St. Olave’s has housed and been served by three organs in the church’s history at 360 Windermere Avenue.
Throughout the construction of the main church building, liturgy in the church basement was supported by a reed organ, a common solution in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for churches without the money or space for a full pipe organ.
Four years after the present church building was completed, an organ of unknown composition, built circa 1900 by Charles Sumner Warren (of the legendary Warren organbuilding family), was acquired by the church. It was converted to electric key and stop action (probably by the C. Franklin Legge Organ Company), provided with a new detached console, and placed in chambers on the south side of the chancel. This instrument served the church for 22 years, although little detailed information about it survives today.
By the early 1960s, the electric action was proving to be unreliable and the Warren tonal concept was viewed as “outdated” against the background of the Canadian Organ Reform of the era. Rather than rework the existing instrument, the parish decided to build a new instrument with the “desirable qualities of tonal brightness and cohesiveness in the modern trend of organ building.” Among the finalists were Casavant Frères under the direction of Lawrence Phelps, whose new work (Our Lady of Sorrows, Deer Park United Church, All Saints’ Kingsway) and modifications to existing organs (Cathedral of St. James, Yorkminster Park Baptist Church) were proving to be a radical departure from the last five decades, and the Keates Organ Company, who had won attention for their 1952 addition of a “modern-style”, unenclosed Positive division to the Warren organ at Grace Anglican Church in Brantford, Ont. Keates eventually won the contract to build a new organ of 34 ranks across three divisions, and the instrument was dedicated on December 22, 1963 by the Reverend Dr. Verschoyle Wigmore, third Rector of St. Olave’s.
In 1972, the Choir Organ Rohrschalmei 4’ was extended to 8’ with 12 new pipes, as a gift by the choir to the late organist Stuart Roseveare. In 2013 the original blower was replaced with two Laukhuff blowers contained within the organ loft, and in 2020 the original 1963 combination action was replaced with a modern solid-state system. Stylistically, the instrument is not quite as “modern” as one might expect from 1963, with only a few ranks (Quintadena 16’, Gedeckt 8’, Cymbal III) voiced and scaled as uncompromisingly as Casavant’s work from the era; the chorus work is rather broad and flutey, and the pipework of the Swell and Choir Organs is very gentle in its effect. These factors combine to make the instrument much milder than many from the early 1960s. Read the entry in the Pipe Organ Database.
In 2024, the instrument was found to require significant reconfiguration to suit the musical needs of St. Olave’s, to meet safety codes, and to align with the church’s vision as a community asset. An organ committee was assembled under the leadership of Jeremy Tingle (Director of Music, and specialist in nineteenth-century Canadian instruments) to evaluate which options would best suit the church’s present and future needs.
If you are interested in the work and progress of the committee, email Jeremy at music@stolaves.ca.