Asylum Hill Congregational Church

BLISS MEMORIAL PIPE ORGAN

Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Hartford, CT
Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Boston, MA, 1961
Austin Organs, Inc., Hartford, CT, 2005 (new four-manual Skinner-style console)
Messrs. Czelusniak et Dugal, Inc., Northampton, MA, 2005 (New pipe additions and tonal revisions)
Walker Technical Company, Zionsville, PA, 2005 (Digital stops)
Four manuals – 71 ranks – 4, 211 pipes

http://www.cccathedral.org/choir.html

Asylum Hill Congregational Church was designed by architect Patrick C. Keely, built in 1865 and dedicated in 1866. Neo-gothic in design, it is made out of Portland brownstone. One of its most famous parishioners was Samuel Clemens, popularly known as “Mark Twain”. Today the congregation boasts nearly 2,000 members led by Senior Minister Gary Miller and a comprehensive music and arts program directed by Steven Mitchell and Charles Miller.There have been three pipe organs in Asylum Hill Congregational Church. The Hook and Hastings firm installed the first in 1871. Contrary to the architect’s original plans, the Hook and Hastings organ was placed in the apse of the church behind the pulpit. In 1910, the church was remodeled into its present gothic interior and a rear choir gallery was built according to Keely’s plans. Ernest M. Skinner built a four manual and pedal organ of some 50 ranks of pipes, which included a 32′ Bourdon, English horn, Tuba mirabilis and one of his new Erzahler stops. An organ builder in Kentucky currently owns the elegantly carved draw knob console from that organ. In the early 1950’s the console was showing signs of severe mechanical failure and the church found it necessary to replace it. The Austin Organ Company built a new console for the church in 1954, with the hopes that the company would soon thereafter rebuild the rest of the aging instrument. However, upon the arrival of Alfred Russell as director of music in 1956, a contract to replace the severely failing E. M. Skinner went not to the Austin firm but to the famous Aeolian-Skinner Company of Boston, MA and in January 1962 the present organ was dedicated with a performance of organ concerti and Maurice Durufle’s “Requiem”. Joseph Whiteford designed the 1962 Aeolian-Skinner in a then-fashionable neo-Baroque style which includes a Ruck-positiv division on the balcony rail. Its 71 ranks are spread over four manuals and pedal with the 32′ Bourdon being placed directly next to the choir singers in the balcony. From 2003-2005, as part of the church’s capital campaign and building addition, the organ will undergo major renovation, some judicious re-voicing and expansion. Along with a new state-of-the-art four manual console the organ will receive several new ranks of pipes including a Trompette en Chamade.