St. Vincent Basilica pipe organ worth $1.5M nears completion

Under the graceful arches of St. Vincent Basilica, a heavy winch on a scaffold stood ready to hoist the first and largest of more than 3,000 organ pipes to the galley.

Four men lifted the 300-pound, 18-foot-long, tin-alloy pipe, which lay on the floor nestled in a wooden box, near the holy water font in the Unity basilica.

The principal organist, Father Cyprian Constantine, said he will relish the first notes from the new $1.5 million organ as they ring out into the cavernous space.

The basilica is a beautiful space for music acoustically because we have six seconds of reverberation, so sound just carries, he said.

Six employees from John-Paul Buzard Pipe Organ Builders in Champaign, Ill., have worked since early July preparing the structure of the organ the wind chests to provide air and toe-boxes that hold the pipes before the first of German-made metal tubes were hoisted into the gallery and set into place last week.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime project ... because of the size of the room and the acoustics, said Brian Davis, tonal director for the organ builders.

The instrument replaces a Moller organ installed in 1955-56. Because it was controlled by electro-pneumatic action using leather, that instrument showed signs of wear as early as 1971, when Constantine first visited St. Vincent, he said.

Depending on heating and cooling and dirt in the air and that kind of thing, they can be damaged, the organist said. If you have a leather cover on a book, eventually, it can wear through. It just wore out and became very difficult to repair.

Some notes would stop working entirely, or wires crossed and notes played on the wrong key, Constantine said.

The pipes in the new instrument range from the largest first open diapason low C to the smallest at less than a half-inch in diameter, Davis said.

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St. Vincent Basilica pipe organ worth $1.5M nears completion