The St. Joseph’s Pipe Organ Restoration:

Our beautiful Hook & Hastings 1891 pipe organ is set for a full restoration beginning June 2024, and will be gone for a year, in the trusted hands of the Wallace Pipe Organ Builders from Maine, who specialize in restoring historic tracker action organs.We will have a smaller organ, most likely a portative organ placed in the side front of the church, for the duration of the restoration.

Our Hook & Hastings organ is such a well-built organ that, even in its current state of broken trackers, cracked windchests, unstable key action, and a deficient blower, it still often produces a beautiful sound.  Our organist, Maria Balducci, knows the organ well enough to avoid ciphers, out-of-tune or broken notes, and other such oddities, but by avoiding couplers and certain notes or ranks, she is only able to use approximately 2/3 of the organ.  We are tasked with the responsibility of giving proper maintenance and care to this “artistic treasure of the city” (Carl Schwartz, Organ Historical Society, 2011), and we thank you for any support you are able to offer to the organ restoration fund.  Please see the poster in the back area of the church to see pictures and descriptions of the interior of the organ.