Asia

Urawa Akenohoshi Girls’ Junior and Senior High School, was founded by The Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, of Quebec, Canada in 1967 with a mere 10 students. From the start it was dedicated to offering a high standard of education for girls. The school is now overseen by a religious group of…

The building of St George’s Church, George Town, Penang was started in 1816 and completed in 1818 under auspices of the East India Company, their charter having been extended for 20 years in 1813. Initial designs were proposed by Major Thomas Anbury, but built to plans by the then governor of Prince of Wales Island,…

The cathedral of St. Michael is a modest 1950s church in the centre of Japan’s famous port city. We were commissioned to build a new organ of 18 stops to replace the former electronic instrument. The key and pedal action is mechanical with electric drawstop action, and the case is made of European oak. It…

Urakami is a suburb of Nagasaki, being one of a number of villages that have over the years been absorbed into the larger metropolis. On 9 August 1945 at 11.02am, Urakami was laid waste by the second atomic bomb, ironically killing more Christians than had ever been killed in Japan during centuries of persecution. The…

When the United Church of Christ in Japan built a new chapel in a recently developed suburb of Yokohama, they decided that a modest pipe organ would be infinitely preferable to an electronic substitute. Our task was therefore to build an instrument that would be both economical and wholly adequate to lead a congregation of…

Toyonaka Church is a modern building, completed in 1998. It replaces an older building for the same congregation and it was planned from the start that an organ should be built as soon as finances permitted. With diligent saving, this goal was realised very quickly, and now the church has a pipe organ to complement…

The first organ to be exported from Britain to Japan was the 26-stop Abbott and Smith Instrument delivered in 1920. Until quite recently, it remained not only the largest English organ in Japan but almost the only one. In 1990 it was joined by the organ for the chapel of St Andrew’s University which, in…

On 22 December 1998, we received a delegation from the Sapporo Tourist Association which had been charged with finding a pipe organ for their new wedding chapel then under construction. Having cleaned the office and laid out little piles of information and gifts, we welcomed the delegation at about 11.00am and offered them coffee and…

When we were first approached about a new organ for Nigawa Gakuin School, it was clear that this would not be an easy commission. The multi-purpose room into which the organ was to be built had not been designed to accommodate a pipe organ. Whilst there is a gallery at the back of the space,…

It was only a matter of five years before the St Andrew’s instrument lost its claim to be the largest organ to be exported to Japan from Britain for half a century, because in 1995 the 30-stop concert hall organ for the Bungai Seminario Hall in Azuchi was completed. This instrument, influenced by the French…