22 Days: Removing the Klais Organ

Dear faithful people of Saint Peter’s Church,

Proper care of our instruments is rooted in the centrality of the arts to the mission of Saint Peter’s. Last week we noted that the organ was being evaluated. Our consultant determined that the best way to protect the organ during cleaning of the sanctuary is full removal. With thousands of working mechanical pipes this process will avoid damage due to cleaning methods.

Organ Clearing House is carefully removing and transporting the organ to the workshop of the world-class C.B Fisk organ company in Gloucester, MA. This workshop is one of a handful in the United States able to set up an instrument of this size in its entirety for evaluation. C.B. Fisk also is well known for their care of historic instruments. In addition to comprehensive evaluation and anything evaluation may flag for remediation, the entire instrument — piece by piece — will be cleaned by hand. Already, an ever-increasing amount of silt is building up throughout the instrument. The small, Italian organ will also be transported to C.B. Fisk.

Cantor Bálint Karosi has made this short video walking you through the process as it began yesterday. We’ll be posting further updates online.

We are thankful to the teams at Organ Clearing House and C.B. Fisk, and to our Cantor, Balint Karosi. Also, we are thankful to the Klais organ company and the Vignelli Archive for their assistance in this effort.

Until it returns to us, be assured that the Klais organ is in good hands.

Grace and peace to you,

Jared R. Stahler
Senior Pastor