St. Thomas Church Pipe Organ in New York City

The Dobson Pipe Organ Builders of Lake City, Iowa, just finished Opus 93 at St. Thomas Church in New York City, their largest pipe organ to date. The dedication weekend was October 5-8, 2018. I was fortunate enough to be part of the company contingent who went to hear it and celebrate with the church. When I came back I shared some information with the children in class. Here are the pictures and sounds of this magnificent instrument.

For more information check out the church website
St. Thomas Church Miller-Scott Organ.

Daniel Hyde from England is the music director at St. Thomas.
He plays the organ for church services and concerts, chooses music,
and teaches and directs the choir of boys and men who sing
at this church. It's the only place in the United States that has a
boys' choir that lives at the school. Boys can get a free education if they are
chosen for the choir and sing about six services each week plus special concerts.
They learn all the other subjects from other teachers. Daniel is the head music
teacher. Students take private lessons, study theory, and rehearse daily to sing
music that is often sung by good high school and college choirs.

More information about the choir boys is in a video clip on this webpage.

St. Thomas Choir School


More information about the organ can be found on the Dobson Pipe Organ Builders website.

Dobson Organs

Listen to the Dedication Recital at this link.

Dedication Recital

Daniel Hyde plays the Dedication Recital on Friday, October 5
Since the console (where the organ is played) is under the organ case
on the left, a video camera is set up to project live so
listeners can also see the organist play. The new organ
is in two chambers, one hanging on either side of the church.
Most of the 7000 pipes are inside the chamber, but the facade pipes
are open to the front and are played by the pedals (on the left) and
manuals (on the right).

Old organ case filled with new pipes by Dobson
Daniel Hyde rehearses the choir of boys (in front)
and men (in red in back).

New organ case built by Dobson

The impost of new organ case is an important part of the
structure of the case. The pipes stand on this in
wind chests, which provide the breath for the
sound of the pipes.

The Dobson Crew who built this instrument

The organ console
This is where the organist sits. The stop knobs on the right and left can be pulled to allow individual or combined sounds
of the organ to be heard. Some are quiet (like a flute, clarinet or string) and some are loud (like trumpets). The small
buttons between the keyboards are presets to be used by the organist to keep track of stop combinations for
different pieces of music. The organist can set the stops to a specific preset button and push it to change to a new setting
of stops between pieces or in the middle of a piece when a change of sound is needed. The rocker tabs under the music rack are called couplers and allow sounds set up for one keyboard to be played from another keyboard.

The console with the pedal board
Besides multiple manuals for hands, pipe organs also have a pedal board for playing with feet.

The front of St. Thomas Church
This picture, taken before the dedication service began, shows the wall behind the altar,
called the reredos, which contains many carvings of historic people.
The organ cases hang on the side walls, with the choir stalls are below them.
The church is about one football field long and about nine stories tall.

Making Music at Home Week 4.1: Sleeping Beauty and Tchaikovsky's ballets

This year the elementary students have studied Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky. He is best known for his ballets: Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and especially Nutcracker. We've watched excerpts of the first two.

Nutcracker

Every year in December the first graders explore Nutcracker. I read the story with Tchaikovsky's music playing, then we watch the party and beginning of the dream. We spend some time exploring the moves that are the building blocks of dance (travel, turn, higher/lower, close/away) then watch three versions of one of the second act dances and discuss how the dancers showed the various building blocks. After that I put on the music and the kids create their own version. We usually have time for only the Chinese Dance, but later learn the Russian Dance and March with  parachute routines. They become favorites for years!

There are many easily attainable versions of Nutcracker if you're interested in watching.

Here is our favorite dance Trepak (Russian Dance). If you don't have a parachute, use a towel
or sheet (if you can teach the moves to your whole family).

Clips from Swan Lake

These are the clips we watched in class to learn more about the story of Swan Lake and how a ballet works.

Prince's birthday party waltz

Background information and interviews with the Corps de Ballet

Dance of the four swans (referenced in Corps de Ballet clip)

Main swan theme

The Story of Sleeping Beauty

For an excellent picture-filled summary of the story Tchaikovsky used, check out this link.

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/tchaikovsky/guides/sleeping-beauty-guide-pictures/

Clips from Sleeping Beauty

If students are curious to see the dances, especially how she pricks her finger and falls asleep. I can recommend these videos from Youtube if you'd like to share them with your child.

Act 1 Garland Waltz
This very famous waltz is entertainment at Aurora's 16th birthday party.

Aurora dances with the Princes (Rose Adage)
As in many fairy tales, the main character must marry. This is Aurora's famous dance with the princes, filled with amazing balances on her toe shoes (en pointe). We have had some interesting discussions about these shoes with third and fourth grade dance students in years past.

Aurora pricks her finger and falls asleep