Dana Robinson at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
OHS 2006 National Convention
March Pontificale - Charles-Marie Widor

Video by Vic Ferrer Productions

The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, New York, is a 19th-century concert hall built in the Italian Renaissance style. At the center of the hall stands a great pipe organ installed in 1890 by John H. and Caleb S. Odell of New York City.

The organ was unplayable at the time organ builder Scot L. Huntington and Stephen L. Pinel, the head of the Organ Historical Society's American Organ Archives in Princeton, N.J., began scouting the hall in planning for The Society's 50th-anniversary convention. They were both excited to find that the bank was willing to assist with bringing the organ back to playing condition for the convention.

Huntington, a member of the OHS National Council and a longtime advocate of the Society, put together a large volunteer work force that included a number of the country's finest organ builders. Among them were John-Paul Buzard of Champaign, Illinois, Czelusniak et Dugal, Inc. of Northampton, Massachusetts, Kerner & Merchant of Syracuse, New York, J.H. & C.S. Odell of Hampton, Connecticut (fifth generation descendants of the original makers), Rosales Organ Builders of Los Angeles, and Schneider Pipe Organs of Schenectady, New York.

Working with the organ builders were some twenty volunteers, including Barbara Adler, John Basile, Bill Danish, Alfred Fedak, Charles Jones, James Palmer, Iteke Prins, Dona Tallman, John Vernieu, and other members of the Eastern New York Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Work included cleaning the pipes of the Great, Swell and Pedal divisions, re-leathering the high-pressure reservoir, and the installation of a new higher capacity blower to run the Tuba and Trombone on their original 6” pressure. While this work in no way constitutes a restoration of the instrument, it did give people an opportunity to recognize again the superb quality of the instrument. The Organ Citation Program of the OHS recognized it as one of the most important nineteenth-century instruments extant, and the only original American concert hall organ form the nineteenth century remaining in original condition.

Vic Ferrer Productions is a corporate communications and documentary production company based in San Francisco.

The entire story is told in the critically acclaimed 2006 Organ Atlas, produced in honor of the Society's Fiftieth anniversary, copies of which are still available from the OHS store. The concert was favorably reviewed by all the local papers, including such international venues as the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times.