The Cathedral organ was masterfully designed and custom built by Kenneth Jones and Associates of Bray. Ireland.
Kenneth Jones' design at the Cathedral includes an organ case with full height to the ceiling for maximum projection of sound into the room. His gallery design incorporates clean seating (no clutter of chairs), plus open screen
railing to enhance better sound projection from the choir, as well as the organ.
Kenneth Jones and Associates design and handcraft unique pipe organs, each custom-designed musically, technically and architecturally for its particular location, acoustics and musical requirements. As Ireland’s only organ builders, the workshop is located in the former Saint Paul’s, a converted church in Bray, County Wicklow. Even before the decision to take on the contract, Kenneth (now retired) came to visit our cathedral to see what its architecture was, what was required in musical terms, financial terms,and to get a feel for the place liturgically (spending time with us in worship). He also spent hours checking out every stop in the old instrument, to see if there might be a few ranks of pipes he could re-scale, re-voice and restore to blend in with the new pipes. We really appreciated his idea of continuity - however subtle it might be - by incorporating a bit of history into the new instrument. Once the decision was made to go with Kenneth Jones as our builder, we found out that he was also a professional structural engineer. In our search for a builder, many companies were eliminated from our short list, as they said “building an organ in a gallery with our relatively low ceiling could not be done!” Kenneth Jones proved otherwise. His structural design includes an organ case with full height to the ceiling for maximum projection of sound into the room. His gallery design incorporates clean seating (no clutter of chairs), plus open screen railing to enhance better sound projection from the choir, as well as the organ.
The GREAT ORGAN is self-explanatory. Great Trumpet is enchamade balanced to serve both as splendid solo reed while adding colour, blending with the Great plenum. The Principal ( Diapason) chorus 16, 8, 4, bass and tenor octaves is housed in the façade with front pipes of flamed copper and 70%tin .This has a dramatic effect on the instrument and provides ample speaking room for the much needed space on the soundboard. The 2ft stop was omitted as the Mixture is made up of IV ranks and is based on 2ft. The Clarinet (originally recovered from a decommissioned church in Ireland, but rescaled and voiced for this instrument by Kenneth Jones) has a lovely typical early English tone.
The SWELL ORGAN includes a 4ft Nason Flute and 8ft Oboe. The Cornopean 8’ is of a wide- scale and fills the requirement of a Pedal Trumpet 8' ideally in the earlier classical repertoire and the French baroque. It is important, at the same time that the volume and effectiveness of the division, as heard in the body of the Cathedral, is no less than the full Great.
The POSITIVE ORGAN is designed as such with a complement of 8-8-4-4-2 for moderate to quiet accompaniment of choir and soloists, together with quiet accompaniment stops such as the Salicional. In addition the mutations stops Tierce and Nazard drawn with the Positive 8’, 4' and 2' flutes makes a Cornet Composé available. The division possesses an octave at 4' pitch and high-pitched mixture commonly associated in the baroque/ classical repertory.
The PEDAL ORGAN is concise; it allows extension in two ranks. There is no Pedal Mixture, as while total independence of the Pedal division in earlier music, it was considered other provisions in the boundaries of this tonal scheme more important. The Pedal organ includes a 16ft Open Wood. The 16ft Subbass delivers sufficient tonal weight that can be obtained, in buildings such as Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver. The "romantic" capabilities of this organ are obvious, with the provision of stops with larger and lower-pitched pipes and the inclusion of the softer swell strings.
In 2014, the organ was upgraded with the introduction of a new 16ft Trombone stop plus a new digital 32’ to the pedal division in order to increase the tonal spectrum of the instrument and to fill the Cathedral with glorious new sounds. The new trombone 16ft pipes are made from 70% tin and lead alloy and is designed by the firm’s new owner and tonal director Derek Byrne. The final voicing of the new stops was carried out on site by Derek and Warren Marsh - long standing associates who have worked on a number of significant projects with their firm. The organ was also fitted with a new organ humidifier.
Thanks to a very generous donation by a past choir member, Francine Panet-Raymond, a brand new digital memory system was installed in 2023 by Steve Miller. He is the prime maintainer of pipe organs in western Canada, including of course the organ of Christ Church Cathedral. In addition to his 30+ years as a representative for Casavant Frères, he spent about 10 years designing hardware and writing software for Solid State Organ Systems, a manufacturer of control systems. He presently continues to advance those designs as Hoffler Systems, which is the system that he installed in our organ this year. This digital “capture” or memory system assists in saving stop combinations, and offers the ability for an organist to switch very quietly and efficiently from combination to combination. Replacing an old technology that used a floppy disc for memory, this new system has 250 levels of memory. Organists can now save registrations under there own name, without worrying that other players might undo some precious combinations, set for the coming Sunday service or an upcoming concert.