St. John’s Parish in Guelph is home to one of the only Tamburini organs in North America. A small two-manual organ conceived in the Neo-Baroque style, it was built in 1966, when the sanctuary had just been completed. After 50 years, the console switching mechanism and plunger-pneumatic slider solenoids were becoming very unreliable, though the electric slider windchests were still functioning very well.
Our work on the organ, from April to July of 2016, included: releathering four reservoirs, cleaning the pipework and chamber, replacing the slider solenoids with new Laukhuff units, rebuilding the console inserts in the French terraced style, installing new, shop-made keyboards of bone/ebony to replace the original moulded plastic keys, and installing a control system by Classic Organ Works.
The organ was quite underpowered for the room, and also quite treble-heavy, despite having a 16′ principal in the facade. The main principal chorus was carefully revoiced and rescaled to fill out the sound and bring more fundamental to the tone.