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 by request. 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.
