Ceremony celebrates expanded Abbey organ

Like every evening, the bells of the Abbey Church rang at 7 p.m. for prayer on Sept. 19; however, that Saturday the Abbey was uncharacteristically active.

Monks zoomed on scooters past the schools’ choir members who weaved through the crowds of students, staff and visitors that talked noisily in the pews and walkways of the church.

All quickly fell silent at the entrance of the monks of St. John’s Abbey who chanted in Latin as they began the blessing of the St. John’s Organ.

“It was supposed to be blessed in 2020,“ said Fr. Robert Koopman, music director and former faculty member of the music department. “But we could not have crowds in churches…so we delayed it an entire year.“

Last Saturday and Sunday the monks of St. John’s Abbey celebrated the completion of an addition to the organ of the Abbey Church with the blessing of that instrument in an evening mass.

Originally built in 1961 for the Abbey Church by Martin Holtkamp, the Holtkamp Organ in the Abbey Church was meant to be a much larger instrument.

However, due to budget concerns, the monks requested a smaller organ. This did not deter Koopmann, who had looked for someone to build onto the existing organ since the late 1980s.

The monastery, busy with other projects, did not make the addition a priority. That was, until Koopman heard about Martin Pasi, one of the most famous organ builders in the United States.

“On [Pasi’s] way back from a project he had just finished in Michigan, he was driving his truck with some of his equipment, and he came into the Abbey Church. He just could not get over this. This building in this trapezoidal shape… He came up to me, and he said that he thought he wanted to build it,” Koopman said.

With Pasi onboard, fundraising could begin and was kicked off by a visiting alumnae who donated a check on the spot.

From there, it was only a matter of years until Koopman had raised the $1.3 million required to build onto the organ. The monastery began working with Pasi’s workshop to finish the project.

“Everything was made from scratch, so you melt the tin and you have shaped the pipes,” Koopman said, “I went out to his business. It is not a factory but a workshop near Seattle, and he made a pipe for me. He fashions it until it gets exactly the sound…His pipes have a fuller sound, but it is still the same sweetness that was there before.”

The organ blessing was delayed until September, almost a year since the project finished, in the hopes of allowing the pipe’s donors and students to attend.

After the entrance of the monks, Abbot John Klassen conducted the blessing, and was promptly followed by an extended introduction of a hymn played on the organ, soon joined by the choirs of St. Ben’s and St. John’s.

“It was pretty cool,” said Marin Corrigan, a first-year member of the choir. “A church is probably one of the best places you can sing, and especially the Abbey Church because it is so big and the acoustics make sound just travel through it.”

The service itself was split into two parts: a blessing of the organ which involved a series of blessings on certain parts of the organ by Abbot Klassen, followed by responses from the audiences and a short piece played by the organ.

Anthony Ruff, chairman of the committee involved with the event and designer of the blessing, said it was the same prayer of blessing as in 1961, with slight updates to the language.

Otherwise, it was a somewhat contemporary service that drew on music composed by monks and music from a variety of areas.

After the evening prayer ended, Koopman began a small concert of two pieces commissioned by the monastery for the blessing. Each piece was followed by a standing ovation from the crowd.

The monastery is not done with its involvement in the business of organ building yet, though.

“Pasi approached us and said he wanted to move his business and give it all to St John’s. So we are doing it. We are taking over… We are in the process of fundraising right now,” Koopman said.

Once the funds are procured, they will be used to build onto the woodshop, where Pasi will begin training organ builders.

The workshop will be one of the few of its kind, as a similar workshop at the University of Oklahoma shut down recently and with many organ builders retiring due to old age.

It is something students studying organ on the campus have begun to look forward to.

“I think this is a wonderful idea,” first-year Owen Lenzmeier said. “They are going to have student workers, and that is going to teach people how to build pipe organs… Martin Pasi wants to establish a place where he can have apprentices, working for him learning the art of building pipe organs.”

As for the organ, it is already receiving use during the Sunday student mass. Plans are also in the works for a Halloween concert and a jazz concert in the near future.

The monks hope that they can share the heritage of the instrument with students.

“There are organs from the time of Bach, who died in 1750,” Koopman said, “[There are] enormous instruments in Northern Germany and the Netherlands. Of course, they are still kept up…Our console might not last, and the leather will have to be replaced; but it could last 100 years, 200, even 300 years.”