STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

The Chapel Organ

Christopher Ku and John Tuttle
Photography: Paul Chmielowiec

“The Chapel organ needs to be louder, softer, faster, slower, brighter.… It could be a jewel in the College’s life” – John Tuttle

FEBRUARY 2008 – Chances are you have never seen the Trinity College Chapel organ, unless you’ve sung in the College’s choir. But if you think of your chapel experiences – an afternoon wedding in June, perhaps, or a Wednesday evensong service with the twilight slanting through the leaded glass windows – it’s likely that the deep tones of the organ resonate in your memory.

The instrument, which nestles in the choir loft at the rear of the chapel’s nave, was built by Casavant Frères in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., a town that, with two organ manufacturers, can probably claim to be the organ capital of Canada. Its design was overseen by Dr. Healey Willan and Sir Ernest MacMillan, two of Canada’s foremost 20th-century musicians. Since its installation in 1954, it has given yeoman’s service.

But the instrument, now more than 50 years old, badly needs restoration, says John Tuttle, Trinity’s organist and director of music. Raising the necessary funds – about $250,000, half the amount of the organ’s current value – is one of the priorities of the Strength to Strength Endowment Campaign.

Besides his duties at Trinity, Tuttle, an organist and choral conductor of renown, is also the University of Toronto Organist and the organist and choirmaster at nearby St. Thomas’s Anglican Church, where he oversaw the restoration of the church’s organ in 1991. So he knows how much more balanced a refurbished instrument sounds: “Before restoration, it’s as if you’re hearing all the cellos but no violins, or all the trombones but no trumpets.”

About half of the 1,400 or so pipes in Trinity’s organ need to be sent back to Casavant for cleaning. Some of the stops are failing and need replacing “to update the dowdy sound,” says Tuttle, adding that the two-manual console needs restoration, “and the pedal board, which has been tromped on by some of the country’s finest organists when they served the College as organ scholars, will be refurbished or replaced.” Shockingly, some pedal notes are dead – no sound comes out when a D or an F# is played.

Christopher Ku, now entering his fifth year as Trinity’s Bevan Organ Scholar, is the fellow who pushes the pedals for regularly scheduled services in the chapel. A child prodigy in piano, Ku has been playing the organ since he was about 10. Clearly, he has grown into his role of helping to provide musical leadership at Trinity. “The best part is working with the Divinity students,” says Ku who, like Tuttle, relishes elevating the standard of church music in the city. Now studying for his master’s degree in musicology/theory at U of T, Ku plays the organ on Sunday mornings at St. Michael’s Cathedral, another place with a top-notch musical reputation and a famous choir school, from which Ku graduated.

If you have ever sung in a choir, you know how important it is to keep striving for the sublime. The organ needs to be “louder, softer, faster, slower, brighter,” says Tuttle. “It could be a jewel in the College’s life.”

– Susan Lawrence

The Strength to Strength Campaign priorities represent a permanent and lasting investment in Trinity’s future.

The family of Dr. Alessandro DeRango is soliciting memorial gifts towards the refurbishment of the organ.

To learn more about Dr. DeRango click here.

To donate to the Organ Refurbishment fund click here.