The great triple pipe organ transplant
In 1967, Harvard’s Memorial Church installed a new organ from Charles B. Fisk, an alumnus who gave up working on the Manhattan Project to become a world-renowned organ maker in Gloucester. Fisk had hoped to place his 11-ton Opus 46 upstairs in a gallery, but Harvard president Nathan Pusey wouldn’t give up seating. The organ was installed on the ground floor, where it blocked a large Palladian window.
Photograph from C.B. Fisk Inc.
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In May 2010, C.B. Fisk Inc. found a good home for the Opus 46 in Austin’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Fisk delicately extricated the instrument. And then there was light. But Memorial Church still needed a second organ, one for its chapel. Consultant Jonathan Ambrosino recalled a lovely antique Skinner he’d seen at a Christian Science church as a teen. Although the Connecticut congregation had relocated, he negotiated a sale with the help of the Yale University curators who had looked after its organ for 50 years.
Photograph from C.B. Fisk Inc.
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Austin’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church is now building a sanctuary for the Opus 46.
illustration by Charles Nazarian
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In June 2011, choir members greeted the truck delivering Fisk’s new Opus 139 to Memorial Church, first with a hymn and then a work brigade. Services were canceled for the summer while Fisk technicians assembled the 16-ton instrument. Gomes, who died the previous February, never saw his dream completed.
photograph from Harvard
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In April 2012, the Charles B. Fisk and Peter J. Gomes Memorial Organ, Opus 139, debuted on Easter Sunday. Organist Christian Lane played 14 pieces (including two composed for the occasion).
Photograph from C.B. Fisk Inc.
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