Adam Brakel - Romantic & Virtuosic at Bethesda-by-the-Sea, Palm Beach (2012)

Parkey OrganBuilders Opus 14 is located in the sanctuary at Providence United Methodist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina, and was completed in 2013. The organ is the culmination of a 10-year project for a new organ to replace a much too small and ailing pipe organ from the 1960s.

Many plans and discussions were considered by the church at the time we made a proposal to build a significant instrument using many core resources from Aeolian- Skinner organ originally located in the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC, and removed in 2012.

A proposal was given for an organ of 64 ranks complete with new electropneumatic slider windchests and winding systems, new solid state switching systems and preserving the shell, keyboards, and some other components of the Aeolian-Skinner console for installation in Charlotte. New twin cases housing the 16 Principal and 16 Violon were designed and built by our firm for the sanctuary.

Scaling, which typically ran small for most builders in the 1960s, did indeed prove to be too small for the 2700-seat hall at the Kennedy Center. But the resources turned out to be a perfect fit for the 900-seat sanctuary at Providence UMC. Minor rescaling and major re-voicing completed transformation for the church. Several ranks were replaced for visual and scaling improvement. Wind pressures were raised from 2 to a more normal 3 to 4 pressure. There are two solo reeds: the Fanfare Trumpet retained from the Aeolian-Skinner on 10 of wind pressure and a new, nickel-plated State Trumpet on 9 of wind pressure and situated on the front wall of the chancel. The 32 Subbass was retained and the 32 Contra Posaune was replaced with one of a larger scale.

The comprehensive specification encourages convincing performances of may different styles of music. Patrick Scott gives us a wonderful tour through the resources of the organ in the works and his improvisations on the CD. We hope that you will enjoy Patrick Scotts masterful performance on our Opus 14. He is a wonderful artist and it was a joy to work with him in this project.