Ascension Evangelical Lutheran Church

Ascension Lutheran Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona is restoring its 4-manual Möller organ which was built in 1964. The work will be done in two phases.

Ascension Lutheran Church serves the greater Phoenix area as a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Members and visitors from around the world have come to recognize Ascension as a leader in traditional worship, using a liturgy-based format with pipe organ, musical soloists, and choir to lead worship.

Being an architecturally significant Frank Lloyd Wright/Taliesin-designed church affords us many opportunities to interact with our surrounding communities as well as providing a stunning backdrop to a variety of cultural events, including the Phoenix Symphony Baroque Ensemble and Chorus, the American Guild of Organists, the Phoenix Boys Choir, the Ragazzi Boys Choir of San Francisco, and many others.  Having a fully realized and functioning pipe organ will once again attract world class events to serve our community.

Ascension has undertaken this restoration project for our 50-year old organ with the intent to retain as much of it as possible in the interest of good stewardship and respect to the craftsmen who built it. While it has served us well for almost five decades, years of damage in the pipe chambers from ceiling water leaks and deterioration of pneumatic systems have threatened the integrity and reliability of the organ.  

Once the church roof was replaced in 2012 and the danger of further damage from ceiling leaks in the pipe chambers was eliminated, the repair of the organ and pipe chambers was possible.  This restoration project will repair and refurbish the organ and also complete the specification as originally planned to serve the church and greater community for future generations.  

The project was approved by the congregation on September 1, 2013 and is divided into two phases. Each phase will begin once funds have been collected for that phase. We are currently raising $200,000 to fund Phase I and have received a commitment to match up to $100,000.

Phase 1 addresses the issues of the organ console and restoration of the of the Möller windchests, reservoirs and pipework.  The present unreliable pneumatic workings of the console will be replaced with solid state components bringing the organ console to present day acceptable standards. Our existing keyboards of valuable English Ivory will be retained in the new solid state console. It will also add 32’ digital extensions to the pedal division, providing a deep, rich sound; MIDI; playback capability; and 256 levels of piston memory.

Phase 2  enhances the tonal resources of the organ. (Cost considerations prevented the inclusion of these tonal resources when the instrument was originally constructed.) The addition of these new pipes also allows for a visual display of pipework for a striking visual impact, further enhancing the impressive architectural statement our sanctuary makes.

Our goal is to raise the needed $200,000.00 for the first phase by May, 2014 and complete the installation of Phase 1 by October 2014. At this time the estimated cost of Phase 2 is $600,000. If enough funds are raised to complete both phases there would be a large savings in costs due to having to rewire the console to the new windchests if split into two phases.

Our investment in Phase 1 and Phase 2 of our pipe organ project will bring our formerly magnificent Möller pipe organ back to a mechanically reliable instrument for future generations, and provide a musically thrilling experience for which we can all be justifiably proud.

More details on the project may be found on our Organ Restoration page on Facebook as well as our website. https://www.facebook.com/AscensionOrganRestoration?skip_nax_wizard=true

http://www.ascensionparadisevalley.org/Organ%20restoration.htm 

We appreciate your consideration of help in this important project for Ascension as well as the greater community and national interest in the preservation of fine quality instruments such as ours.