The Plan for the Future of our New Organ

The new Goulding & Wood pipe organ for St. George's was designed as an "Organ with a Vision". Despite the realization that we were currently limited by our budget, it was decided to invest to prepare the instrument for a future in which we are not so financially constrained. In response to the wishes of a great number of parishioners, we aim to end up with a concert organ worthy of our Episcopal musical tradition.

The Organ Committee started off by selecting a first-class organ builder and specifying an organ that will beautifully meet the basic requirements of our services. At 24 ranks, it is slightly larger than our current organ which was originally constructed for what is now our Parish Hall and was undersized even for our current Nave.

Then the Committee did several things to prepare the instrument for future expansions:

• Although we only had enough funds for an organ large enough to support two keyboards (manuals) - the "Great" and the "Swell" (plus the pedals), the console will already have a "Choir" manual. This will allow us to add that division without the additional cost of replacing the whole console.
• An organ bay has already been constructed to contain the future "Choir" section of the expanded organ
• The pipes will be arranged to allow for easy addition of additional "ranks" of pipes in each division
• Pipes were placed to enable the possible addition of a "Facade" with exposed pipes
• The blowers and electronics are capable of supporting future expansion

One of the reasons that we never followed through with the planned expansion of our current Reuter organ was the hurdle of spending the $150,000 to replace the 2-manual console. This was an expense that did not show any immediate improvement in sound. With the new Goulding & Wood organ any funds raised for an additional rank ($10,000-$20,000) could theoretically bear immediate audible and satisfying results. In order to reduce costs we would most likely save-up for multiple ranks before placing an order.