This year to date
Chris Ouvry-Johns
Annual Lunch, Saturday 16th November 2024
The Annual Lunch this year took place at the Leonardo Conference Centre, just off the A5 near Hinckley, organised by committee member Peter Harris. Our speaker was Chris Ouvry-Johns, who has been Director of Music at Leicester Cathedral since 2011. Before lunch Chris gave us a fascinating talk which he provocatively entitled ‘What is the point of a cathedral choir in the 21st century?’
Approximately an hour later we all felt he had answered that question with a resounding Yes, there is! Chris first of all gave us a potted history of the Directors of Music since St Martin’s Church became a Cathedral a hundred years ago. Other changes over the years, as in most cathedrals, have seen the advent of girls choirs (Leicester was the first) giving greater possibilities of flexibility - and there is now both a senior and junior girls choir there. As soon as things got back to normal after Covid there was another problem – the Cathedral was closed again in January 2022 for over 18 months for major re-ordering work. An opportunity for outreach was firmly grasped as a result, where the choir, or sections of it, would visit the far-flung corners of the diocese to sing Evensong in country churches. One section of the choir still does this once a month now.
Chris’ talk also included some thought-provoking examples of the cultural and educational value of nurturing young people whilst they are in the choir, making it easier for children to get to choir practice, for example. And, given that the city of Leicester now has just a 30% White British population, the challenge of attracting new choristers has been given much thought, with resultant success. The importance of safeguarding, a hot topic in the C of E at present, has also been satisfactorily addressed.
Our President Adrian Moore thanked Chris on behalf of all present for such an inspiring talk. This was followed by an excellent lunch, enjoyed by all.
The recitalists
Young Organist Event at Ss.Peter and John Church, Rugby, on Saturday 3rd August 2024
Five young organists from the Rugby area gave a composite recital as part of the regular Ss. Peter and John summer recital series. Around 40 people were in attendance including friends and family of the young recitalists, church members and CWOA members.
Details of the pieces played in the concert are here and an audio recording is available here. Each recitalist was accorded well-deserved applause after playing, and at the conclusion of the concert, which was admirably organised by Peter Lock and Gillian Potts, each participant was presented with a small gift as a mark of thanks and appreciation from the CWOA.
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CWOA meeting at Hampton Lucy and Alveston on Saturday 20th July 2024
A small but select number of members and friends met at Hampton Lucy and Alveston churches to hear about and play the churches' organs which have been recently refurbished at great expense, due to generous legacies. Robert Stagg, organist of St Peter ad Vincula, Hampton Lucy gave a resume of the work that had been completed recently. After lunch our Hon. Sec. Ed did the same at St James Alveston. His interesting notes on the organ can be viewed here. Some church members joined us, and we were fortunate in then having a brilliant recital given by Tom Keogh, programme here.
Photos of Hampton Lucy are on the left, and Alveston on the right.
The revised specifications of the organs:
St. Peter ad Vincula Hampton Lucy and St James Alveston
CWOA - NBold-Ryton DRAFT report Lrev.docxCWOA meeting at St Marys Church, Hinckley, on Saturday 4th May 2024
Peter Harris writes :
The purpose of the meeting was to learn a little about the history of Organs in St Mary's, and also learn how electronic organs utilising the Hauptwerk software are put together and work, with a opportunity to try both the Church and Hauptwerk Organs.
CHURCH PIPE ORGANS
It was explained that up until the middle 1800’s a Band used to provide all the music that the congregation sung to. The Vicar at this time got fed up with all the arguments he had with band members and so disbanded them and a small George England 3 manual tracker organ was installed. The Vicar’s theory being that he could deal with one organist better than several band members. There were only keyboards, as pedals hadn’t become popular by this time in the UK.
By the late 1800’s the organ was proving to be unsatisfactory, and the firm of Norman and Beard were instructed to install a new electro pneumatic 3 manual organ with pedals.
Vierne stayed in Hinckley when he toured in England, Ireland and Scotland in 1925. He gave a concert on the 5th of May 1925 at the Parish church of St Mary on the beautiful instrument built by Norman and Beard in 1908. As Vierne and his "Mistress" Madeleine Richepin spent the night in a hotel in front of the church, he was woken up every 15 minutes by a chime ringing a descending scale in E major. The following morning, Madeleine Richepin suggested to Louis Vierne to use the distressing theme of the chime for a composition. This idea was very soon taken up by Vierne who wrote effortlessly on the train to Tenbury this piece of fantaisie entitled “Les Cloches de Hinckley” Debate is still going on to this day as to whether it was the Carillon and Clock which kept Vierne awake, or his mistress !!!!
By the late 1900’s the Norman and Beard organ was becoming unplayable as the great soundboard had almost bowed and collapsed, and also the electric wiring between console and organ was failing, causing regular cyphers.
