Tonal Director Brian Davis in the Voicing Studio
We are Americans. Although our inspiration is rooted in the organbuilding traditions of Europe, we do not construct copies of historical European organs for American churches.
The diversity of music in American worship taxes the ability of a single instrument to render appropriately the many styles of literature regularly performed. We therefore apply an historically and nationalistically informed knowledge of organbuilding traditions, tempered by the uses to which the modern pipe organ is put.
Our firm's individual tonal style is characterized by warmth and pervasive energy of tone, secured by generous scaling of the pipes, precise, solid pipe-making, and historically informed and innately musical voicing techniques. Tonal Director Brian Davis carefully designs and voices each stop to blend with the others to produce a cohesive musical ensemble, and smaller ensembles within ensembles. Once the organ is installed, we spend a great deal of time at the site working on the final voicing (or tonal finishing). This weds the sound of the pipes to the acoustics of the building and produces the musical blend.
The overall effect of such painstaking work, even in smaller instruments, is a grand sound: lightly articulate, full and rich. Never harsh. Never shrill.
More information about our tonal style can be found in "The Anglican Organ and the Buzard Sound", a description of Opus 20, at St. Paul's Cathedral in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and our description of the organs at St. Bede Catholic Church (Opus 31) and Williamsburg Presbyterian Church (Opus 32), both in Williamsburg, Virginia.