Newspaper Page Text
Made in
America
Perfecting
Pipe Organs
Stephen Leslie, 55, drills a small
hole in the end of a slender metal pipe at Schantz
Organ Co. in Orrville, Ohio (pop. 8,485). After
beveling the hole with a hand-held tool, he hits
Tuning the pitch
on an organ pipe
Before his workday is done. Leslie will fine-tune
the pitch and tone of more than 100 organ pipes,
which when played together will bellow and ring
in unison, filling a church with a cascade of beau
tiful music.
During the last 134 years, Schantz craftsmen
have mastered the building and restoration of pipe
organs. Today, Schantz organs grace some 3,000
churches and concert halls across the nation,
including the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in
Baltimore and Severance Hall in Cleveland.
Schantz Organ Co. got its start in 1873, when
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Workers at the Schantz factory pose for a photo in IB7S.
by VIVIAN
WAGNER
a note on the musical instru
ment's keyboard, sending air
through the 2-foot pipe.
Using his refined sense
of hearing, Leslie, who has
worked at Schantz for 30 years,
listens carefully to the sound
resonating through the pipe.
“Now I have the pitch, but I
want to get rid of the scratch
ing sound,” he says, making a
slight adjustment to the hole
in the pipe.
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A.J. Tschantz, the son of Swiss-Mennonite dairy
farmers, began building pipe organs in nearby
Kidron, Ohio. Tschantz, who eventually changed
his name to Schantz, had a creative mind, invent
ing farm tools and a pneumatic oil pump before
ultimately using his mechanical and engineering
skills to build organs.
Schantz passed the organ business
on to his sons, and today, several of his
third- and fourth-generation descendants
own and manage the company. “Craft
skills and family are important,” says
Victor Schantz, 54, company president
and the founder’s great-grandson. “Peo
ple here have a sense of honesty and a
strong work ethic.”
Schantz’s 90 employees devote up to
nine months to design, build and install
a single organ, which produces music
by sending compressed air through sets of metal
pipes of various lengths.
The process begins with a customized architec
tural design to suit the space and wishes of the
customer. Working from blueprints, craftsmen
and apprentices build every component of the
elaborate, often massive, musical instruments.
Pipes, electric blowers, wooden cabinets and con
soles are constructed by hand and with simple
machines, using methods passed down through
the generations.
Alter constructing and testing the components.
workers carefully label and pack them
into a truck, which transports the organ
to its permanent destination. Once on
site, the organ is unloaded piece by
piece, often aided by parishioners happy
to participate in the process. A team
of Schantz employees assembles and
installs the organ over a period of one to
four weeks, before checking and adjust
ing the tone of each pipe, readying the
instrument for its premiere.
"Those of us who have been here
a while have a feeling of pride in the
Victor Schantz,
company president
process," says Neil Jackson, 52, a supervisor in
the company’s pipe-making department. "You
want to make sure this work continues, that it
isn’t lost."
The pipes—from 1,200 to 3,000 for each
instrument—form the heart of a Schantz organ
Page 14
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buNt in Orrville, Ohio,
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pedals.
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