New Organ For Memorial Church To Cost $90,000

A new organ worth $90,000 is being built for Memorial Church by C.B. Fisk, Inc., of Gloucester. The organ, designed by John R. Ferris, University organist and choirmaster, and a committee of experts, will be installed by the summer of 1966.

Ferris said yesterday that the decision to buy a new organ was made when he discovered it would take $35,000 to over-haul the 33-year-old organ now in use. He said, further, that the old organ had "never been satisfactory," and that it will cost half as much to maintain the new one.

The new organ will operate by mechanical tracker action, the traditional mechanism, rather than by the more modern electric action. This form was chosen to create a more pleasant-counting organ, what Ferris called "a return in principle to the baroque organ."

Installation of the new organ will require considerable renovation of Appleton Chapel, Ferris said. The side chambers, where pipes are now locate, will be plastered so that there will be loss absorption by the walls. The case of the organ, freestanding and claborately carried of oak, will be placed against the east wall of the Chapel.

Marriage as Usual

Seating space in the Chapel will not be affected by the new organ, and morning services and marriages will continue to be held there after it is installed.

Ferris said that the organ would be dedicated with a week of special recitals. A member of the planning committee, Daniel Pickham '44, has been commissioned to write a special composition for the first use of the organ.