A Taylor organ was purchased from St Paul’s Church, Leicester and was installed in St Mary’s by local Organ builder Roger Fifield in the early 2000’s. Included into this organ was some of the pipework from the Norman and Beard organ plus some stock. The action was electro pneumatic, with the organ being in a chamber on the front north side of the church, whilst the console was tucked up in the chancel behind the choir stalls on the South side of the church. In the early 2010’s the console was moved from this position to where it sits now in front of the organ at the front Northside of the church.
HAUPTWERK ORGAN
Peter Harris has built a 4 Manual and pedal Hauptwerk organ utilising the Hereford Cathedral soundset, and he had this at St Marys for us all to see and try.
Peter explained all of the components required to make this work. ie:
Keyboards (midi)
Pedal board ( including swell pedals) (midi)
Draw stops or Touch Screens
Midi controller
Laptop
Amplifier
Speakers
In basic terms, engineers went to Hereford Cathedral and recorded the sound of every pipe in the organ. This was then incorporated into a piece of Software called Hauptwerk. When selecting a particular sound ( flute, diapason, reed or string, or a mixture of some or all of them) and then playing a note on the Keyboard or pedal, a midi signal is sent to the midi controller, which then sends a signal to Hauptwerk. Hauptwerk then sends a sound signal back to the midi controller, and from there to the amplifier and speakers.
We then went on to discuss all the options and decisions that need to be made when constructing a Hauptwerk organ.
Hauptwerk uses either a Laptop or PC hard drive to store any number of different organs and also the Hauptwerk software. In both cases it is advisable to have ssd so that access to them is as fast as possible. Once Hauptwerk is running, it copies all the files it needs to RAM, and therefore when purchasing a soundset, check how much RAM is required, and ensure your Laptop,PC has enough.
Laptop or PC
The important thing to bear in mind is that either a Laptop or PC should have a reasonably quick processor, and enough RAM to support the soundsets you might be using. As an example, I have a Hauptwerk set up with both Salisbury and Hereford Cathedral organs installed. Both of these require 32 gig of RAM, but the laptop or PC only needs 32Gig of ram as only one organ at a time can be played.
For a home installation where either headphones or Hifi speakers are used then a Laptop is fine, especially as a laptop takes up a lot less space than a PC. In a Church installation where powerful amplifiers, Sub woofers, mid Range speakers and Tweeters are to be used, then a PC is probably a good option as you can install a reasonable sound card in a PC.
Wet or Dry?
Wet or dry means is the sound you hear with or without reverberation. So for a home installation where the acoustic is very dry, its adds to the playing and listening experience for the sound output to be wet. In a church installation, there might well be natural reverberation, or if the organ is going to be used for Hymn singing or choir accompaniment, then a wet output would be very off putting and therefore a Dry output would be better..
Stops or Touch Screens
One of the features of Hauptwerk is that you can have many different organs installed and you can select which one you play at the time of Hauptwerk loading. No two organs have identical stop lists, and therefore touch screens are a good idea as each organ’s stop list is displayed correctly. For those of us who only require one organ installed, it is perfectly possible to have normal stop jambs and solenoids, and Hauptwerk copes with both options
Licencing
At the point of purchase of both Hauptwerk and any desired sample sets, a licence is created by the dealer. This can be either a USB dongle, or can be carried out online.
Licence verification is carried out each time Hauptwerk is launched and a organ is selected. If the relevant licence cannot be verified, the software will not work.
If the laptop or pc you are using for Hauptwerk is dedicated to this purpose, there is no need to connect it to the internet and therefore licencing verification can be done via a USB dongle.
If the Laptop or PC which is running Hauptwerk is used for other things besides Hauptwerk it might be necessary for it to be connected to the internet and therefore licencing can be handled online.
Voicing
One of the many features of Hauptwerk is the ability to be able to voice an organ, and voicing can be carried out at various levels
The whole of each keyboard or pedalboard can be made louder or softer in one simple adjustment
The whole of one stop, for example the Great Diapason can be made louder or softer in one adjustment.
Each individual stop can be made louder or softer by octave, ie soften the bass octave , or louden the top octave.
Each individual note of the whole stop can be adjusted to either louden or soften it or leave it remaining at its original level.
Recording/Playback
Haupwerk has the ability for recording and playback
Press the record button, play a piece of music, stop recording and you can either save the file created as a .wav file or as a midi file
A .wav file can be played back through the Hauptwerk software, or can be copied for example to a USB stick and then played back via a sound system, or uploaded to an online site like Youtube etc. I find a .wav file useful, as on the occasional Church service I haven’t been available for, I can record each hymn, and any before or after music onto a USB stick, and this can be played back using the Church sound system.
A midi file can be played back through the Hauptwerk software, and it’s a great way of listening to your performance critically.
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The AGM of the Association took place at St John's church, Leamington Spa on 17 February. Twenty members attended, with apologies from ten more. After the AGM members were treated to an excellent recital by our President Adrian Moore. For a summary of the AGM and the recital programme click here.
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