This morning I played my last service at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in
Spring Valley, NY.  I have been there for 7 years and have much enjoyed my
time there.  The organ is a wonderful 14 rank Gress-Miles from 1963.  We
recently installed new Harris drawknobs as part of a total renovation of
the instrument.  It is very neo-baroque with a brustwerk behind kitchen
cabinet doors.  I have always been amazed at how versatile it really is at
playing romantic literature even though it seems such a straight-laced
instrument.  It is *very* aggressive in the little carpenter-gothic church.
The church is about a 45 minute drive from midtown manhattan, located in
Rockland County.  The church has a delightful, mostly Caribbean
congregation that are wildly enthusiastic about their music.  There has not
been a choir for the past 20 years or so, but there has recently been much
growth in the parish, and there is serious interest in establishing one.  I
always put together choirs for Christmas and Easter, but it is time to
establish a regular one.  There is certainly the potential, and many really
good voices, though music reading skills are definitely missing.  I think
the choir is being made a priority at this point.  The senior warden and I
have discussed this and the necessity for getting a decent piano and a
budget for choral music.  I have recommended purchase of a Yamaha studio
upright for the church.  My salary there was $96 per Sunday.  The interim
rector is insisting that this will be wholly inadequate if they wish to
have a choir.  I think they will be considering something in the $125-$150
range with choir rehearsal after church on Sundays.  This is very much a
Sunday job, with no other duties.  There are 2 services on Christmas,
Thanksgiving, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday.  These are the only other
services.  One nice thing is that the senior warden is the former organist
and she is very supportive.  She is also very much available for
substituting and is always more than willing whenever you want a sunday
off, so you never need to go searching for a sub.  As they are in an
interim period between the retirement of the rector and the joining of a
new cluster ministry with 3 other Episcopal churches in the area, there is
the feeling that perhaps an organist should not be appointed until the
clergy have been hired so that they could have input into the choice of
organist.  At any rate, hiring could be done on a interim basis
immediately, and that person considered as organist when the clergy are
hired.  If you are interested in this position, please e-mail me privately,
and I will be glad to fill you in in greater detail and put you in touch
with the vestry.
 
My new church is St. Peter's Anglican, Westchester Square in the Bronx.  It
is a very historic church (huge) with a large three manual Austin that was
built in 1947 reusing many ranks of pipes from the 1853 Roosevelt that was
there.  It was originally 38 ranks, and in 1949 a choir division of 11
ranks was added.  The entire instrument was recently rebuilt and much
enlarged by Sebastian Gluck, with the choir division turned into a
positive.  If all his prepared stops were completed it would be 68 ranks.
I am very excited about this new post at this church that is a bastion of
high-church tradition complete with smells and bells every Sunday and a
strong emphasis on good Anglican choral music.  (no CCM here!)  There is a
10 bell chime with a very victorian console in the tower, and my wife
intends to play it every Sunday before my prelude.  She has been trying to
figure out how to ring changes on it as well as playing tunes.  It sounds
very impressive.
 
I am very curious about a couple of things.  In the original Austin specs,
it states that the first four manual pistons on each division are
double-touch.  What are double-touch pistons and how do they work.  Another
oddity is that the manual pistons also change the pedal registrations!  I
have never experienced this before, and am having difficulty figuring out
how to use these pistons.  I am used to having the manual pistons affect
only the stops of that manual.  Can this feature be disconnected?  Is it
useful or in any way desirable?  Your thoughts?  It seems that if I were
playing a hymn and wanted to use a swell piston to bring in the swell
reeds, for example, it would necessarily change the whole pedal
registration whether I wanted it to or not.  It seems really strange and
makes coming up with a workable piston setup unnecessarily complicated.
Has anyone else out there dealt with an Austin console like this?  Why
would anyone have thought this was a good idea?  What was your strategy for
registrations using this system?
 
Ken Potter