John-Paul Buzard
Opus 3, 1986

An original installation. Identified by Dennis Northway, based on personal knowledge of the organ.

-- Room 105-107 Smith Music Hall, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, Illinois. Completed 1986 12 stops across two manuals and pedal, mechanical action. This studio organ of 12 stops was built in 1985, completed in 1986, and dedicated in concert by Jerald Hamilton, the Chairman of the Organ Division. The instrument and its documentation was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Master Organbuilder certification by the American Institute of Organbuilders. A story of the instrument-s design and construction was featured in an article in the Los Angeles Times, in addition to the local Champaign-Urbana News Gazette.

At the time, this was the first new organ to have been built for the University of Illinois since 1965, when a large electro-pneumatic organ was commissioned for the Recital Hall. The key actions are balanced mechanical back-fall actions.
This organ utilizes pipes from the former U of I Auditorium Organ (originally Casavant Brothers, 1918) and new pipes from F. J. Rogers, Ltd. of Leeds, England. The entire organ except the pipes, keyboards and pedalboard, was constructed by Mr. Buzard in a workshop in the Smith Music Hall-s basement with help from student assistant (and later the Buzard Company-s first employee) David Carhart.

Status Note: There 1987

Voicing and finishing with assistance of Steven Schneider and Linda S. Buzard. Case by David A. Carhart. Dedicated 27 Apr. 1986.