Installation Spotlight: Glenkirk Presbyterian Rodgers Pipe Organ

Glenkirk Presbyterian Church, Glendora, California, is home to a large 70-rank Rodgers pipe organ, installed by the Rodgers team and our representative Robert Tall and Associates. Renowned organist Dr. Frederick Swann served as consultant on the project and played the Organ Dedication Concert on Sunday, April 2, 1989. This organ was featured on the cover of The American Organist for their August, 1991, issue.

In 2009, a new 4-manual custom Rodgers Trillium Masterpiece console was installed to play the 70 pipe ranks with the addition of 150 high-resolution sampled digital pipe stops to augment the specification. The new additions expand the tonal resources to include a rear gallery Antiphonal Division and State Trumpet, plus a very quiet set of celestial sounds in the opposite side of the rear gallery called the Ethereal Division.  The crowning jewel still remains the flared-bell brass Trompette en Chamade, which are pipes installed in the horizontal position.

Rodgers’ Engineering team has sampled their very own Rodgers pipes from the Glenkirk organ, using eight state-of-the-art stereo microphones to capture the actual sound of each pipe, the sound reflections in the pipe chambers, and their sound in the sanctuary. This high-resolution long-looped sampling project required terabytes of digital memory! These sampled pipe stops, in addition to pipe samples of notable organs in the USA and around the world, reside in the current organs built by Rodgers.

The Rodgers Pipe Organ at Glenkirk Presbyterian Church is featured on the PipeDreams radio program! Concert organist John West plays three of his compositions: Now Thank We All Our God, Variations on ‘Amazing Grace’, and Fanfare on ‘Sine Nomine’. The PipeDreams program's playlist includes links for information about the Rodgers Pipe Organ, John West's website, the sheet music, and the CD. We are grateful to PipeDreams, host Michael Barone, and American Public Media for featuring the Rodgers organ. Listen to the program by clicking this link: RODGERS INSTRUMENTS FEATURED ON PIPEDREAMS