The Choir Organ

The choir organ belongs near the altar, where the choir is located in many churches, particularly larger churches. It is different from the gallery organ traditionally found in the rear gallery.

The gallery organ may be enormous, designed to fill the entire church. The choir organ is deliberately smaller. But smaller does not mean inadequate. Historically, good choir organs were carefully voiced and designed so that a relatively small number of stops could do a remarkably complete job of accompanying the choir, supporting chant, and playing appropriate organ music.

That is the principle behind our project.

For approximately ten years, we have been working toward a modern, simple-to-operate choir organ that preserves this traditional idea while taking advantage of MIDI and digital technology.

The basic system is intentionally simple:

MIDI keyboard → Choir Organ → Amplifier/speakers

Instead of requiring a large pipe-organ console, the organist plays it from an ordinary MIDI keyboard. The Choir Organ contains high-quality organ sounds and a carefully selected collection of organ stops.

Those stops allow the player to change the character of the instrument according to what is being played—a quiet registration for Gregorian chant, appropriate stops for accompanying a choir, a somewhat fuller registration for hymns, and other combinations for organ music.

The important idea is that we are not trying to reproduce a gigantic cathedral organ in a small box.

We are trying to build what a good choir organ has always been: a compact instrument containing the right sounds for the particular work that needs to be done near the altar.

And there is another important requirement after ten years of development: it has to be simple.A parish musician should be able to connect the MIDI keyboard, connect the speaker system, turn on the Choir Organ, select an appropriate registration, and play.

That simplicity may ultimately be one of the project's most important features.