th<\/sup> century literature exceedingly well, it is not as successful for the vast majority of our repertoire. For the students, it has been my goal all along to put a larger organ in that space,\u201d Dr. Mitchener said. \u201cI wanted to have an organ that first and foremost was eclectic so that students could play just about anything on it. The space is limited, but it\u2019s about as big as we could make it.\u201d<\/p>\nThe organ project was realized through major support from Carolyn Townsend McAfee Bruner, of Macon, a longtime organist and supporter of Mercer and its Townsend School of Music. Dr. Henry Sauls of Bradenton, Florida, and other donors interested in organ education and performance also contributed to the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a passion for music education,\u201d Bruner said. \u201cI enjoy encouraging young musicians, and I think having the quality organs that we have will be just more enticing for people to come and study at Mercer. Jack Mitchener is an outstanding teacher and person, and I\u2019m anxious to do all that we can to make him happy and have the kind of instruments that he would like to have for his students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Desautels and Dr. Mitchener collaborated on the organ design for about six months, and then Desautels spent two years building the instrument in his workshop behind his home near Montr\u00e9al, Canada. Desautels said he has been building organs for 30 years and specializes in tracker organs, which have a mechanical link between the keyboards and pipes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like building things from the beginning with raw materials from start to finish and having a musical instrument at the end,\u201d Desautels said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bruner had the chance to visit with Desautels and see the unfinished instrument while she and husband Jim were in Montr\u00e9al in October. Then in May, Dr. Mitchener played the finished instrument in Desautels\u2019 workshop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a once in a lifetime thrill to get to be in a workshop,\u201d Bruner said. \u201cFran\u00e7ois is such a talented but humble person. Seeing how one man did all of these delicate, intricate details of the inside workings of the organ was just beyond expression to me. I had been an organist for a long time but never had seen one being built.\u201d<\/p>\n
The organ has two manuals and a pedalboard, making it distinctly different from the other Fickling organ. It has 27 stops, which activate specific pipes, with names written on them in French, making it an \u201ceclectic organ with a bit of a French accent,\u201d Dr. Mitchener said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis (organ) is more pure the way it\u2019s built, the way it plays, the kind of organ you would expect in a church building in the 1700s,\u201d Desautels said. \u201cThis is unique on the campus. Students can come and play on it, and if they go elsewhere, they know what to expect and know how it can sound.\u201d<\/p>\n\nThe organ contains nearly 1.700 wood and metal pipes. Photo by Leah Yetter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nDr. Jack Mitchener plays the new organ in Fickling Hall during a faculty gala concert in August. Photo by Leah Yetter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\nOnce Desautels completed the organ in Canada, he disassembled the instrument and packed up the pieces in a tractor-trailer to transport them to Macon. Desautels and his son, Vincent, arrived with the truck on June 30. Over the course of about 10 days, they unpacked and installed the organ with the assistance of Dr. Mitchener and his son, Sanders; Mercer junior Eduardo Brand; David Kenney, father of a Mercer student; and a team of Physical Plant employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve really been needing an instrument like this,\u201d Brand said. \u201cIt gives us more variety in the kinds of instruments we have around campus, and the quality of the action, the feel of playing it is really very different from any other organ we have on campus. As we use it more and play with different ensembles and vocalists, it gives us so many opportunities to use the instrument in more ways than we did before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The small organ already in Fickling was relocated within the hall, and the new one was put in its place in the balcony. Because of the tight spacing of the balcony and its narrow access stairs, they had to use a hydraulic lift to get many of the parts into position, Dr. Mitchener said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the installation, about 20 days were spent making sound adjustments, called \u201cvoicing the organ.\u201d An organ\u2019s sound often changes as it adjusts to humidity and air quality levels in a space, so Desautels will return in October to make any final tuning tweaks that are needed.<\/p>\n
\n
The new organ has 27 stops, which activate specific pipes, with names written on them in French. Photo by Leah Yetter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nBrand, an organ performance major, has been doing organ maintenance since he started playing the organ at his home church in Houston, Texas. He spends his summers working as an apprentice organ builder for Richards, Fowkes and Co. in Tennessee and fixes Mercer\u2019s organs when issues arise. The new Fickling organ was his first time working on the installation of a brand new pipe organ.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an extremely edifying experience, both as a craftsman and a musician,\u201d said Brand, who has continued maintenance of the new Fickling organ since its installation. \u201cAs the organ was taking shape, we would play the instrument and we would talk with Fran\u00e7ois about the process and how we wanted the organ to sound. It\u2019s a process that\u2019s very artistic in itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new organ was first heard by the public at the School of Music\u2019s faculty gala in August, during which Dr. Mitchener performed two pieces. It will make its official debut during an inaugural concert on Nov. 9, which Desautels plans to attend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a beautiful instrument to look at as well as to hear. I think the students will benefit greatly from having this quality of instrument to practice and learn on,\u201d Bruner said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition, plans are underway for a historic Skinner Organ Opus 190<\/a> to be installed in Toney Auditorium of Willingham Hall. Building renovations are tentatively scheduled to start in summer 2026, and the organ is poised to arrive in July 2027, Dr. Mitchener said.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe School of Music also has practice organs by Juget-Sinclair, Noack, and Richards, Fowkes & Co., as well as an organ by Victor Gonzalez that was donated by Michel Snethlage and shipped from Paris in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thrilled that in two years, we will have a very diverse, very interesting and significant collection of organs,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is invaluable to our students as they prepare for careers in sacred music and organ performance. It\u2019s very important for them to be exposed to different styles of instruments.\u201d<\/p>\nThe organ was handcrafted by artisan organ builder Fran\u00e7ois Desautels, who made the case out of sold cherry wood. Photo by Leah Yetter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source den.mercer.edu \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new organ was installed in the balcony of Fickling Hall this summer. Photo by Leah Yetter A custom-built organ recently installed in Neva Langley Fickling Hall is bringing new sounds and opportunities to Mercer University\u2019s Townsend School of Music. The instrument features a solid cherry case and 1,693 wood and metal pipes, all situated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2061814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2061813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Handcrafted-organ-brings-\u2018new-dimension-to-Mercer-music-programs.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2061813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2061815,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061813\/revisions\/2061815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2061814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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