project, and in February of
2005 we removed the space
and were amazed by what this single thing did to improve our acoustics.
We already had hard surfaces in most of the church, but this removal
made the choir sound brighter and more alive in our worship services.
After the ordering, it was a matter of anxious waiting. Phoenix sent us pictures along the way.
We had hit the busiest time of year for organ construction and
installation I believe, and while we had no expectation of a Christmas
install, we felt that Easter might be a real possibility.
Unfortunately, we missed that date by a week. We felt that any
interruption of Holy Week services was clearly not desirable, and so
scheduled the install to begin on April 4, 2005. Don and Jim arrived
late on the night of the 3rd, and we began the install early Monday
morning. 
The installation is covered on our photo gallery,
but Don and Jim were wonderful to work with, and insured that the
installation was successful and a good time for all. We were assisted
by Carl and Ken Pease, of Pease Plastering in the speaker installation
in the high spots. They were very comfortable working on the
scaffolding which we had borrowed from them, and they did a
professional and clean installation of the bipolar speakers as well as
the higher speakers in our beams. Monday flew, and around 4:00, the
console was raised into the loft. Don and Jim were meticulous about the install, and with the help of our priest, maneuvered the beautiful oak console into place. At around 6:00, the organ sounded at St. Mark's for the first time!
The next day and a half were devoted to the voicing of the instrument
and the cleaning up of the speaker wires, accomplished by Don and Jim.
There is a whole photo album
on our web site to detail the voicing and clean-up work. Don worked
tirelessly to make the organ fit the space. Inside the console, the
technology is so clean and beautiful. The 2 big amplifiers are
commercial/professional units, not proprietary, and the wiring and
circuit boards are clean and well layed out. The inside of the console
is beautiful and re-assures us that this instrument will lead our
worship for a long time to come. We also found that Don had added a
fourth voicing to the instrument since there was room in the memory for
it. Besides the English, Baroque, and Orchestral voicings, we also have
the sounds of a theater organ! All of the stops in all 4 of the
voicings sound clean and beautiful.
As Don
was finishing up some preliminary work on Monday, a local organist
stopped by to see what was going on, and sent me the following email:
Subject: UNBELIEVABLE!!
I went over to church and Don was playing the organ. It's incredible! I'm in love, I have organ envy,
and I am totally smitten with this instrument! I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but
even without the voicing, it's a far more exciting instrument than the Allen I play.
The traditional organ sounds are rich and full of dimension and the orchestral
sounds on the 3rd spec are incredibly realistic....right down to the initial attack on the trumpet.
The flute, oboe, brass ensemble and choir are phenomenal.
You did good
Now the part that this note doesn't tell you is that the Allen referred to here cost around 3 times our Phoenix!
 We
still have work to do. We're rebuilding the front of the choir loft to
match the Phoenix console and provide a little more flexible space for
our choir. After 2 Sundays with the new instrument, I can report that
we are delighted. This instrument is so good. It's not a pipe organ,
but it is a remarkable instrument. We feel that the purchase was a good
balance between being faithful stewards of our finances (leaving us
money for outreach and mission) while providing us a wonderful
instrument to enhance our worship and lead us in singing praise to God,
which is, after all, the purpose of an organ in church.
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